U r right, davemc. Racism is still kinda "taboo" in Hollywood. If only because studios executives are afraid that any movie that dares to portray it, might do poorly at the Box office.
The character of Sgt. Waters is very complex. He is at the same time victim and guilt of racism. It's obvious that since his childhood he has always been looked down just for the mere fact of being "black" in a racist country. That's why he learnt to talk like "the white people". Besides he had to be not only good but quite often "better" than white soldiers in order to gain their respect, at least a bit of it. Worse than that he was cruel with his own people in order to get the confidence of his superiors, but that attitude only made him hated by his own people.
At the same time is obvious that he despised himself for not having the guts to say on the face of his superiors what he really thought about them.
However he has a couple of positive aspects: he wants the black people to get educated and brave, but sadly he sees no better way to achieve that than humiliating, and even eliminating those blacks who in his opinion are embarrassing for the whole black community cuz their ignorance. No matters if the main reason for that, is the lack of opportunities to study and progress. Opportunities that most of them never had.
To fill the picture, there you have the worst of them all: racist rednecks (some are even members of the KKK) who back then (and still nowadays) thinks black, brown, yellow people are inferior by nature.
It's quite interesting to watch this movie currently when the president of the USA is a black man. I bet Sgt. Waters would admire and hate him almost with the same intensity. He wouldn't hate him as much as the members of the Klan, though.
Just for the record: I am not white nor black. I am mestizo (european/native-american mix) and english is not even even my third language. So don't be too harsh about my grammar mistakes.
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