[00:02] Arnold McCis. He's a former white nationalist, but now he works for a Arnold, thanks for joining us. >> Thanks for bringing me back, Kevin. I >> Earlier you were telling me that you describe yourself as a former white
[00:15] nationalist. But how would you define yourself as a whole now? >> I think nowadays I better define just as a storyteller. I think stories are how we define our relationship with the world as human beings
[00:29] >> and it really affects everything we do for good, bad or ugly. When I was a white nationalist, I believed a story that said because I didn't have a lot of melanin in my skin, I was different than everyone else and superior to everyone
[00:43] else and at the same time threatened by everyone else. And it resulted in the most miserable seven years of my 54. Today the story I believe is that human beings have way more in common than different. That all of us just need to
[00:57] experience love in our lives and that this process of human experience that we all co-create each moment is a basically good thing. And believing in that
[01:09] different story has had a corresponding effect on my life nowadays. Every day effect on my life nowadays. Every day I'm I'm literally in a state of joy and I'm grateful that I'm not who I was at that point and it's really important to
[01:21] me to share my story so I can hopefully guide others who are under the influence of such ideologies to a better place. >> You mentioned white nationalist earlier and in my past I've used term white nationalist, white supremacist,
[01:35] interchangeably, right? uh can you give me a definition of each of those and how they might be different and also not for the viewers out there why should we care there's a difference >> yeah that's a great question it the way
[01:48] there's academics out there who have little charts and ven diagrams about how this works but I'm just speaking from my experience not only as being a white nationalist for seven years but also
[02:00] being involved in counterviolent extremism for 15 years which I've been currently I see white Nationalism is like the big tent >> that all these other groups kind of fall under. So under the tent of white
[02:14] nationalism, you have the Kukux clan. >> You have neo-Nazi groups like the National Socialist Movement that actually adopt the swastika that some of them get their silly little mustaches. They call themselves commander and they
[02:27] They call themselves commander and they they try to emulate the Third Reich as >> Uh skin heads, which is what I was involved with and To my knowledge, like the whole white power skin head thing has kind of run
[02:41] its course and it's morphed into different factions and genres now, but that was a more kind of street fighter uh violent agitator out in public type of thing. >> Um they all are based on racial hatred,
[02:58] >> They are all rooted in anti-semitism. Mhm. >> And it's important to make the point that anti-semitism is actually not only what all white nationalists have in common, but it's also what all violent
[03:11] common, but it's also what all violent extremists that we face in North America >> Really, >> anti-semitism is the connective tissue >> And how did you get involved in the movement? By the time I started really
[03:26] getting into the skin thing, I had I had already dropped out of high school. >> And I moved into a rougher part of Milwaukee with a bunch of punk rockers. >> And then we kind of drove all the punk rockers out and replaced them with skin
[03:40] heads until we had the skin head house. And so my parents at that point were And so my parents at that point were like, "Let's just," they couldn't afford to pay my rent, of course, but I so my mom got me a job with a friend of hers
[03:54] and uh once in a while she'd come by and buy me groceries, but she was really buy me groceries, but she was really just like had lost control of me and they just wanted to support me whatever the way they could, but they did they
[04:06] really didn't have any idea of what I the depths of what I was doing. I have a younger brother as well who's much smarter than I am and they they they there was a good bit of like, okay,
[04:20] well, let's focus on the other one and try to keep him from going off the >> What's what's the age gap here? >> Uh, two or three years depending on the >> And did your brother follow you in your footsteps or did were they
[04:33] >> My like I said, my brother's a lot smarter than me. He did dip his toes in year and then he was just like, "Yeah, this is >> Yeah. >> Is that starting at 16 or 14? Where you
[04:47] >> So, I got into punk rock when I was about 14. Okay. Right when I started >> Why punk rock? >> Uh, well, again, punk rock's a big tent as well. Mhm. >> And throughout the years, there's been
[05:00] many manifestations of it and many genres and factions and but to me, punk >> right? >> Smashing stuff, pissing people off, repulsing people. I before I I I really like took the swastika and ran with it.
[05:15] I was all about an upside down cross. >> Not because I and I would run around going Satan. And it wasn't because I actually believed in Satan. It was because it got a rise out of Christians. >> And I saw Christianity as like the
[05:29] status quo in American society. So I was like, well, let's poke at Christianity. And one of my earliest tattoos was a big upside down cross with the word amen below it. H >> and I around the same time and this is
[05:44] all as a punk rocker in uh before I quit high school in shop class, I made a big upside down cross earring about this big that I had for about a month before it got ripped off in a mosh pit. But like that that's who I was as a punk rocker.
[05:59] I I wanted to go people. I wanted to shock people. And this this kind of is what drove me toward the the skin at direction as well.
