The nuanced tale unfolding throughout American History X turned out to be an aberration. The unspoken impression is that they can’t be as bad as the brown people from other countries,” says Paul Smith, professor of cultural studies at George Mason University. “If the terrorist is homegrown, there’s always a possibility that you’re going to give them some kind of pass. The unspoken national concept of “terrorist” shifted from white American male to nebulous Arab foreigner. Communities across the country feared that theirs would become the next target in an unfolding reign of terror aimed at establishing a white ethnostate.Įdward Furlong as Danny Vinyard. The attack killed 168 people, the most destructive terrorist event on American soil until 9/11. The film, in part, captured the public’s fear and fascination with militant white supremacist groups following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing orchestrated by Timothy McVeigh. Danny’s sentiment, that Venice Beach was ours again, is merely a localized version of Trump’s perennial rallying cry to Make America Great Again.įolks in the nineties understood American History X as a product of domestic terrorism. In another scene, Danny Vinyard (Furlong) recalls how he idolized his older brother Derek for successfully driving people of color away from public spaces in Venice Beach, saying in voiceover, “For a while, he really made it like it was ours again.” Returning our supposedly broken social systems to some former glory is a core tenet of Trumpism, and the current iteration of America’s conservative movement. Referring to the Migrant Caravan traveling north from Central America, Trump tweeted “This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” Trump has followed-up his venomous bluster against these migrants, in particular, by ordering the Pentagon to send up to 14,000 troops to the US-Mexico border as well as threatening to eliminate birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The laughter is gone from this discourse as the president, his advisors, and his allies have shifted to more militant language.
After decades of playing games, with the whole World laughing at the stupidity of our immigration laws…” The tweet goes on to suggest that the Democrats are conspiring to undermine America’s immigration system. On July 30, Trump tweeted: “Illegal immigration is a top National Security problem. The following, for instance, is from a speech shouted by Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton, in an Academy Award-nominated role) to his Neo-Nazi cohort prior to assaulting the non-white employees of a grocery store: "Our border policy's a joke! So, is anybody surprised that south of the border they're laughing at us? Laughing at our laws?” The idea of foreigners wantonly “laughing” at America’s immigration laws is a metaphor Trump has used for years. The result overflows with racist rhetoric that reflects statements made by President Donald Trump himself.
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The latter, however, leaves prison ready to abandon white supremacy for a life free of hate. The film depicts a young skinhead (played by Edward Furlong) analyzing and interpreting the events surrounding the incarceration of his older brother for voluntary manslaughter. Today, some of them are being echoed from the White House.” “In the nineties, these views were way outside the mainstream. “I don’t think anyone watching American History X in the nineties thought its white supremacist characters would ever become mainstream,” says Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. That underestimation reflects our current ignorance of the origins of hate, of how hate can be combated, and suggests that greater awareness might ease its grip on our society. The film deeply underestimated the extent to which hate can infect, spread, and achieve widespread influence in American culture.
Today, the hate that American History X tried to explore as a cautionary tale of sorts is part of establishment political discourse.
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