White Man's Burden (film)
Encyclopedia
White Man's Burden is a 1995 drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

tic film about racism in an alternative America where black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

 and white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

 Americans
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 have reversed cultural roles.

The film revolves around Louis Pinnock, a white factory worker (John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...

), who kidnaps Thaddeus Thomas, a black factory owner (Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...

) who fired him over a perceived slight.

The film was written and directed by Desmond Nakano
Desmond Nakano
 This article about a United States film director is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by [/w/index.php?stub&title=&action=edit expanding it]....

.

Tagline: Two men at odds in a world turned upside down.

Plot

Louis Pinnock (John Travolta) is a struggling urban factory worker. In this alternative reality, it is a large underclass of white Americans who live in rundown, crime-infested ghettos and face prejudice from the broader society, while the comfortable middle and upper class is predominantly black.

In an effort to go above and beyond in his position (hoping to become a foreman soon), in the candy factory in which he works, Pinnock delivers a package for his boss, to successful (CEO) Thaddeus Thomas (Harry Belafonte). After Pinnock accidentally sees Thomas's wife coming out of the shower, he is subsequently fired, beaten up by the police and forced to watch his family evicted. In a radical quest for justice, Pinnock kidnaps Thomas, which forces the two men to bond, as well as argue over race relations and the roots of social inequality.
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