American History Essay

The sad truth is that most evil is do by people who never make up their minds to be respectable or evil was a wise phase once give tongue to by Hannah Arendt. I love this quote beca intake is perfectly describes the two boys from American History X, Danny and Derek. These two boys have seen and done it all when it comes to hate hosts, as both were members of a neo-nazi hate group. Neo- Nazi hate groups use authoritarian, scapegoat, normative, and victimization theories to justify their hate, discrimination, and torture of anyone who isnt a part of the supreme race, or white. Boy Danny and Derek end up in this life from an early age. P atomic number 18nts be one of the biggest, if not the biggest influence on a childs life. When Danny and Derek were both relatively young they looked up to their father, thought of him as the model man. However their father was a racist, influencing almost every thought the boys had. At family dinner when talking about about a black inform teach er their father said, Its nigger bullshit, and warned Derek not to buy into the equivalence teachings.Be motion Danny and Derek both looked up to their dad so much, this would be and example of the victimization theory. Exploitation theory is when one societal group, in this case whites, use hostility to keep their position and power intact. This rightfully come into lam out after Danny and Dereks father was murdered and Derek believes it was a race cerebrate killing. Right after their father died, Derek joined a neo-nazi hate group known as the DOC(Disciples of Christ). Being extreme believers in the white supremacy movement, the DOC acted out with violence and extreme hatred toward any some another(prenominal) race, especially blacks. Derek, being a high ranking member, murdered 2 black men for the cause. He served three years for the murders, which impacted his completely family tremendously.At the beginning of Dereks sentence he did not postulate any visitors, claimin g it would be to hard to see his family. He make friends with other neo-nazi members in prison, but soon started realizing that they were not serious about the cause like he was. He also started becoming friends with his black work partner who said, I aint the nigger in here, you are Derek started realizing that white supremacy what basically just a scapegoat. Meaning that the pursuit of the movement were just trying to find someone to blame for their problems, which in this case happened to bethe blacks. After befriending his black work mate he realized that blacks are human too.Once he could recognize blacks as human he finally felt guilt for killing to people, not niggers, people. Derek was determined to help his brother and family by getting them out of the gangs and hate. oneness of the biggest influences on Derek while in jail was his principal from high school. He was a black man with experience in dealing with lush youth. He gave Derek the push he needed by saying, Has an ything youve done made your life better?. Later Derek told Danny, Its just because I was slicked off. I think this was Dereks way of responding to his principal, he really didnt believe in the cause it was more of just an liberation for his anger that his father would have approved of. While Derek is locked up.