[06:11] There's a a a large faction of the punk scene going back to the 80s that are very like activistoriented. And uh to this day, like most punk is is
[06:23] very activist, like fairly left-wing, not necessarily Antifa, but but definitely like we're, you know, we're going to speak out against injustice in society. And and in my day, that was just kind of getting
[06:37] off the ground in the 80s. And that was like offensive to me as a punk rocker. I'm like, punk is about not caring about anything. It's not about caring. It's anything. It's not about caring. It's about not caring. And to that point, I I
[06:51] don't know the truth behind this at all. But in the like mid 80s, there was a punks back then. >> Okay. >> The peace punks were all up in arms because they said Kors Brewing had like
[07:03] unfair hiring practices. They weren't hiring black and Latino people. And I didn't give a rat's ass who Kors hired or didn't hire, but I really didn't like the Peace Punks. So even though I was, and to give you an idea of like what
[07:19] kind of beer I drank, Kors was like the good beer. That was like expensive beer. So I would actually spend an extra dollar or two to get a 12-pack of Kors so I could be sitting outside the punk show with my Kors hat on whacking down a
[07:34] 12-pack of Kors like just giving it to the Peace Punks. And they'd all be of course is racist. And I like of course I love it. And and I again it wasn't because I was racist and I wanted to
[07:46] like make a statement for racism. I just wanted to annoy the peace punks. too? Like what's the >> I was in the shows as well for sure. >> You have two opposing groups in in this uh pretty uh energetic crowd. How how
[08:02] >> how what happens there? >> It ended up blowing up. I I was uh I I do not have a lick of musical talent my entire life, but I've been head over heels in love with music my whole life. >> And as a teenage punk rocker, I started
[08:19] screaming in a punk rock band. And I was actually pretty good at it. I can scream really loud. No, no tone, but I can scream loud. I can get crazy on stage, get a crowd crazy. And and I loved it. And I was pretty good at it. So I as
[08:34] soon as the whole skin thing started to manifest and it was really like again it was me poking at the peace punks and there was more and more kind of like angry punkers I'd call them just the the more kind of nealistic just
[08:49] break stuff punkers that I hung out with all my buddies who were like yeah this is pretty cool and and one by one we shaved mohawks in the skin head shaved heads and started wearing our Doc Martens and just started distancing
[09:03] ourselves more. We'd still go to punk shows, but then we'd start getting in fights with the peace punks and because we were always the bigger, rougher, drunker guys and the peace punks were the more kind of
[09:16] >> meer quieter ones that it really wasn't much of a contest. So, we like physically dominated these punk shows. And then when we did start our white power skin head gang, the first thing we did was start our own white power skin
[09:30] >> because I I was already good at screaming. My buddy played guitar. My other brother played drums. We found a ba bass player and and that was my first >> And how old were you at this point? And what year are we talking about? Like
[09:43] >> uh this is 1987. I was 16. >> 16. And what was the name of that band? >> One way. >> And we had a little motto. It was one >> And we had a little motto. It was one way, the right way, the white way.
[09:56] >> We thought that was very clever. I I wrote a song called Bluecollar Man, and I don't remember all the lyrics, but I I do remember it was about me being this hardworking bluecollar man, which I technically was because I dropped out of
[10:12] high school and my mom got me a job with a friend of hers who had a t-shirt factory. And so I was printing t-shirts 40 hours a week, third shift. What what down to write these songs? Like what what were you thinking about? What what
[10:24] out there? >> And the other question I have to ask on this >> if so much of the messaging in the white nationalist movement seemed to be off base,
[10:37] >> How did that I mean you didn't seem stupid at the time. You seem like you >> Well, the first thing that needs to be pointed out is that even though I I my parents are living beyond their means >> Mhm. Like I was born into
[10:52] quasi upper middle class white kid America. Like I I had the American dream handed to me on a silver platter. >> Before I quit high school, I I was signed up I quit after my sophomore year. My junior year. I was signed up to
[11:08] take AP biology and AP classes that I could have got college credits for. I I was I got really good grades. I could have easily got a scholarship and gone to college to be whatever or whoever I wanted to and
[11:22] and the bulk of my peers in the suburb I lived in did do that and they're living in big McMansions now with Range Rovers in the in the parking lot. But so like I in the in the parking lot. But so like I I had that handed to me. I a lot of my
[11:38] skin head colleagues like were from a skin head colleagues like were from a more typical background like poverty more typical background like poverty uh really violent abuse in the home uh
[11:50] moving all the time getting bullied fighting like kids who had serious adverse childhood experiences whereas in my case I I had a pretty idyllic childhood compared to most kids honestly not just compared to other skin heads
[12:04] >> So I I think when I wrote those songs, I I wanted to I wanted to first I I wanted to either repulse you away from me >> or draw you toward me.
[12:18] >> So it was basically like if if this if you're vibing with this, if this resonates with you at all, I want you to come join my crew. looks like? >> At at first it didn't.
