Did American History X foreshadow the resurgence of white nationalism in the US?
Did American History X foreshadow the resurgence of white nationalism in the US?
In 1998, a brutal, controversial indie film portrayed a bleak vision of race relations in the US that appears to have predicted a growing 21st-Century movement, writes Tom Joudrey.
A brilliant film emerged from these skirmishes – but its core insight still takes work to unpack. For generations, a persistent myth that black families were irreparably broken by sloth and hedonism had been perpetuated by US culture. Congress's landmark 1965 Moynihan Report, for example, blamed persistent racial inequality not on stymied economic opportunity but on the "tangle of pathologies" within the black family. Later, politicians circulated stereotypes of checked-out "crackheads" and lazy "welfare queens" to tar black women as incubators of thugs, delinquents, and "superpredators". American History X made the bold move of shifting the spotlight away from the maligned black family and on to the sphere of the white family, where it illuminated a domestic scene that was a fertile ground for incubating racist ideas.
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This movie has a some seriously cringe-worthy moments in it. For instance, it blames the main character's extremification on the actions of one black person - the white firefighter dad being shot by the (thoroughly stereotyped) black drug dealer - without addressing the fact that being extremified by that would necessitate pre-existing white supremacist beliefs on the part of the main character. And that's just where it starts.
This movie pretty much does the opposite of what it purports to do. It's basically liberal "non-racialism" that doesn't challenge, queston or even acknowledge the existence of the very thing the current normalization of overt far-right ideology draws upon - the fundamental white supremacist ideology the US (and the rest of "western civilization") was built upon.
without addressing the fact that being extremified by that would necessitate pre-existing white supremacist beliefs on the part of the main character
But they do explore that. They clearly show that he was already developing racist ideals influenced by his father even before the murder. The father's death was just the tipping point.
They clearly show that he was already developing racist ideals
I don't remember seeing that... I could be wrong - I saw it a long time ago and it's not really a movie I'd return to. It simply doesn't tell you anything useful about the far-right or the intimate connection it enjoys with the status quo we exist under.
I have never seen USian media that isn't terrifically negligent when portraying the true nature of right-wing ideology - and I'm afraid I don't see anything about this movie that makes it an exception.
You are wrong about the plot, quit squirming
The flashback where he's eating dinner with his family and talks about his cool black teacher and his father goes on a racist tirade. It shoes the seeds of racism were put in him since he was a kid. The whole point of the scene is to show he didn't just wake up hating blacks one day. It was a process that started home.
Anyway, I respect your opinion even if I don't agree with it.
There was definitely a scene where they're sitting at the dinner table and the father is railing against affirmative action because his department hired a black firefighter.
Yeah, someone's forgetting the movie. Derek Vineyard's dad was your classic closer white racist who had no problem dropping n-bombs at the table, and Derek was an impressionable teen at the time. And in the midst of this, his hero firefighter father is murdered, and Derek takes what can be construed as a realistic, however irrational, tack, by following his father's words in an effort to determine why his father was murdered.
dad was your classic closer white racist who had no problem dropping n-bombs at the table
It seems people are still having a really hard time understanding the difference between personally-held bigotry and institutionalized white supremacism. Placing the blame on Vineyard's father for his children's white supremacist beliefs is exactly the liberal "non-racism" I was referring to - it protects institutionalized white supremacism by pretending that "racism" is merely "bad feels" perpetrated by those "other/uneducated/poor/non-liberal bad whites."
Unfortunately - that is not how white supremacism works... and the movie completely ignores that.
What do you want? Do you want a shot in utero where the switches for white supremacy are flipped? I'm not sure you'll ever find what you're looking for. I think the whole inherent racism thing is a switch that is or is not flipped during one's development and the movie tried to tackle the issue within the 100 or so minutes it was given. At the very least it identified a facet of white supremacism.
I suppose perhaps I'm ignorant, but you seem to say that the interactions we experience in the film are secondary to something more systemic, and while I suppose I can say yeah, I agree, to just shurg off these things and say no, that want it, Derek was born hading black dudes, I think is a little shortsighted. Frankly, if you don't put stock in the interactions the movie depicts, then what hope do you have?
I was born in the 80s and grew up with racism at my dinner table in a similar fashion, and when I was 15 I didn't quite understand this movie in the same way I do at 36. I make efforts to not flip the switch for my kids at every opportunity. To hear you say it's institutionalized makes me feel like it's hopeless, and my babies, in spite of their colorblind nature now, will ultimately latch on to some rationale to hate people who don't like like them, because it's just in our nature.
What do you want?
Lots of things.
Do you want a shot in utero where the switches for white supremacy are flipped?
No.
I think the whole inherent racism thing
There is no such thing as "inherent racism" - in the same way that there is no such thing as "inherent Islamism" or "inherent monarchism."
but you seem to say that the interactions we experience in the film are secondary to something more systemic
Yes.
Frankly, if you don’t put stock in the interactions the movie depicts, then what hope do you have?
Actually, if white supremacism worked the way the movie depicts it would be utterly hopeless - we'd be left with no option other than to declare that white supremacism and the reason it exists defies understanding... which it simply doesn't. That is the liberal conceit of the movie - that racialization is (somehow) "natural" to humans when it so obviously isn't.
To hear you say it’s institutionalized makes me feel like it’s hopeless,
That which is institutionalized can be dismantled - we are literally dismantling a small piece of it right now.
and my babies, in spite of their colorblind nature now
Your babies are not "colorblind" - not being able to see "race" is not some disability (you know... especially considering that "scientific racism" is literally pseudo-science despite the fact that it dictates so much of our reality in "western" society). What you meant to say is that your children have not been socialized into viewing the world through a white supremacist lens.
That is impossible to avoid - white supremacism is not something you are born with, it is something you are born into. White people don't get to opt out of it, black people don't get to opt out of it - that is what is meant when we talk about our society being fundamentally white supremacist. It cannot be avoided - but it's conceits can be understood, it's camouflage ripped away, it's tenets debunked, and, ultimately, the institutions that rest upon it can be thoroughly discredited. That is one of the main reasons the alt-right exists - people becoming more and more aware of how deep the white supremacism iceberg goes frightens them. There's a good reason we call their ilk reactionaries.