RACISM AGAINST AMERICAN BLACKS AS PORTRAYED IN "12 YEARS A SLAVE"

Among hundreds of social phenomena and problems, racism is the most common issue discussed not only by sociologists and anthropologists, but also by biologists to the artists. It means racism appears as the outstanding social- topic discussed not only in social study but also in literature. The differences between black as the minorities and white as superiorities always appear as the dominant topic in racism. The research is to investigate more detail about the study especially one aspect of racism entitled Racism against American Black as Portrayed in '12 Years a Slave'. The study has two major problems investigated: 1) what are the forms of racial attitude against American blacks as revealed in '12 Years a Slave'? And 2) what are the efforts of American black to reduce racism and gain equality? This study is literary criticism in which the writer uses genetic structuralism of literary criticism. Because the movie describes the social phenomenon that is a reflection from the real society and civilizations The object of this study is the utterances from dialog and behavior between the characters of Years a movie. The results of research show that there are three forms of racism as portrayed in 12 Years a Slave movie, those are: 1) Racial prejudice which is manifested in the form of state of mind of the whites toward the blacks, such as inferior, powerless, uncivilized, unskilled, and exile race. 2) Racial discrimination appears in the movie in the form of inequality between whites and blacks in a certain public institution is the symbol of an absolute rejection of the institution toward the existence of the discriminated people, in this case is equality before the law and access to education. 3) Racial segregation, the movie shows the different between residence where whites and blacks live. Whites tend to be the master of the slave and live inside luxurious house. Meanwhile, blacks, just simply the opposite, they live in small houses made from wood near the plantation. Furthermore, the efforts of American Black to reduce racism and gain equality in the movie is represented in the end of the movie, when Northup became an abolitionist and aided many runaways in achieving their freedom.