“Higher Learning”: A Film on the Importance of Intercultural Communication

I decided to do my Intercultural film on The movie Higher Learning produced by John Singleton. Higher learning is about a group of incoming freshman and how their college lives are impacted by cultural diversity. This film highly relates to intercultural communications because it shows how diverse college is but also distinctive.This movie mainly focus on three characters Malik Williams a black track star, Kristen Connor, a introvert girl thats trying to find herself throughout college ; and Remy, a white man confused and trying to fit in with people in college but seemingly out of place in his new environment, When these different type of culture come into conflict in the movie they seem to not agree on anything and all have different views things can go south and be very menacing and brutal.

The three main characters all have very different views on how they see each other and how they approach Society. First we are going to talk about Malik, the black track star. Malik was highschool sensation running track where he was able to attend Columbia University on a scholarship. When Malik arrives on campus it’s not what he expected, stereotyped by students and his professor on just “being an athlete” not a student. Malik meets a friend named Fudge, an Afrocentric and militant senior who opens up his eyes and gives him knowledge on his ancestors and how white America teaches black people to be modern slaves. One night while Fudge and Malik are sitting down playing board games, Fudge questions Malik on why he is even going to Columbia University.

Malik responds saying “that’s what you need to do to make it in the country”. Fudge then says “what’s making it” Malik answers “you know getting that degree, making long dough”. Fudge then asks “are you in it for the money or the knowledge”. This was the most influential part in the movie I believe. Being a African-American athlete in college my main focus is playing ball and getting a scholarship for four year so I can get my degree to be successful in the future, I really didn’t care about actually learning. I just did everything required to pass all my classes. That’s not just college athletes problems but more like 90% of college students. We attend college to have a successful future not to actually gain knowledge which I feel we need to change our actual mindset and that’s what Malik did.

Remy, an incoming freshman who is a typical loner but tries hard to fit in with the rest. As each of these three main characters try to find their type of crowd on campus they all seem to fall into the more older crowd. Malik Crowd was Fudge crew which were considered the “Super Seniors” but Remy crowd changed his life completely. Remy was introduced to a group of white supremacist skin heads. He knew that the group wasn’t a great fit for him but all he wanted to do is fit in and that’s what they did treated him as a “brother”. He started getting in altercations with Malik group and started targeting non-white people but mainly blacks. Later in the movie he shoots Malik’s girlfriend to prove to his white supremist gang that he’s not scared to kill a black person, this act caused him his future of wanting to be a lawyer and his own life that he took . We all know that when you find yourself hanging with the wrong crowd you can get yourself in deep trouble fast and this what Remy did.

Kristen Connor is a girl from Orange County, California who is attending Columbia University . She is new to the whole college experience and want to try new things so she goes to a frat party and gets drunk. She eventually finds a guy while she is drunk who cant take no for an answer and forces himself upon her. She never tell anyone what happen but it did affect her perspective on her college experience . After the incident she joins a ‘women rights ‘ club where they talk aout their past trauma and experiences of men taking advantage of them. Taryn is the group leader of the women rights club and give Kristen some comfort to open up. Kristen eventually started feeling comfortable around Taryn and later on found out that Taryn is into girls. Kristen the confuse freshman didn’t necessarily know what she wanted, she started catching feelings for Taryn. Its clear that Taryn like Kristen but Taryn is content about letting the friendship develop at its own pace. While Kristen Connor feelings grow stronger for Taryn she meets a freshman student name Wayne. At first she didnt trust or give Wayne a chance due to her rape incident, but she eventually started catching feelings for both and didnt knowwho to choose. She ends up having intimate sexual scenes with both of the leaving her confused about who to choose

As I described the three main characters from all of their perspectives and experience their freshman year from being a black male in college being targeted by society, to trying your hardest to fit in, to confused about your own sexuality. These all have a social impact on our society today. Malik Williams is a prime example of the black community on education as I already mentioned before Malik is only going to Columbia University to run track not for education. 9/10 every athlete that plays a sport in college they are in it to go pro and not necessarily to learn and big universities are fine with that. Football and basketball players main priority playing college ball is their sport comes first. My cousin who plays division 1 (FBS) football for the University of Alabama Birmingham says their main focus is playing football they have the best of the best resources and tutors for they classes and when they are forced to miss class their tutors do their work for them.

As Fudge said in the movie “are you in it for the money or the knowledge” and most of the black athletes are in it for the money.Second we are going to cover Remy (The school shooter) a white freshman who originally wanted to be a doctor but also didn’t want to feel left out of not fitting in with the regular students in college. He would attend parties he wasn’t invited to, try to act cool in a sense by talking trash to people in the frat but none of that actually worked . He was introduced to a neo-nazi gang where they specifically targeted black folks. There’s one scene in the movie where he got into a fight with Malik crew which escalated to him shooting a sniper into a large crowd where he killed Malik’s girlfriend then he killed himself trying to escape from the police. Remy and like many other people that most likely don’t fit in with the popular crowd will do whatever it takes to feel like they fit in but usually it will affect their regular life. Malik and I have several similar characteristics and also culture similarities, like being a black athlete in college from being discriminated by your peers based off your skin color.

The other two characters Remy and Kristen I have major cultural differences from the two. Remy and I are the complete opposite he try to hard to fit in with others, on the other hand I really don’t care who I hang out with ill always be myself. Also Remy didn’t like black people because they’re “taking over” according to his gang and I’m black myself so I know I wouldn’t get along with him. There was a scene early in the movie where Kristen was in the elevator going to class and Malik entered while in the elevator Kristen looked at Malik and clutched her purse tightly assuming Malik would try to snatch it because he’s black. I can relate to this scene because I’ve been in Malik position before people will automatically believe you’re a bad guy because of your skin color and get the wrong perception about you.

If I walk inside a grocery store it’s a 50% chance one of the employees will be following me around just cause I’m black . At the end of the movie the word “unlearned” is typed across the screen. Higher learning is synonymous with the term higher education, meaning education at universities and colleges as is referenced in the dictionary. However, in this film, it refers to the movie’s title, “Higher Learning,” and it means that higher learning is the process of unlearning preconceived ideas and biases. Additionally, racial discrimination-induced violence is related to the abnormally high self-esteem of the perpetrator based on his or her race alone, though otherwise the person has very low self-esteem