How The Green Book offers a new perspective on racial injustice

American history has a past that’s filled with racism and injustice of every passing decade or political election. Although not many people see history as a valuable part of their everyday lives, Hollywood, for some reason smells a blockbuster everytime a historian digs up some dirt on American history.

Every once in a while it’s really nice to watch movies based on a true story. Some of the most fantastic and unrealistic things happen in life and people seem not to believe it until ‘Based on a True Story’ comes on before the title sequence. The latest true story movie to hit the theaters is The Green Book which came out November 21.

The Green Book takes place in the year 1962 where a famous African-American pianist Don Shirley and his trio tour to the Deep South. Seeing that Don Shirley is a black man and this is 1962 segregated South it's easy to see where a problem could start to form. So, Don Shirley enlist help in Italian-American Tony Lip from the Bronx to be his bodyguard and driver. Tony uses The Green Book which is a travel guide used by blacks who want safe travel down South. The two have their differences such as Shirley's properness and Tony's bluntness, but the two of them manage to form a strong friendship while being exposed to the blatant racism of the South.

Every movie that tackles the era of segregation brings on a new point of view of the story that was never told before. For the longest time, African-Americans are described as under-educated, lesser individuals that couldn't possibly have the same talents of any white person. However, Don Shirley's story tells a different tale. He was a highly educated, world-renowned pianist who was denied the respect that he deserved. A classic story of the time period, but not in the same way as the Green Book. He grew up in both worlds but is unable to live in either of them.

I always believe that learning from the wrongs in the past so we have the opportunity to right them in the future. And even though sitting down in a movie theater isn't the most conventional way of learning American History, just being able to learn that piece of history and carry it on is the most important part of being able to watch true stories to know that this is where we came from.