Director: Tony Kaye
That is the problem with affirmative action. The powers that be only end up angering the party they deprive and making laggards of the community they are trying to help. Even though affirmative action's noble intention is to help to give a push to the disadvantaged and help them get a headstart in life, it just ends up creating a generation of snowflakes who feel entitled.
Social studies in the late 19th and 20th centuries in the USA suggest that the Afro-Americans actually fared better in terms of economics and academic achievement before special privileges were set aside for them. According to Prof Thomas Sowell, the Civil Liberties Rights of the mid-60s actually put the blacks more backward than the rest of the society and their predecessors.
On the other hand, race-based affirmative actions also anger the societies from whom privileges are seemingly cut. They would think that their life is not so hunky-dory either; why should they sacrifice for others? When the going gets tough, it is only natural for humans to reminisce about the good old times. The longing for the good old days can be powerful when life turns for the worse. In desperation, they may resort to their primal defences - pure brute force.
This animosity between factions is not something new. In modern times, however, the schisms are pronounced, and steps toward this end are shoved down our throats practically every day directly to our own personal devices. On top of that, the woke generation makes it their life ambition to make our ancestors pay for the 'so-called' misdeeds. They call everyone to bring down monuments or anything that reminds us of our past, ignoring all the progress it brought us. History is for us to learn, not to repeat or erase.
Thanks to DA, I came to be introduced to this surprisingly underrated movie about the skinhead movement in the USA. Somehow, it missed my radar when it was released. Ed Norton, who appeared as the main character, even got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
It starts with Derek, an active member of a white supremacist group, getting his car robbed. He manages to stop the thieves, two black men, one escaped. He shoots one at point-blank and kills another by crushing his skull. He is incarcerated for his crime.
His younger teenage brother, Danny, who witnesses the whole bloodbath, is emotionally disturbed. He performs poorly in school. Danny is also drawn into the skinhead movement; after all, his brother is hailed as a hero in the local community for his 'brave' deed.
In prison, Derek has an epiphany of sorts. He realises the hypocrisy of fellow members of the neo-Nazi movement and gets the acquaintance of a black inmate. When he comes out of jail, he is a changed man. Derek wants to cut himself from the skinheads. He realises that it is too late as Danny is sucked into it too. The old scores needed to be settled. One can always check out but can never leave as the story goes!
Hate is a powerful tool used by self-serving individuals and groups to fulfil their own interests. We fail to appreciate that hate is not only contagious, but it consumes the people around us. It is an emotion that only we can control. We should use it wisely. For a start, let us all hate things that ruin our personal development. Hate that lazy feeling that tells us to continue sleeping when we should be out exercising or the short-cuts that our minds tell us to take at work when we should be conscientiously thorough, not cutting corners.
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