American History X 2 Dereks Revenge Torrent Sub 32
Carla Wykes
Michael McCullough directs the Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory at the University of Miami. He works with social scientific research as well as emerging discoveries in biology and brain chemistry. His focus on the biology of revenge and forgiveness has taken him into other related areas of human moral sentiments, gratitude, and self-control.
MS. TIPPETT: And then I guess what is especially intriguing about your work as well, and perhaps even more surprising, even kind of takes us out of our boxes, than the fact that revenge is natural is that you are really suggesting also from a scientific perspective that we have a forgiveness instinct, an aptitude for forgiveness, and that has been crafted by natural selection just like revenge.
MS. TIPPETT: So this is getting to one of the really important points I think you make with your work, that if we can understand this forgiveness instinct and how, that even understanding it in terms of evolution, that we can start to create conditions where it can be empowered.
MR. MCCULLOUGH: To kill members of their own villages, their own tribes, to maim them, to disfigure people unrecognizably, to cut off their lips and ears and noses. They give the girls as child brides to the soldiers. And through this really heartless, brutal tactic, you know, they do a couple of things. One is that they destroy the culture of these villages, the fabric of their own history. And they also create new foot soldiers for their army.
MS. TIPPETT: Here is a Welsh ethnomusicologist, Peter Cooke, describing how the very Ugandans Michael McCullough mentioned have integrated grief, outrage, and a longing for forgiveness in the music they sing. And their songs explicitly address warlord Joseph Kony.
MS. TIPPETT: So in terms of what average people can do in the course of more ordinary lives, let me ask you the question this way. I mean, how do you think you live differently? How do you conduct yourself differently with, um, people you fundamentally disagree with on important social issues, with irritating people at work? How do you conduct yourself differently because of what you know scientifically in this research you do?
MR. MCCULLOUGH: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the best things we can do with religious faith is give people an appetite for difference. And the major world religions all have the resources for doing this, for getting people excited about people who are different from them.
MS. TIPPETT: Michael McCullough is a Professor of Psychology and a Cooper Fellow at the University of Miami. There he also directs the Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory. His book is Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct.
Daniel Vinyard (1981-1998) was an American high school student who was the younger brother of neo_Nazi leader Derek Vinyard. He was killed by African-American student "Little Henry", a school bully whose face he had blown cigarette smoke in the previous day.
Daniel Vinyard (referred to as Danny by his family and friends) was born in 1981, the younger son of Venice Beach, California firefighter Dennis Vinyard and his wife Doris Vinyard. Daniel and his elder brother Derek Vinyard were orphaned when their father was murdered while fighting a fire at a drug den, and Daniel grew up with a racist brother whose violent neo-Nazi views influenced him.
Derek founded his own white supremacist gang, Disciples of Christ (better known as "D.O.C." for short). His hatred for other races climaxed on the night when he was woken up by Daniel, who informed him that two black guys were breaking into the truck his father had given him. Derek loaded up his Ruger P94 pistol and went downstairs, where he recognized the two as some thugs his team had beaten in a game of basketball earlier. Derek also realized that one was armed with a gun. He quietly turned the doorknob and kicked the door open, shooting the armed one several times in the chest. When the other tried to run away, Derek shot him as well. Derek released the slide of his empty pistol (making it sound like he had reloaded), and then held the gun to the surviving gang member's head. He ordered him to put his teeth on the curb. Not wanting to die, the black man did so. Derek then promptly curb stomped him, smashing his teeth, splitting his head open and killing him. Derek spat on the dead body before the police arrived, and he was promptly arrested. He was soon found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, but sentenced to only three years in prison. Daniel went on to join the D.O.C. gang while his brother was locked away in prison, even receiving a D.O.C. tattoo.
After Derek was released from prison, Daniel was required to write a school essay called American History X about his brother's incarceration. It was a special assignment given to him by his high school principal, Bob Sweeney, who had received a complaint from history teacher Mr. Murray about Daniel's essay regarding Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf as a book that related to the struggle for civil rights. In his paper, Daniel revealed that if he had been called to court to testify against Derek, his brother would have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Daniel's brother eventually convinced him to leave the D.O.C. after telling him about his time in prison, during which he had befriended a black prisoner and been raped by his fellow neo-Nazis as a form of punishment. Although he had mended his ways, Daniel was shot and killed by the black student "Little Henry", a school bully, in revenge for Daniel insultingly blowing cigarette smoke in his face the previous day.
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