Watch it and think about it

Rating: 9/10 (28 November 2007)

I think racism of any type is simply crazy and stupid, however it just doesn't have the same meaning in different situations. It is not the same whether you have racial views in Africa or in America, whether you belong to the major ethnic group or you are part of the minority. The manifestation of racism might be the same but the substance and the motives are different. In American history x I felt these motives were pretty much unconvincing.
To begin with Derek is not a cattle-like asshole, like many of his skinhead friends, who only embrace racism because they are too limited to think any further; neither he becomes a racist solely for the benefits of being part of the gang (like the majority, I suppose). Derek actually does think, he is a leader- at least that's the idea. As a result when he does become a racist he does it because of an internal belief that this is the correct, sane thing to do. He arguments, he has an opinion based on facts, he is becoming convinced because of these facts- the point is not that he misinterprets things, the point is that he is not a racist because of the emotional trauma, not because his father died, but because he thinks things that way.
In addition his prison rebirth is very unlikely to me. So what was that about after all? He saw one of his gang's members buying pot from a black guy, or a Mexican, i don't remember- so what, is this thing capable to destroy his whole world-view? What did he think, that all white guys have the same ideas as he has?
He met a funny, sympathetic black guy- OK , now don't tell me that Derek, intelligent as he was, thought that all black people were jerks. He was not a racist before his father's death, he actually liked Sweeney!-that part was very artificial, I mean, what is this supposed to mean, that Derek forgot just like that everything he had known about people, just because his father died? It was a trauma, his television interview-outburst might be explained with that, sort of a "homage" to the racist dad, but why did he start to hate EVERY black person all of a sudden from then on? Like I said before it wasn't just an emotional thing-it couldn't have been. Derek had his theory of black people being more likely to commit crimes, of taking the jobs of decent white people and so on-there was nothing in the movie that made a counter-argument to these, accepted by Derek; he simply forgot these at the end.
All in all, my observation is that the movie is very well acted, well structured, but not very realistic. Derek's-and for that matter Danny's- sudden changes of their view are totally unconvincing, because they do not come from the right place- Derek is a nazi because he believes in the theory, and there's nothing that should change him so radically, because every experience he has is mainly emotional. Danny probably never was very convinced of anything, so he is actually much more credible than his brother.