[12:32] >> Okay. It it wasn't until I got further down the the white nationalist pipeline. down the the white nationalist pipeline. And what I mean by that is when there was the the strictly punk rock days and then there's these kind of
[12:45] transitional days between the punk rock era and the skin era. And in that transitional time, there was just a bunch of skin heads. >> And among those skin heads, most of whom were white, there was also black skin
[12:58] were white, there was also black skin heads and Latino skin heads. And I I can recall at one point like I got in a big brawl with some wrestlers in front of a McDonald's and and like my white-kinned head buddies were just standing there
[13:11] terrified because I was fighting these big wrestlers and my blackkin head buddy >> Wow. >> Probably saved me from really getting my ass kicked. And and so I and and again this was
[13:25] the the skin heads in that day were were certainly not all racist, but they were >> How can a skin head not be racist? >> Well, that's a good question and and it >> Well, that's a good question and and it it necessitates an exploration of the
[13:40] skin head counterculture. Okay. >> Which really it came about in the late 60s early 70s in the UK. And it was typically kids on the dole who really didn't have any opportunity, didn't have any didn't have jobs. And a lot of them
[13:55] soccer games and brawl the opposing team. And they wore steeltoed boots cuz worked in factories where you had to have steeltoed boots. And they would go
[14:07] time. >> So this skin head look is functional in >> It was. Oh, absolutely. It started out it it was also kind of a reaction to the kind of mod trend that was happening then. If you look at like old Rolling
[14:19] Stones or the Who and they're all like kind of long hair and flashy clothes like the skin is like we're we're the opposite of that. Like as opposite as you can be. But they they included among them everyone in Britain. So it wasn't
[14:36] just white kids. It was immigrants from Pakistan and immigrants from the West Indies and they listened to SCA and reggae. Like those were the first skinads who who by no means were cub scouts but they weren't racist by any
[14:51] >> really. >> And so in in our transitional period that was kind of how I describe our whole group there. M >> um and like I said like remotely nationalist and and again this is a lot
[15:04] more of a taking the piss on the peace punks because they they hated nationalism. They they and I subscribe to the George Orwell definition of nationalism which is that it's not necessarily limited to
[15:17] idea >> and in that sense the supposedly internationalist communist of like Stalin and Mao etc. We're actually as
[15:29] >> Yeah. >> Just around their their particular ideology. And I I would actually say that the peace punks were nationalist as well, as much as that would burn their ass, but about the way about their
[15:41] viewpoint and the way that they saw the world. Anyone outside of that was an enemy and they were wrong and they were an oppressor. So to to kind of poke at an oppressor. So to to kind of poke at them, our a-olitical skin head group, we
[15:54] we do have American flag patches on our flight jackets just to kind of like we or anything, but we really did. It's like, yes, we love this country, yada. It was it was really kind of lip service as as a part of poking at the peace
[16:09] punks. And so the original skin ads in in the 60s and 70s that counterculture went on for a good decade until in the late 70s there was an outright fascist
[16:21] National Front. >> Okay. >> And some of the elder guys in this national front saw the potential among the white skin heads for a type of like brown shirt shock troop for for their
[16:36] brown shirt shock troop for for their >> fascist political ideology. And so they started recruiting out of the white skin heads and saying like, "Yeah, hey, actually that guy who you say is your buddy there, the Pakistani guy, he's not
[16:48] your buddy. He's a problem. He's why you don't have a job. He's why Britain's going down a toilet and you need to join the National Front." And enough of the white skin heads did join the National Front later on to spawn an entire
[17:04] neo-Nazi like white power offshoot of the skin head counterculture. >> And and this is also speaks to our depths of hypocrisy back in the day because when I was like a flatout white power skin head, we considered ourselves
[17:19] the real skin heads. And anybody who wasn't a a Nazi skin head, we called them baldies, like implying that they're not real skin heads and we are when >> from the wanderers the movie. >> It was and that's a great movie by the
[17:33] >> Um >> there's the turnbs in the Warriors as well. So those a lot of those every time the skin gangs are in those movies like the skin gangs are in those movies like Yeah. But uh it was
[17:46] we considered ourselves the real skins even though the guys we were opposing >> skin heads >> among skins. There's the the Nazi skinads. There's the anti-racist skins. And then in the middle there's the kind
[18:01] of apolitical sometimes they call them Trojans. They call them like old school skins that are kind of closer to the original model of the 60s and 70s. Okay. where they're not racist, but they're drunken hooligans. I I know guys from
[18:15] every faction of that group nowadays, or or more accurately, I know formers from every group, and there's not a whole lot of activity nowadays in actual look and going out and doing it. But that whole dynamic was happening and and it went on
[18:31] dynamic was happening and and it went on for a couple months. But then more and for a couple months. But then more and more me and my guys would be like that. "Well, I'm I'm white pride. I'm proud to be white, but I'm not white power."
[18:45] >> And we'd be like, "No, the hell with that. We're white power. We're white power." And and I I guess the difference is is like if you're white pride then you are you're cool with being around other people but you're just like proud
[18:58] to be white at the same time. But white power is like no we're we don't want to be around anyone else and and you're that you're going like full-fledged into national socialism into the like other the depths of like actual white
[19:12] >> right the what's the deal with the violence and the violent nature of this whole movement? I so before I was uh doing what I do now, I was an information technology consultant.
[19:25] my life because it was just too traumatic. But um that's an IT joke. All the IT guys will get that. Uh, but I I mentioned it because I I was doing it for a doctor's office once and one of the doctors he saw me like looking up
[19:42] some UFC stuff and he's like, "How how do you watch these guys just beat the hell out of each other like that? How could anyone want to do that?" Like this >> and I just blurted it out. I'm like, "You never been hit in the face?"
