Sometimes I go to the movies expecting to be entertained. A few weeks ago, I saw a film that was anything but funny.

Labeled by the critics as a cinematic lynching of the truth, a movie that fictionalizes a factual plot, Mississippi Burning left me with a myriad of emotions, ranging from fear to outright rage.

Picture: 1964, a back road in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Local police stop a car containing 3 civil rights workers. As the deputy hassles them for driving too fast, one of the townspeople ventures over to the driver's side of the car.

"Hell, you're even starting to smell like a nigger-lover," he sneers.

Another resident cuts him off, "Don't do that, man. He seen your face!"

The first man laughs mockingly, "Doesn't make no difference now." He shoots the driver in the head. The other two also are murdered.

Present: 1989, Miami, Florida, right before the Super Bowl. A black man on a motorcycle rides along the city streets. Police spot him and a chase ensues. The cops shoot him dead. They claim that he was coming straight at them with his motorcycle. Residents wonder how this can be possible since the man was shot in the back.

Picture: 1964, Neshoba County, Mississippi. As the FBI launches an investigation into the murders, members of the media interview local townspeople. They say,"Negroes are treated fairly -- as fair as they should be." One woman explains, "Negroes aren't like white folks. They're dirty."

Visuals reinforce their segregationist attitudes. Black fountains and white fountains. Separate sections for blacks and whites in restaurants. The Ku Klux Klan bombs houses in a residential area for blacks and the judge dismisses all charges, stating that the incident resulted from FBI interference.

Finally, Clayton Townley, a prominent businessman and leader of the local Klan chapter, explains, "We are here to protect Anglo-Saxon democracy and the American way."

Present: 1987-88 reports from colleges across the country:

-- University Park, Pa. -- I have a conversation with Terrell Jones, associate director of the Division of Campus Life. He tells me about an incident in Fall 1987 involving a campus sorority with three black pledges. The women attend all the required meetings. They follow the imposed rules. When it's time to pick the new members, the officers turn down the pledges.

I think about the University statement: Racism has no place at Penn State. We seek not only a diverse University community but a caring one as well.

-- University of Mississippi -- Arsonists torch the first black fraternity house in August before the members even move in.

-- Dartmouth College -- Two editors of the Dartmouth Review, a student newspaper which has railed against affirmative action, are reinstated, despite charges that they harassed a black professor. A court case still is pending.

-- Temple University -- One hundred and thirty students form a White Student Union whose aims are to abolish affirmative action and establish white pride. They maintain they are not racist.

Picture: 1964, Neshoba County, Mississippi. After considerable questioning, the deputy's wife confesses that her husband drove one of the cars that stopped the civil rights workers.

She says, "You know, if you're told it enough times, you believe it. The hatred consumes you. You live it. You breathe it. You marry it. Racism is not something you're born with --you're taught it."

Present: 1988, the Lacrosse campus of the University of Wisconsin. A national student leadership conference. Every day we attend workshops on issues such as racism and open communication. One night, I get together with a guy, Tim, from one of my classes.

He asks me where I go to school. I tell him the name and jokingly refer to it as JoePa country. He laughs and responds, "Oh yeah, well I'm from Nigger country."

I think he's joking. But, then he becomes serious and the laughter sticks in my throat. He says, "I wish we had more segregation at my school. My Dad taught all of us about letting a black man have a white man's privileges. They take advantage of it. Hell, now they want to run the country."

Some of the black delegates walk by. Did they hear us talking? I should say something, argue that he's wrong. But, I don't. God, I regret that.

After the movie: We plan to go to the Diner for something to eat. I rush off to a computer terminal instead.

As I write, I think about the critics' arguments that the film overrates the FBI in its search for the missing civil rights workers and downplays the role of blacks who struggled to gain freedom. Few people know that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover actually despised blacks, as did many of his men.

Another fact: Only after the murders gained national attention did the FBI enter Mississippi and begin to investigate the Klan's actions.

I remember a statement made by Ben Chaney, James Chaney's (one of the three civil rights workers) younger brother, in Time magazine. He says, "It's a dangerous movie because it could lead to complacency. Things haven't changed that much."

He's right. The passing of time has not extinguished the flames of racism. Only we can do that -- beginning with our actions the next time someone makes a racist joke, displays a prejudiced attitude, shows some form of discrimination.

Silent complacency serves only to fuel the fire.