I finally got around to seeing this film that had long been on my list of things to watch. It tells the story of a young man Derek Vinyard (superbly played by Edward Norton) who, under the influence of an older neo-Nazi, gets drawn into a skinhead gang in Los Angeles with swastika tattoos and all, and becomes a leader and recruiter for the gang. He ends up killing two black men and goes to prison where he undergoes a change in views that causes him to abandon his prior beliefs. When he emerges, he tries to change the beliefs of his younger brother who idolizes him and, in his absence, has joined the gang that he had been in, under the influence of the same older neo-Nazi. What struck me most about this film is that though it was made in 1998, how contemporary it is in terms of the neo-Nazi ideology it articulates.
There are three powerful scenes (they are in black and white like all the flashback scenes). One is a flashback to the family dinner table where high-schooler Derek describes his excitement about his English course where he is reading the book Native Son. His fire fighter father advises him to reject the teaching of his charismatic black teacher because it is all propaganda designed to advance black people at the expense of white people. The film implies that this is what starts Derek down the road to racism.