[19:55] at the idea of being hit in the face. I'm like, "Dude, you I've never felt so alive." as as I have when I've been hit in the face. Like when you're in a
[20:07] violent confrontation, like it's it's a rush. >> What What's the connection between pain and feeling alive, though? alive, right? Like, what can why the pain? Why the violent part?
[20:21] >> Okay, fair enough. >> It's It's easier to go get in a fist does this does this kind of go back to the laziness of hatred that it just >> It's just going to jump it's going to jump on the easiest way and eas it does.
[20:36] I I do think it's it's an easy way out. I I was always >> I always did pretty well with girls. I always had girlfriends and I and which was an anomaly. A skin head gang is typically like 30 guys and three girls.
[20:52] So, not everybody gets a girlfriend. And I I guess I was lucky in that regard. I I guess I was lucky in that regard. And and I I definitely enjoyed my time with my girlfriends back then, but I was if always if it was up to be getting
[21:04] laid or getting in a brawl brawl every time. >> Now I'm 54 looking back like, man, I wish I would have I would spend more >> it probably would have been a lot more fun.
[21:16] fun and and I probably wouldn't wake up feeling like I had my ass kicked every morning like I do nowadays. How with the women that you were seeing, how did you justify the person you were to them? >> Well, all the women I was involved with
[21:31] >> Okay. >> So, they they and and they were there for the same reason that the boys were there and that they they were girls who
[21:43] life. Mhm. >> And the the the other dynamic of that too is that if if you're a and this proceeds to this day, and I think it always will because of the misogyny in it, but despite all the
[22:00] misogyny, if if you're a woman, white got to do is walk in the door and you're going to be very very popular. like everybody's going to be falling down uh the the stairs trying to open the door
[22:15] for you and trying to woo you and and so basically if you're a woman, you got basically if you're a woman, you got your pick of any of these guys. Um that being said, I I do know guys who who left the movement because they said
[22:28] there there just weren't enough girls. It's hard to neo-Nazi. Yeah, that I think that would track pretty easily. My daytoday was working, drinking, fighting, having my boys around me, making white power
[22:44] boys around me, making white power music. Uh that that was really the the music. Uh that that was really the the beginning of it. And as we went on and started to develop a reputation for ourselves, not just nationally, but
[22:56] ultimately internationally, all these other white power groups would start reaching out to us. And it's interesting looking back like our social network back then were these transient skin heads who would kind of go from town to
[23:11] town and couch surf until they were kicked out for drinking everybody's beer and eating everybody's food and not working. But for the time they were there, each one of them would always have a battered notebook that was full
[23:25] have a battered notebook that was full of handcrolled post office boxes. of handcrolled post office boxes. This is the Klux Clan group in Augusta, Georgia. This is a group in Fall California. Oh,
[23:37] >> yeah. It was just And how how was that shared around pre- internet days? >> Literally like people traveling from town to town, copying stuff out of these calling card numbers. >> Okay. So, we go to pay phones with a
[23:51] stolen calling card and then we'd call up somebody in California or sometimes up somebody in California or sometimes even in the UK or in in Germany and we'd we'd talk with them and network and then we'd get invited to events. And one of
[24:04] the a big turning point for me actually was about maybe six, seven months into my sevenyear span, we were invited to a Mhm. >> And who is we at the point at this
[24:19] point? Is it one way or is it or >> Yeah, one way was kind of the beginning of of our skin head gang. >> Okay. >> We we we initially were like, well, we need we need a name for our crew, not
[24:32] need we need a name for our crew, not just the band. And we were all kind of radicalized by the Chicago area skins. They called themselves Cash. And to my knowledge, they were the first white power skin crew in the country. And they
[24:46] were the ones who would like import physical copies of vinyl records of British white power bands and then sell them in Chicago and sell them and and if a bootleg cassette >> and that's how I first heard heard
[25:01] radicalized me >> that that was like my step be okay I am now a white power skin head not just white pride not just yay America like screwdriver >> the music that that song. Oh yeah, that
[25:15] >> There's a song called Hail the New Dawn. >> Okay. the hairs on the back of my neck and I'm like, "Oh, this is Yes." >> What is it about music that that has its power?
[25:28] power? >> Well, music is is the most age-old universal language known to humankind for for good, bad, or ugly. >> And again, I've been in head over heels in love with music my entire life. I've
[25:42] always liked music that shocked people. So, some of my my earliest loves were Bon Scott era AC/DC, which I still love to this day. If it's not Bond, don't turn it on is my motto. >> But I I look at like videos of AC/DC
[25:58] live nowadays on YouTube with Bon Scott like grinning maniacally talking about neck ties and contracts and high voltage. I'm just like I get all whipped it's a wonder I went so far off the rails when this is like my first love is
[26:15] rails when this is like my first love is of music was this really uh amazing but of music was this really uh amazing but also very like shock shock jock band in AC/DC. >> So uh I I always like that kind of
[26:28] music. I can we cuss on this podcast? Uh, we have it out. Anyway, >> well, if you're bleeping it out, I I'll never forget when I was in sixth grade, a buddy of mine's older brother had a
[26:40] a buddy of mine's older brother had a record from Fear, the punk band, and I I hear a song called I don't care about you. I'm just like, oh, yes. Yes.
