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``American History X'' shows how two Los Angeles brothers are drawn into a neo-Nazi skinhead gang, and why one decides to free himself. Derek is a bright kid who has become the leader of a skinhead gang in Venice Beach, California. His kid brother Danny idolizes him, and to some degree steps into his shoes--although he lacks Derek's intelligence and gift for rhetoric. At school, Danny is a good student, as Derek was before him. Both are taught by a black history teacher named Mr. Sweeney, who supplies the moral center of the film. Later, Derek becomes the right hand man of a shadowy adult neo-Nazi, named Cameron. One night two black kids attempt to steal Derek's car, as the result of a playground feud. He shoots one of them dead and the crushes the other one‘s skull in to the cement. He's convicted of murder and sent to prison for three years. In prison, Derek undergoes a slow evolution from a white zealot to a quiet loner. During the initial months of Derek’s time in prison he attempts friendship with the other whites. With a swastika tattooed on his chest, he fits in briefly with the white power faction, but is disillusioned to find that all the major groups in prison (blacks, Hispanics, whites) have a working agreemen