>in BOTH MOVIES, black men are depicted
>as powerless and emasculated and
>unable to do shit for their women or
>protect them from fucked up, racist
>white men.

i didn't see monster ball, however, in crash, i saw this scene more as an attempt to depict white men's need to emasculate black men, particularly in front of their women, because of their inferiority complex. which makes the scene, at least in part, an admission of such. also, dillon was in a position of power/authority and howard feared the repercussions, hence the exchange. were dillon not a cop, that exchange would never have taken place.

>which is wack enough.
>
>but on top of that, both movies also
>say that the very white dudes that
>fucked these black men over and degrade
>these black women can be redeemed
>by black women, once the black dude
>has been neutralized.

once again, i saw this more as an attempt to show that dillon's aggression/actions were based more on jealousy/inferior feelings than what you allude to. in the presence of howard, dillon acted a certain way. alternatively, when he was alone with newton, he was a different person. of course, when dillon was running up to the car, he had no idea who was in it. so part of that scene, imo, was simply meant to depict dillon as someone who, despite his obvious flaws, was at least in some ways a decent human being/cop who had unfortunately let some life/job experiences cause him to become jaded.