[26:55] From that point forward, I was a punk rocker and and I went through the same sensation years later when somebody put a Walkman headset on me and played Hill the New Dawn by Screwdriver. >> And it wasn't just merely dropping
[27:10] fbombs that that really like turned me on. It was Ian Stewart's grally voice talking about the race and nation and blood and soil and all the same themes
[27:22] that Hitler used to pervert the minds of so many Germans was perverted my mind like on the spot. I I was just like, "Yes, this is what I'm about. I am a white man fighting for my people. I'm a white warrior." And and then I set out
[27:38] to make that same type of music myself. music, it was One Way and then was that the only band that you were involved in or where did that take you? >> One Way
[27:50] went uh under when our guitar player Pati shot a kid that came to do a Pati shot a kid that came to do a driveby in our house. And and it wasn't just it wasn't because Pat was arrested. He he was he had
[28:05] But it was because our other band member, our bass player in particular, >> I'm out of >> That's what he decided." >> You said it was a driveby on your house. Like what what
[28:18] >> drivebys aren't an everyday thing. So why why drive by on your house? why why drive by on your house? >> Well, we the And again, a lot of times truth is stranger than fiction and and things happen in the world that just
[28:30] seem to justify all of your ideology. So, white nationalism 101 is that Jews >> Okay. >> Jew and especially the newspapers, especially TV. Mhm. >> And sure enough, after we were involved
[28:48] in a big riot that we started at a street festival, street festival, the Milwaukee Journal did an article on us. And we lived on a really obscure little street that was like a block and
[29:01] a half long in total on the southside in a in a bario in Milwaukee. And they they a in a bario in Milwaukee. And they they printed a map with a little star like where our house was. And we're like, well, Jews run the
[29:17] media, of course, here they go. And and sure enough, guided by this newspaper article, there was a bunch of uh afroamerican kids and and a couple white kids from a suburb who thought they're they're going to be cool and go take out
[29:32] blame the people that are actually shooting at us. We're going to blame the >> we blame them, too. But but we we're basically like without the Jews, this wouldn't have happened. Wow. like the Jews brought this on and and by the Jews
[29:44] we meant every single Jew on the planet. We saw them as some sort of hive mind that they and it was always count constantly acting to to foil us and to
[29:56] take us out. Before the the shooting of the counterattack on the driveby, we this house. It was summer. It was hot and we're all hanging out in the porch. We called it porch honky. We were being poor chunkies sitting on the porch
[30:11] drinking beer and somebody took a pot shot at us from the alley with a shotgun shot at us from the alley with a shotgun with bird shot in it. And and the house had steel siding. You could see all this bird shot in the siding. And then one of
[30:25] our guys who was sitting there had like a face full of it also. >> And we're like freaking out now. We're like we're a bunch of teenagers. >> And and now we're like starting to understand what we're getting ourselves
[30:37] >> Got it. All right. >> Prior to this, it was all just street >> Mhm. >> And then we went out and like miraculously sacrificed a couple days of beer money and bought three guns and
[30:51] then stood with the house was like this far away from one house on another side. far away from one house on another side. So there's three exposed sides. And we had 24-hour shifts of people at each side with a gun waiting for somebody to
[31:04] about a week when this driveby attempt >> Okay. >> And then so that was our our confirmation that Jews were on everything. Number one was when the the
[31:16] paper put our address in there. Not an only an address, but a map in case you it because Aia Place is an obscure street. So here's exactly where it is. enough to just come get us with the guns. They had to get us using the guns.
[31:31] >> Okay. So they sat there and waited and watched until we did use the guns and then there like again before like the gun smoke could clear there was like swat teams taking down the whole house. I was at work when this happened.
