American History X

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Erica Estrella Dr. Aimone English 1A 8-85 In today's society, gangs are a problem that we face whether we are minority or not. The movie "American History X" portrays life through a white supremacist. Showing that the White Supremacist party is widely accepted as a religion and not seen as the hostile and violent group of individuals that they really are. This paper will give reasons of why the White Supremacists groups should not be tolerated.

In the movie many of the men in the group have criminal records, and in reality this is true. In real life there are millions of white people in jail for crimes they committed, but are they in jail because of crimes based on their "religious" beliefs? The majority of them are. This goes on in the jail as well as out of it, the white people stick together calling the minorities' offensive names and committing crimes against them.

If they were doing something so right why would the have criminal records. They have been arrested for the crimes that they have committed for their race. It obviously cannot be In the movie, the main character Derek Vinyard has a tattoo that says D.O.C on his arm, which means Disciples of Christ. Many of these groups use religion as a cover up for the violent crimes that they commit. How can they say that they do these things in the name of Christ? Not a single religion condones violence of any nature. To say that they are acting out these violent crimes in the name of god is the exact reason that they are accepted as a religious group and they are given the freedom to practice these offenses. In a scene in the movie Derek finds out that there are African American people are breaking into his truck. To get "even" with them he shoots down one, and beats the other until death. This is not what Christ would want anyone to do. The Bible says that men should love one another an forgive each other. In church a priest said "You cannot truly be a man of God until you learn to love everyone." Loving someone is not beating them until they die. So in what way do they think that they are Disciples of Christ? They should not be allowed to call themselves Disciples of Christ. Not one thing they do on behalf of Christ is in the least bit Christ-like.

Many times in the movie you see the American flag. In this time of war we fly the flag to support of country and or men at war, to show that we are all Americans and we will be united. That is what the flag means to us. Instead, the white supremacists use the symbol of America, and what we supposedly stand for, as a scapegoat for the acts in which they involve themselves. They commit these crimes to keep America American, what ever that is supposed to mean. Derek says, " The statue of Liberty says "˜Give me your tired, poor, and hungry', but its Americans who are tired." What is American? The dictionary says: A native of inhabitant of America. So the views that they hold are bias only to the white people not Americans. The flag in no way stands for one race or gender alone. It stands for unity, freedom, and diversity.

Using the flag as a symbol of what they stand for is nothing but lack of respect to the country and its citizens. This is just another excuse for these people to go out and practice their beliefs. They are just as bad as every other gang member in this world, other gangs don't use something as sacred as a flag to hide behind. These men hide behind the flag. They are a disgrace to Americans.

In the movie they showed people at a party and they had pictures of Hitler hanging in the area where everyone could see them. By hanging these pictures one can only assume that they agree with what Hitler did, the killing of innocent people based on race alone was commendable. Agreeing with Hitler can is a dangerous thing. Many of the men who are involved in White Supremacy groups have swastika tattoos on their bodies. Now this is not a religious tattoo, this is dangerous. The swastika symbolizes Hitler and the Holocaust. To have tattoos and pictures of these events only say that the killing of innocent people is ok.

In society today, we see the swastika and we see a violent use less act of killing that happened a long time ago. I can only assume that most people don't look at the swastika symbol and say, " Oh yeah that was a good time." To commend what Hitler did and say that he was doing the right thing, is saying that you have no humanity.