I went to see Crash over the weekend. Highly recommended. Everyone was comparing it to Magnolia, which I really didn't like, but I thought I would give this one a chance. I'm so glad I did. Every racial cow was slaughtered, from the "blake lights" (brake lights) of Chinese "engrish" speech, to Latinos parking their cars on their lawns, to blacks hating whitey and being pissed off that they're always looked at as criminals (this from two car jackers). These are all stereotypes we've seen before, and perhaps we've become immune to them. It was nothing to me, or the black man sitting next to me, to laugh out loud at the absurdities between our races. I laughed at the black theives; he laughed at country music.

But there is now a common enemy. The Iranian shopkeeper who speaks no english. He becomes frustrated and violent because he does not communicate well enough to live in America. He buys a gun. He aims. There's a little girl. The shot is fired. The entire movie theatre screams out in horror and rage. And you see him standing there, gun in hand, in front of an American flag. Black, white, grey, yellow, Christian, Jew - there were tears from all of us, and rage. Pure rage.

Perhaps we can laugh together at our foibles because we now stand together. United against the one who seeks to kill us all.