[31:45] >> This is all just like proving every paranoid paranoid delusion of ours true and and that the to get us. >> Okay. So, this went on and things got
[32:01] worse and worse. Uh, about a a year after that, a really close friend of violence as I had taught him to, and he was shot and killed in a street fight across town. I I wasn't there when it happened. Some of our guys were. And
[32:17] again, even then, we had brought all these misfortunes upon ourselves. And rather than look inward and be like, "Hey, maybe we should change course. >> Maybe this isn't the best thing to do and the best way to act, maybe we should
[32:32] change something." Instead of doing that per the ideology that we had claimed as our identity, we continued to blame everyone but us for all this misfortune we brought upon ourselves. And in this way, our lives continued to spiral down
[32:47] way, our lives continued to spiral down the toilet. And it got into this vicious cycle of blame and misfortune and blame and misfortune. And to this day, I I see this happening all over again, just at a much greater scale with like every white
[33:03] >> right? >> And and it's it's really it's not that like some white nationalists are doing good. every single one of them is just a matter of time >> until this cycle of blame and misfortune
[33:15] "Hey, maybe I should do something better." And hence the reason why we're talking now is because I hope they hear this and this and affirm that thought or they get killed
[33:28] or they go to jail or they manage to live a miserable, loveless, hate-filled life. And of those four options, I think the last one is the most unappealing to me. >> Uh, and I I would say honestly the
[33:44] majority of people are in category one. Most people do grow out of it at some >> but the more often we can share stories like mine and make the point that hate is preventable, violence is preventable, >> the I think the better of odds of
[33:59] reaching someone earlier in that in that process. >> Okay, >> that's that's the kid I talk to. He's he's a white kid. We're going to call him Joe and he's pissed off about
[34:13] this archetype? >> Your typical Joe pissed off white kid can be as young as as a pre-teen 11 or 12 >> Got it. Okay. >> And and honestly, I think if you're in
[34:27] your 40s and you think that Jews are out to get you, you're still a kid. Yeah. and and you you need to grow up mindset there. Yeah, you can get behind that >> I have no problem calling a grown ass man a Joe pissed off white kid if that's
[34:40] how he's acting. But >> it's interesting because this and this really >> doing this work. But my the way you
[34:52] recruit a white nationalist is the exact same way that you heal a white nationalist nowadays. And I didn't realize this back when I was doing it when I was 16 and I was recruiting other Joe pissed off white kids into my crew.
[35:05] Joe pissed off white kids into my crew. The first thing I want to find out is what's go what's going wrong in their life. What's their pain point? >> Is it they don't have a job? They're not popular. They're getting bullied. They
[35:18] Eight, nine times out of 10 it's they don't have a girlfriend. There's a lot of gender issues involved in violent extremism and a lot of misogyny and your typical Joe pissed off white kid is angry because he doesn't have a
[35:34] kid is angry because he doesn't have a girlfriend. Now, 16 years ago, excuse me, 30 something years ago when I was in the movement, if I'm talking to 16-year-old Joe, Joe, pissed off white kid and he doesn't have a girlfriend.
[35:47] Rather than doing something helpful for him and saying like, "Well, Joe, first the time, >> take a shower once in a while, >> get in the gym, study, like make yourself into a person partner that's uh
[36:03] >> Exactly. make yourself into someone that would be attractive to another person. Uh that's all not easy to do and it doesn't happen overnight. It takes a lot doesn't happen overnight. It takes a lot of effort. It takes uh discipline and
[36:17] Joe pissed off kid doesn't want to hear that. He wants to hear easy answers. So, I'm going to tell him back then, and the same thing happens on a daily basis, probably millions of times a day now, considering the exponential
[36:32] reach of white nationalism thanks to various parts of the internet. But instead, Joe pissed off Wit is told that he doesn't have a girlfriend because the Jews put all these black basketball players on TV and billboards and social
[36:49] media to corrupt the minds of white women to make them think that they're the ideal man and you're not, Joe. >> And that's why you don't have a girlfriend because of the Jews. >> And Joe Piss off it. Is he ever
[37:01] questioning this along the way? Uh or is it just taking on face value like that my problems and it's that's it. >> I I think I it'd be safe to say that the the more traumatized Joe pissed off white kid is, the better that sounds to
[37:15] >> But it also kind of sounds like there's you said they don't want to put the work into fixing the problems that they have, right, that might be creating this. So, >> violent extremism is also a form of laziness when it just comes to getting
[37:28] what you want in life? >> I honestly it is it's it's a huge form of laziness. >> Wow. It's it's because it's it's always for your problems. >> Okay. Now, what was the moment for you
[37:41] that you realized that this just is not working? >> There there was a lot of moments and and I I think when people ask me how I left, Mhm. >> It going back to the addiction model, if
[37:57] meeting, you're going to find a room full of people who are all together because each one was sick and tired of being sick and tired. >> Okay? >> And when you're addicted to hate, you're
[38:12] you are sick and tired all the time. The only time you don't feel sick and tired is when you're actively hating someone. When when you're either alone or with other people directing your hatred towards a group of people or towards an
[38:27] whatever entity, that's the the one thing that's the only time you don't >> The same way when you're an alcoholic, the only time you don't feel sick and drunk. >> That hate exhausted me from day one. I
[38:44] knew why people were repulsed by swastikas. They it I I in in the suburb I grew up in, there was a lot of Jewish people who lived there and I was friends grade, I went to all kinds of bar
[38:58] mitzvah and bot mitzvah. I had a great time. I not that there's ever any justification for anti-semitism, but like I had nothing but good experiences >> One of my my closest friends growing up, Dean Kaplan, was a Jewish kid. My my dad
[39:13] scotch and me and Dean would sit there playing with Legos. So, how do you turn >> Because I'm an addict. >> That was it. hate was more important than friendships. It was more important than
[39:27] friendships. It was more important than my family. The same way when I was I became a single parent when I was my daughter was 18 months old, which is kind of the tail end of getting out. But just to finish the thought,
[39:42] and I I'm humiliated to say this, and it it haunts me, and it will haunt me until the day I die, the same way all the people I've hurt will haunt me. But when my daughter was really little, like less than two years old, I would get off work
