Racism In The Film 'American History X'

The movie “American History X” is centered around a violent, racist, neo-Nazi named Derek Vinyard. After killing two black men he is sent to prison where he rethinks his beliefs on racism and the affect it has had on him and his families lives.

Humans are visual animals, meaning that our first instinct is to asses and classify the things we see. We make judgements on people and the objects around us based on our experiences and what we are taught. Racism is a learned behavior and to some degree it can be unlearned unfortunately the idea of racism starts at young age, no child is born hating another race. As soon as we are able to understand colors we start to categorize the people and objects we see around us. By placing them into groups like good and bad, it is a way for our brain to organize our thoughts. We decide how we organized our thoughts by what we are told and through the experiences we …show more content…
If you are taught to think a certain way, it can be hard to break that original way of thinking even if you are exposed to new positive experiences. A great example of this is our grandparents. Consciously I think a person can decide not to be a racist based on the information they acquire but I think to some extent those subconscious thoughts are still present. An example of this would be someone who was raised in a racist family and their whole lives they are taught that People of Color are “dangerous.” That person might know that, that stereotype completely absurd but still might have that first thought when let’s say walking down a dark street at night. This is when we see an example of the accidental racist. This is something can be racist even if nobody intended it to be racist.

I think the only way for someone to unlearn racism is genuine education which teaches the students the truth about America history and that stereotypes are a made up