'American History X'. Overcoming Racism in Prison

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,7, University of Rostock (Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Prisoners and Prisons in the U.S., language: English, abstract: The theme of racism outside and inside a prison and how to personally overcome this racism as a victim as well as a perpetrator are major themes of the anti-racist movie 'American History X'. The life of incarcerated people and how it influenced them is often portrayed in TV series or films which are mostly made to entertain the populace rather than to educate or raise awareness about the problems that arise within the displayed topics, and for that stereotypes and juxtapositions are used as well as certain methods and means of film making. This paper looks at exemplary scenes of 'American History X' with emphasis on how some means of film making are used to display the life-changing experiences that main protagonist Derek Vinyard encounters while being incarcerated. Today more than two million people of the United States of America are incarcerated in prisons; serving a sentence for a crime they have committed. The experience each inmate makes individually can have an immense impact on their behaviour and mind-set in and outside prison walls. Prisons in general function as public institutions which should, at the very best, try to help the inmates to 'find a lawful, economically stable place' in a community and in society after their time spent in prison (Fleisher and Decker 1-2). Incarcerated people not only have to deal with the limitations of their freedom and privacy, often they also encounter racism and racial segregation by officers and other inmates. According to Philip Goodman, 'it is the interaction between the inmate and officer in which categorization is born, and that makes racial categorization and segregation possible' (762).