[39:56] and I'd go pick her up from daycare. I'd put her in the car seat. I'd go to the put her in the car seat. I'd go to the gas station. I'd get a frozen pizza and a 12-pack and a six-pack. And I would drive around drinking the six-pack with
[40:11] my daughter in the car, chain smoking cigarettes. And I and I didn't even at at times it didn't even cross my mind that I'm driving around drunk with my daughter. And my mother who had smoked for a while
[40:25] and then quit and was a big antismoker and I I quit smoking when I quit drinking and I can't stand cigarettes now. But my mom would be like, "You know because you smoke in the house with her, you smoke in the car with her. And I was
[40:37] like, "Whatever, shut up. I'll smoke if I want to." And I did. And I And my kid I want to." And I did. And I And my kid was constantly sick. And I I I'm feel like a piece of saying that. I was a piece of doing that. But I was an
[40:52] addict. I was addicted to nicotine. I was addicted to the alcohol. It's not an excuse by any stretch, but it's a reason. And and you could apply the same line of thought to me turning me by back on not only a lot of Jewish friends but
[41:08] also afroamerican friends, Latino friends, Asian friends, like where I grew up was predominantly white, but all the kids who weren't white, like I was >> And have you come across any of these people from your past since then? And do
[41:24] forgive you for >> Well, I one of them comes to mind is my buddy Neil Willson who's uh I went to summer camp with him >> and we had a great time back then and I think I went to his
[41:40] cut out of my life for the whole time I was a skin head. And him and I reconnected when I went public with my story in 2010. And by the way, like I I think of Neil a lot just because he's an awesome guy,
[41:56] but he's he's not just an awesome guy. This is someone who This is someone who founded a summer camp for kids who were HIV positive back when HIV positive. When I was out being a skin head, Neil
[42:09] was starting a summer camp so kids who were HIV positive could have other kids to hang out with who weren't afraid of them and they could act like kids and just grow up like and then he started a camp for kids who lost their parents in
[42:21] in military deployment. And then he started a camp for kids who had a parent >> Like this is a person that I had all these problems with. Like this group that I had all these problems with. And Neil is not only a good guy, he's one of
[42:35] the best people I've ever met in my life. And and it it makes me sick that I hated him and I hated anyone who was Jewish or anyone who was Zionist just
[42:48] because of my addiction >> when when again they weren't just good people, they were the best people. >> And Neil and I are are good buddies now. Uh he was a a speaker agent for me for a while. He's he's the executive director
[43:04] now. Okay. >> Uh this lifetime >> Uh this lifetime service to others and and to a point where he puts that before anything that he does. Neil's an awesome
[43:19] person and and he has forgiven me. Not he's not only forgiven me, but he's like the past 15 years, >> as have many many other Jewish people. So going back to that exhaustion, it was exhausting to to fly swastkas all over
[43:34] repulsed by swastikas, >> right? >> right? >> It was exhausting to cut myself off from pop culture that I'd always taken for granted as a kid. I to this day I'm a
[43:46] granted as a kid. I to this day I'm a huge TV, sports, music, film geek. I things are forbidden to white nationalists. They're all seen as Jewish nationalists. They're all seen as Jewish propaganda, Zionist propaganda to
[43:59] corrupt the minds of the white man to make him easier to oppress. >> So, I couldn't watch the Green Bay Packers. I couldn't watch movies from Hollywood. My favorite movie, Bladeunner. I I we actually I was at a
[44:13] White Power like military camp and we had an off night and I rented Bladeunner from the gas station and I brought it back to watch it and all my buddies right? And I got pissed then. I'm like, can't we just watch a damn movie? Like,
[44:27] no, we can't watch a movie because it's Jewish propaganda. Okay. go through that. >> What was most exhausting was when people kindness. >> And the aforementioned boss I had who
[44:42] was pirating the t-shirts, aside from going at it with Metallica and whatnot, he was actually a really good guy and he gave all sorts of people jobs. And I started a pressure washing business where he hired a bunch of other people.
[44:57] where he hired a bunch of other people. But uh I was wearing a swastika to my place of work. I had them tattooed on me back then. I was also very vocal. Like everybody I worked with knew that I was a white power skin head. And I worked
[45:10] with a lot of afroamerican people, a lot of Latinos, a lot of Asians, and every >> And >> were you one of the bigger people working there? I mean, did you have size as a to back you up or
[45:23] >> Yeah, would have mattered. >> There were it was a you know, it's a factory. There's a lot of guys there who got been in plenty of brawls. I don't think that people were necessarily like physically intimidated by me, but they
[45:37] were kind of just like, okay, skin head, >> the the guys I work with treated me with kindness when I didn't deserve it. my boss rather than fire me for wearing he had family that perished in the Holocaust, he said, "Ah, he's a good
[45:52] kid. He's just going through a phase." When when my mom called him in tears to When when my mom called him in tears to tell him that it was okay to fire me for wearing swastikas to his factory because my mom was disgusted by what I was
[46:06] doing. And my mom's like, "I'd fire him if I were you. I don't know." And my boss is like, "Nah, nah." And and not only did he not fire me, he gave old buddy skin head buddies jobs. They were selling the t-shirts that I was
[46:18] printing. >> So these acts of kindness especially on top of everything else drove home this exhaustion and and made it more and more difficult to maintain the level of
[46:32] hatred necessary and and and it made my addiction more and more difficult. The same way that I eventually quit drinking alcohol because one morning I woke up alcohol because one morning I woke up with these pains like in my kidney that
[46:45] were just excruciating for hours and then every time I drank that would happen. And that's why I ended up quitting. Not the multiple drunk drivings, not the almost not the multiple suicide attempts, not the
[46:57] multiple almost getting killed, not the multiple driving around my daughter drunk, not the multiple being drunk or hung over for the first 11 years of my these physical pains that were like, "Okay, this is killing me. I gotta
[47:10] stop." >> It it's I think every addict has a story like that. >> And so my addiction to hate, it it went by the wayside in that same fashion. But I still needed something like drastic to
[47:22] happen to be my excuse to leave. That happened in 94 second friend of mine was shot in a street fight and killed. And by that friends had been incarcerated. So that was when I was like, "Okay, that's it.
