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.
Why would you think that a nationalist or fascist movement could never happen in the Western world given what had already happened during the twentieth century? I’m not trying to be a piece of shit, I’m honestly curious.
Not answering for girlfreddy but I’d also like to chime in. I don’t know how to say this, but like America used to feel different 30 years ago. Even though rights were slow coming for women in the workplace and eventually gay people, it felt like we were always either stopped or moving slowly forward. Maybe it was just a sheltered existence, having all of the benefits of a pretty damn good public school system in a quiet corner of the suburban area, but I fucking swear, there was like a clear line to this nation becoming some kind of next civilization and it felt like everyone shared it for a minute there.
I don’t know if it was 9/11 or the Neoliberal creep. Maybe the 08’ crash, or the Obama election and the feelings that came after. I can tell you though some time around 2010-2011 I started telling people that white supremacists and fascists were coming. I’m sure it was a bunch of little things, but they all started to click around then. I watched this movie with my mom, and now I’d largely consider her the equivalent of a Nazi. She doesn’t think she is, but she’s also brainwashed to the point where she gave up our relationship over being unable to confront her christofacist ideas. She liked the movie and was disturbed by the racism back when we watched it.
A lot of all this can be pinned to Regan and his welfare queen bullshit that he purposely put out to race bait and fire up the right. Still, they all kinda stood by and just stewed in their closeted prejudice to the point where all this shit felt like a legitimate surprise when it began to snowball together. A lot of it is intertwined with their feelings on Obama for sure. A half black guy made most of the people around him look like lame dumpy hicks. A lot of America couldn’t process that so they started to try to delude their reasoning, rather then coming to terms with it. He’s a black Muslim, with a fake birth certificate. He’s a weed smoking smooth talker. He’s a new world order pawn of the elites. They still hate him so much that Q made a detour and said his wife is a secret transsexual and by reason he a closeted fraud…
Anyway, got off track. But again, I’ll stand behind it that none of this somehow felt possible pre 2000, and largely still into like 08’. At least to a much younger and naive me.
Edit: rereading this, I kinda wander a lot. Sorry if it detracted at all from the convo. I’m gonna leave it though cause it still feels personal and true, and I’d be sad to delete this after all the memories I got to think back on. I am old.
Got to add, it didn’t just happen in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan.
There were fascists in every country in the world, and a lot of them stayed in power after WW2.
Most of Asia was fascist ruled at one point or another. South America was almost completely ruled by various fascist dictators for most of the second half of the century.
But the more on topic point is that a large percentage of Americans of the time, had wanted the US to join WW2 on the side of the Germans. There were men who were sent to kill Nazis who had marched in support of the Nazis at Madison Square Garden.
That’s not even counting the KKK, which was falling apart due to the leadership embezzling funds, but just a decade prior had enjoyed hundreds of thousands of members.
In 1930 the Klan had membership counting 11 Governors, 16 US Senators, and roughly 75 members of the House.
The Klan then had a resurgence in the 1950s, and well into the 70s all in response to the civil rights movement.
The Klan might be treated like a joke these days, but the sort of families that have multiple generations of klansman, don’t teach love and understanding to their children.
There are little towns in the south that have been cultivating their racism since long before the civil war.
Hell, the state of Oregon was so racist that the banned black people entirely. The people who did that had kids who joined the Klan, so on and so forth, and now there are still places in eastern Oregon that black and brown people have to avoid on fear of death.
White nationalism has been part of who we are as a nation for a very long time. Thankfully its popularity is fading, which only makes the adherents louder and more dangerous.
… on a large scale.
In the 90’s it was still not nationwide. Now it is, in America, Canada, the UK, Israel, China, and even some African nations have become nationalist … but back when this movie came out that was unheard of.
Yeah, that’s a lack of understanding on your part. John birch society, national alliance in the US. OKC bombings were largely inspired by literature put out by the thankfully dead founder of the national alliance. National front in the UK. Israel… I mean was founded in coalition with nationalist terrorists so I don’t know where that’s coming from.
And stormfront has been around forever. Preceding Alex Jones?
I’m over 60 so not misunderstanding anything. And you’re calling Jewish people “national terrorists” is fucking nazi bs.
Gtfo asshole.
I hate to tell you, but this isn’t hyperbolic. Israel was absolutely founded in part by an ultra-nationalist, ethno-supremacist, terrorist organization. Founding members of Lehi went on to form Likud as well.
Lehi (militant group)
I’m calling Irgun nationalist terrorists, who were in coalition in founding Israel alongside Labor Zionists(who I don’t believe are nationalist terrorists). If you don’t think that label applies to Irgun you’re a whole hell of a lot more fascist adjacent than I am.
Being 20 years older than me and ignorant ain’t something I’m impressed by.
Shit, I posted to defend you and we weren’t even talking about the same group. I forgot about Irgun, that was another one. I was talking about Lehi.
They were very close to each other regardless and both are strong influences on the current Likud.
It just continues to blow my mind that people are so unwilling to look at the beyond questionable ethical underpinnings surrounding the formation of Israel. It is and was an extension of western colonialism. I don’t even see how this is remotely controversial to say, and yet a lot of people lose their fucking minds if you even bring it up.
YuuuUUUup. Spot on. The longer we go without recognizing the flawed foundation on this construct, the more it’s going to fall apart. And as long as the two populations continue to accept rule from the religious zealots dedicated to promoting violence on both sides it’s never, ever going to end.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/23/2201067/--The-British-sold-the-same-horse-twice-The-1st-75-years-of-Palestinian-colonization-BEFORE-1947?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
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Not going to claim to know their thoughts, but they said Israel, not Jews. There is a real difference. One is a government the other is a cultural identity/religion.