Meighan Byron's comments on American History X
American history X is more of a nihilistic film than Boyz N the Hood. There is no resolve. No one got out of the circle of hate. Derek was probably brought back into the hate because of the loss of his brother. Even though Derek had reformed, those neo-Nazi beliefs run deep. Because it was a senseless loss of life (Danny) Derek would be more likely to return to his racist ways because he would be looking for answers to questions like, “Why did this happen?” The neo-Nazis would be able to give him an answer. It wouldn’t be the morally correct answer, but since the Nazi rhetoric would be familiar to him, their explanation would make sense. By accepting their rhetoric again, Derek would be able to dissolve back into the circle of hate he so desperately wanted to get out of. This is the opposite of Boyz N the Hood. In that film, Tre actually leaves and goes to college and presumably never returns to that lifestyle that Furious deters him from. Perhaps that’s a big difference as well. The influence of a father figure. Both of these movies promote the idea that the father figure and his ideals have significant sway over the young men that they raise. Their influence can be positive, in the case of Furious and Tre, or negative, in the case of Derek and his father. Using that as evidence, maybe race relations all start at home? No matter what the influence we may think the media has on people, movies like these would support the theory that racism or tolerance begins at home.
Can you believe that up until this past December, the National Socialist Movement, a hitler inspired neo-nazi group, was headquartered in Minneapolis? We can all think we live in this progressive liberal state, but truth is that we are just in our university bubble and naively think these things don't exist...but sadly the biggest neo-nazi group in the country was under our noses. Think about that.