Theme Of Racism In American History X

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In American History X, directed by Tony Kaye, a grade school student Danny Vinyard writes a paper about his older brother Derek Vinyard depicting his struggles as a past neo-nazi leader. Derek and Danny’s father, whom has racist tendencies, was murdered by a few black males while trying to put out a fire. The death of his father fuels Derek’s rage for racism, and he soon creates a gang called the Disciples of Christ. After dinner one night, Danny hears noise coming from their drive way. Outside their house, two black males are trying to steal their father’s truck. Derek walks out of his house with a gun and shoots one of the males. He then grabs the other male, drags him to the side of the road, and curb stomps to death. Derek is arrested, and sentenced to three years in prison for voluntary manslaughter.
While in jail, Derek soon joins the Aryan Brotherhood, a …show more content…

Racism is the belief that a race is less of a human than another race. This means that a person may believe someone lacks human traits due to them having a different skin color, speak a different language, have different customs, or anything that may discriminate them as different. In chapter seven of The Moral of the Story: An Introduction to Ethics, the author explains that the concept of what is a human being is hard to define. The author elaborates on the definition of “human” by saying it all depends on perspective. She writes that there used to be a time in human existence when people distinguished between friends and enemies. If someone were their friends, they would use the term “human”, but if they were your enemy, they would be considered a beast, or less human. This beast, or less than human concept is what Derek, and many people associate with another race. Derek viewed people of other ethnicities as scum, and as a result, only viewed the white race as being

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