A brilliant film emerged from these skirmishes – but its core insight still takes work to unpack. For generations, a persistent myth that black families were irreparably broken by sloth and hedonism had been perpetuated by US culture. Congress’s landmark 1965 Moynihan Report, for example, blamed persistent racial inequality not on stymied economic opportunity but on the “tangle of pathologies” within the black family. Later, politicians circulated stereotypes of checked-out “crackheads” and lazy “welfare queens” to tar black women as incubators of thugs, delinquents, and “superpredators”. American History X made the bold move of shifting the spotlight away from the maligned black family and on to the sphere of the white family, where it illuminated a domestic scene that was a fertile ground for incubating racist ideas.
This ^ Neo Nazis and Militia Groups were both very real threats in the 90s and American History X is very much a reflection of that.
The fact that things have gotten WORSE and the idea that a history program like “American History X” would be outright banned from being taught in certain states, is a failure of imagination.
I’m a 90s kid, and I haven’t watched American History X partially because of how uncomfortable I think it’ll make me feel. Seems like a culturally significant film, but not one people watch more than once.
feeling uncomfortable when you’re watching it doesn’t mean you’ll regret it afterwards, just make sure you’re mentally in the right place to watch something serious