Film Focus on Race Issues and Stereotypes

Harold says he is constantly faced with the stereotype of the "intelligent and nerdy East Asian guy," but fears being called a Twinkie—"yellow on the outside, white on the inside"— by his Korean friends.

Kumar, despite having incredible MCAT scores, refuses to attend medical school as his family wishes, explaining that "just because you're hung like a moose doesn't mean you have to do porn." Also, he's "afraid of being one of those nerdy Indian guys turned doctor."

Rosenberg and Goldstein are Harold and Kumar's Jewish friends/counterparts. Rosenberg wears a yarmulke, they smoke pot from a shofar and speak with Yiddish accents.

Racism at the hands of local police is also explored in the movie. When Harold begins jaywalking across the street to use a pay phone, a white police officer named Palumbo tickets him, is unwilling to even listen to the suggestion that Neil Patrick Harris has stolen his car. After a minor argument which ends with Harold accidentally punching the officer, he is taken to the local police station.

Harold finds that his cellmate Tarik, a Rutgers professor, has been charged with theft, just for accurately fitting the de????ion of an African American robbery suspect from Newark. When Kumar makes a false report of gunfire coming from a black man to bust Harold out, the police capture another African American man who was at home—away from the crime scene. At the end of the movie, Tarik and the other African American man, Nathaniel, file a lawsuit alleging discrimination against the local police. Led by Palumbo, the police angrily protest the lawsuit, referring to Tarik and Nathaniel as Darkies. When they describe Harold and Kumar to a sketch artist, the sketch yields a stereotypical and racist drawing of people from China and India.