American History X

3 Pages 647 Words

“American History X” is about Danny Vinyard (Edward Furlong) and his older brother Derek (Edward Norton). Danny has to write an essay about what led Derek to jail, after giving an essay on Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”. When Derek comes out of prison he no longer has the racist believes that led him into a three years incarceration, and tries to stop Danny from following the same path he followed, and also repair the damage he caused in his family.

In this film we can see the discourses that some of the characters make about the racism; mostly influenced by their social, economical and religious status.

Derek is the most complex character of all as he realizes that he was in an error when he had all that anti-Semitism ideas. Before going to jail his discourse was that every countries problem “is race related, not just crime, also aids, welfare and immigration. The problems are rooted in the black community, the Hispanic community, the Asian … every non-protestant and non-white group”. Immigrants come to explode the country. He thinks that they are losing their freedom and that the state wastes on immigrants billions of dollars on people that shouldn’t even be there. He also thinks that the immigration problem is out of control because of the incessant coming of Asians, Mexicans, and Africans, and that all this makes the white Americans to be seen as criminals giving all the rewarding, benefits and advantages to the immigrants; and also that the media adapts the information in favour of them, showing only one part of reality as in Robny Kings case, when they only showed how the cops beat him on and on, and not showing that he attacked the cops three times. When Derek comes out of jail, thank to his black friend Lamont, he realizes that he was wrong and his new discourse is about equality and how hate cant blind you taking you to the most animal reactions.

Danny as he says in the film “when people loo...