SENSITIVITY WATCH : Group Thinking

Categorical thinking about people and cultures leads to crude judgments and stereotyping. Take the decision to not show “Poetic Justice” last weekend at Cineplex Odeon’s Universal City Cinemas.

The love story, directed by African-American John Singleton and starring singer Janet Jackson, had a weekend debut at theaters nationwide, including 150 others in the Cineplex Odeon chain in the United States and Canada. But the movie was delayed until today at Universal City Cinemas because of fear of disturbances and a preference for “upscale demographics” at the adjacent CityWalk shops and restaurants.

During Universal City’s 1991 weekend opening of Singleton’s “Boyz N the Hood” there was some violence, despite its anti-gang message. But the assumption that African-Americans represent the wrong demographics or will cause trouble is absurd--and deeply offensive. In fact at the moment “Poetic Justice” seems to be big box office, attracting all sorts of viewers--indeed, as far as anyone can tell, exactly the sort of customers any movie house would want.

In another episode of unwarranted typecasting, Hughes Aircraft circulated an internal memo earlier this year that offended Asian-American workers. The memo warned scientists of Korean and Chinese descent to be careful about the possibility of Asian industrial espionage. Does one’s ethnicity imply a lack of loyalty? Clearly not. The writer didn’t intend to say that, surely; but a second’s additional thought might have inspired a better, non-offensive memo.