Embracing My Inner-Bigot

Well its 2:26 AM and as I flail about tossing and turning angrily  I have come to the realization that there will be no more sleep tonight until I put these burning thoughts to paper: which probably means I will again watch the sun rise…

I just watched the Movie American History X, (again) with Edward Norton and though I am not generally inclined to midnight movie reviews this movie and its theme are important and common enough to rate some ink, some insomnia, and a few antacids.

Actually American History X is a devastatingly compelling and excellent treatise, until it isn’t… Edward Norton’s performance is, as usual, exquisite, and the writing, the story line, and the vacuousness of racial bigotry skillfully laid to rest, until the story, as is just painfully too common goes a bridge too far.

The crucial storyline and message of American History X is of the incredibly dark journey of a young mind into the depths of bigoted depravity. The storyline, in clever anachronistic style chronicles Norton’s character's descent into the Neo-Nazi Skin-head movement and ideology, with an early climatic event of Norton’s murder of two black young men up to mischief in his yard. Norton then goes to prison where he has the predictable epiphany of the monstrous folly and ugliness of such world-view and path. After an inexplicably short time in prison considering his murder of two young men Norton is released to start a new life completely and passionately repentant of his earlier beliefs and lifestyle. Norton quickly upon his release convinces his impressionable and idolizing younger brother of the folly of the lifestyle he had followed Norton into. Unfortunately along the way, Norton's refutation of the Neo-Nazi ideology inevitably incurs the wrath of the local skin-head mob that had effectively deified him, while his very existence and release from prison serves as chum on the water for his victim's circling and plotting brethren. In the inescapable but powerful conclusion Norton is of course holding the bloody corpse of his own murdered brother on the bathroom floor of his high school, screaming hysterically at the inevitability of what his misguided bigotry wrought…

Were this the entirety of the storyline it would indeed be a very powerful and convincing message, and I would be peacefully slumbering in the arms of Morpheus. The burr under my saddle though, that currently has me quite bugged and insomniating, is the all-too-common and purposeful conflating of reasoned discourse on exigent inter-racial issues with common racial bigotry.

In an early foundational scene of the movie Norton, in entirely reasonable appearance is at the family dinner table discussing, quite eloquently, the intricacies of the Rodney King incident. Norton quite adeptly lays out a defense of the officers involved and portrays King, rightfully, not as a “motorist” but a common criminal racing dangerously through the streets of LA at over 100 miles per hour to evade arrest, acutely endangering the public at large, and then attacking the police when finally halted. Norton then goes on to defend that the beat-down the police gave him was taken out of context and likely not racially motivated at all but rather brought upon himself by the continued actions of a common thug attacking the police and refusing to relent.  These are all quite logical and compelling arguments that I myself have articulated many times on the subject.

So; So far so good…

But then Norton goes from reasoned apologetic into full-on raving Hitlerian contempt of all things not-white. As he rises to pace the room in increasingly mindless ranting he takes off his pleasant buttoned shirt to show the “Kike” guest of his mother his Swastika and other White-supremacist tattoos as he rambles on in all of his brutish raving glory, sparing no one his misguided wrath. The message, and the subtle innuendo is clear:  What appears to be a reasoned, intelligent, even pleasant and mild-mannered person in defense of racially charged apologetics is really just a cover for, or a thin veil hiding a "classic Jew, and Nigger-hatin, Skin-head, Neo-Nazi Klansman." The skill and sophistry of which these two completely divergent views are interwoven as one is really quite stunning.

Cut to another scene where the soon-to-be-murdered brother’s voice-over describes as the “real” beginning to the seeds of the majestic bigotry of Norton’s character we encounter the idyllic gathering of Norton’s family at the breakfast table (before the death of Norton’s firefighter father.) Norton and his younger brother with their beautiful flowing locks and cherubic smiles are enjoying their Leave-it-to-Beaver-esque breakfast with their wonderfully warm mother and steadfast father while a smiling youthful Norton works on his homework. A conversation ensues between Norton and his father about what he is studying. Norton explains that his new (black) high school teacher has assigned the reading and reporting on of the racially-charged book “Native Son.” Norton gushes about the persuasive brilliance of his teacher.  The father, clearly an “old-school” classic redneck bigot responds with at first a reasoned challenge to affirmative action quotas and how two black firefighters in his department were hired over more qualified white men just because of affirmative action. After such short reasoned discourse he ostensibly reveals his true underlying racial bigotry as he describes affirmative action as “Blacktion” and Norton’s teacher’s assignments as “just more Nigger BS.”  Thus we again see that any reasoned discussion of racial issues by the Right is really just more cover for thinly-veiled bigotry.

So the Rodney-esque beat-down of anyone with the audacity to challenge affirmative action, quotas, or any other contemporary purposeful unequal treatment of whites and non-whites continues, and ostensibly will. Part of me is outraged by it and part simply watches in paralyzed awe as the juggernaut of the race-baiting machine bears inexorably down upon us. I often wonder as the non-white power-base and its protectorate continues to expand, making claims of white oppression increasingly irrelevant and laughable; how long the Left can continue with a straight face to claim continuing disguised bigotry, oppression and victimhood of non-whites. I suppose such will end around the time they stop blaming George Bush for the current president’s failures – or perhaps when the sun burns out.

Well now with that off my chest at least I can probably get some sleep: on my soft fluffy (white) Swastika pillow.