Terrible things happen in this world. Terrible people commit terrible crimes and have terrible views. What could drive a man to kill two other men? What would drive a man to get a tattoo of pure symbolic hate across his chest? What would drive a man to lead his brother into his same fate? What would drive a man to change and leave that whole world behind? “American History X”, a 1998 movie directed by Tony Kaye and written by David Mckenna, is the story that answers all of these questions. A story with a simple synopsis to answer all these questions.
The rhetoric we hear in the environment that surrounds us, whether it is rhetoric of hate, or rhetoric of love, is what shapes us into who we are. The story of Derek Vinyard is the perfect exemplification …show more content…
Sweeney. The goal of this paper is to write about his brother’s arrest, and trying to understand where this racist attitude of his brother came from. He says “[Derek] will still say it started with the death of our father, but the truth is it started much before that.”. The scene it cuts too shows Derek and his father having a conversation about Derek’s new english teacher, Mr. Sweeney, and the new books he is putting into the course. Derek’s father then begins to talk about “affirmative Blacktion”. He talks about how two new firefighters on his squad got their job only because they are black, and how they scored lower than some white people did on the test. He then goes far beyond a line of hate rhetoric that he crossed miles ago when he begins to talk about how Derek should not swallow everything this teacher says to him whole because it “N***er Bullshit”. Now this scene is very important in the development of Derek himself, but it is almost more important in the development of his younger brother, Danny. Derek looks to his role model, his father, and listens strongly to the words that he has to say, and as he accepts everything his father has just said, Danny looks long and hard at the example his brother is setting, because just as Derek follows in the footsteps of his father, Danny follows in the footsteps of …show more content…
Sweeney, that he realizes that being a product of a hateful environment will get him nowhere in this life. He changes his ways, and when he is released from prison he vows to remove himself and his family as far away from this hate filled environment of racism and white power as he can. The only problem is, the environment that he had placed his little brother Danny in, already pushed Danny to deep into this world of hate that Derek was trying so desperately to remove him from. Danny is shot by a gang member who he had had a confrontation with earlier in the movie, and the movie ends with Derek rushing to Danny’s side to find his brother, a true product of a hateful environment,
The rhetoric we hear in the environment that surrounds us, whether it is rhetoric of hate, or rhetoric of love, is what shapes us into who we are. The story of Derek Vinyard is the perfect exemplification …show more content…
Sweeney. The goal of this paper is to write about his brother’s arrest, and trying to understand where this racist attitude of his brother came from. He says “[Derek] will still say it started with the death of our father, but the truth is it started much before that.”. The scene it cuts too shows Derek and his father having a conversation about Derek’s new english teacher, Mr. Sweeney, and the new books he is putting into the course. Derek’s father then begins to talk about “affirmative Blacktion”. He talks about how two new firefighters on his squad got their job only because they are black, and how they scored lower than some white people did on the test. He then goes far beyond a line of hate rhetoric that he crossed miles ago when he begins to talk about how Derek should not swallow everything this teacher says to him whole because it “N***er Bullshit”. Now this scene is very important in the development of Derek himself, but it is almost more important in the development of his younger brother, Danny. Derek looks to his role model, his father, and listens strongly to the words that he has to say, and as he accepts everything his father has just said, Danny looks long and hard at the example his brother is setting, because just as Derek follows in the footsteps of his father, Danny follows in the footsteps of …show more content…
Sweeney, that he realizes that being a product of a hateful environment will get him nowhere in this life. He changes his ways, and when he is released from prison he vows to remove himself and his family as far away from this hate filled environment of racism and white power as he can. The only problem is, the environment that he had placed his little brother Danny in, already pushed Danny to deep into this world of hate that Derek was trying so desperately to remove him from. Danny is shot by a gang member who he had had a confrontation with earlier in the movie, and the movie ends with Derek rushing to Danny’s side to find his brother, a true product of a hateful environment,