Tuesday 9 April 2013

Racism

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What does I take for someone to move from a position of hate and racism to a position of tolerance and respect like the transformation that occurred in Derek?
  • In order to answer this question we have to know where dos racist comes from and what it is. First lets talk about where it comes from, racism comes from ignorance and lack of education. What is racism? Racism is when a race thinks and feels superior to another one. An example to prove that racism comes from ignorance is when the Irish where scientifically compare to dogs or animals (monkeys) but nothing till this day really can prove that because is simply impossible to compare humans with animals ”Racism against Irish" discussed during class”.


  • In the movie “American history X” the character of Derek has a hate against black people. That hate begun when his father was shot by black men’s, hate that he developed with the influence of ideas of Cameron. Later in the movie we also see a scene were we can clearly see that Derek’s dad was racist too and that influenced Derek too. This hate leads Derek to commit a mistake, he killed a man deliberately without thinking about the consequences and thinking it was the right thing to do.  When Derek is in jail he still thinks the same way his proud of what he did.

  •   In jail he is spending time with a black man because they work together. After a while he realize that they aren't so different from each other and a friendship take place between them. That friendship is noticed by the Neo-Nazis friends of Derek and really appreciated but Derek persists because he is already changing his mind. The consequences are very sad, Derek was raped by 6 of the Neo-Nazis. When Derek is in the nursery Dr.Sweeney comes to visit Derek and they have a little discussion but in this scene we have the key moment when DR.Sweeney ask Derek  “has anything you've done made your life better? ” “Quote from a scene in the movie American history X”. In that moment Derek realizes that his hate didn't benefit him at all but destroyed his life and family and it’s the reasons why he is in this situation.


  • From that moment we can see the change in Derek and the despair for Danny that going in the same way. In order to change someone ideas like Derek, that persons has to really have contacts with black people and also implies the influence of someone like Dr.Sweeney that made him realize he was wrong and of curse all the consequences of his racism on his own life.

      
  • Here i found an tumblr page on "American History x"
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