Diversity - Higher Learning

Higher Learning takes part at Columbus University. At this University, there are students from all different countries, social backgrounds, and races. Throughout the movie, students deal with several problems such as harassment, personal safety, financial difficulties, self doubt, racism, and sexuality. While under all of this pressure, students experience prejudice, misunderstanding, and a feeling for the need to fit in. There are three main characters of this movie. Malik Williams is a black student athlete who is on partial scholarship. Kristen Connor is a white girl from Orange County who struggles with sexuality. Remy is a white student from Idaho who is incapable to make friends and gravitates towards a group of neo-Nazis.

In this movie there are many different symbols; these symbols can be characterized by actions, colors, sayings, and music. The actions of the students of Columbus University make the plot what it is. One of the first scenes in the movie is where Kristen and Malik are both in the elevator together; Kristen sees that Malik is black and pulls her purse closer to her. This is showing that Kristen is insecure and stereotyping black people as a whole.

There are a lot of sayings used that can distinguish the difference between blacks and white in this movie. The people Malik was hanging out with kept referring to their friends as “brothers.” This is symbolic because calling each other “brothers” and “sisters” came out of slavery. A few times Deja said, “boy, you’re tripping” or “he’s tripping.” While Fudge was giving someone a round up of who’s on campus; he called the white people “Disney Land” because Orange County is right there. He called the Asian population “Chinatown”; the Latino population was called “South of the Border”. Fudge also called the group he was hanging out with “Black Hole.” This saying these things were only prevalent in the black community on campus.

Higher Learning is a call to action. It's a film...