[47:38] I'm leaving. This is the last of it." And in 1994, I left. was the breaking point at that. I mean, it's a pretty big one. murder. >> Now, you said that the kindness that you
[47:53] working in the factory was detrimental to your hatred. >> It was. I is that because the realization of the the truth that you thought was the truth wasn't or was it something else? Like what what why did
[48:06] that kindness actually have an effect that had a kind of effect on you? >> It it was there was multiple assets to >> It it was there was multiple assets to it or aspects to it. For one, it was it
[48:20] it's it was really hard for me to hate people who were nice to me. people who were nice to me. >> When I I was I was always like I'd show it was third shift, so I show up drunk pretty often. Or if I wasn't drunk, I
[48:32] was hung over. I I never had a lunch because I'm a drunken bum and I don't a lunch and take it to work. Like I'll just get a bag of chips from the vending machine. And so one day I I'm at work. I don't have a lunch. This pathetic
[48:48] hungover heap in the corner and my afroamerican coworker Lonnie is like sandwich cut in half and he sees me there and he's like, "Hey Skidhead, you look hungry. You want to have this sandwich and I'm like, I don't need a
[49:03] sandwich from this savage. I'm a white Aryan Nordic Aryan warrior." Like blah hunger is a pretty motivating force. So, out of his hand. I don't even say thank you. I just go wolf it down in the
[49:17] corner. He doesn't bat an eye. He just goes back to eating his lunch and he's talking about the Packer game with all of our co-workers. And I want to talk about the Packer game, too. I love the Packers, but I can't because I hate
[49:29] hate Latinos and I and I hate white people who talk to Asians and Latinos and Afroamerican people. So, I can't go sit with any of them. Like, the the the kindness drove home how wrong I was.
[49:44] >> And it also it gave me a glimpse of what >> And it also it gave me a glimpse of what awaited me if I could somehow get out of this habit that I had. >> If I could get clean, so to speak, from
[49:56] hate. That was the world that awaited me. A world where I could sit with a bunch of whoever I wanted to sit with and talk about the Packer game and not feel like I was facilitating the destruction of my people by doing so.
[50:09] the hatred that was causing you this problem was your own responsibility or >> No, force it. >> Especially bec Well, that that's the other thing like I this was early on in in the sevenyear span and I remember the
[50:24] the place was called concert shirt and that was the same boss who said I was a good kid and it was the same co-orker who gave me a sandwich. So like the who gave me a sandwich. So like the hypocrisy of what I was doing is is that
[50:36] hypocrisy of what I was doing is is that hypocrisy drove home the truth that I was creating the hate. That it wasn't them who created the hate. It was it was me who was creating it. The other thing I I think that really moved me was that
[50:53] I thought I was all about power. Like to me, I I thought power was I'm a and I I've been in a ton of fights, I've never been a really coordinated guy. I'm a big
[51:06] I'm a clumsy. So like as many fights as I've been in, I'd say I might have kicked someone's ass in half of them and the me. There's many times I got in with somebody who could box and I'm just like
[51:21] I'm getting lit up seeing Tweety Birds and everything. But in in either case, whether I won or lost the fight, I associated power with violence. >> That was power. I was exercising my power to go out and incite violence.
[51:35] Even if I got the the worst of it, I incited that violence. It was my power, my aggression. When I was when I was doing vocals, I was just bellowing at the top of my lungs. I'm just overpowering everybody and everything.
[51:49] That was my idea of power. But when these people treated me with kindness, they put themselves in a position of power by refusing to play by my terms.
[52:01] My my terms were always going to be hostility and hatred. >> I I wanted my co-workers to say, "You skiad, you Nazi, get out of the break room. We hate you." That's what I wanted from them. That's what I was trying to
[52:15] them back from >> Exactly. Exactly. were doing or what was the reasoning for wanting that? >> I I wanted it back because it would justify everything I believed in. It
[52:28] would justify my entire identity. But when they put themselves in a position of power and they said, "No, actually I'm making the rules of engagement here, >> And the rules of engagement are here's a sandwich because you're hungry. Here's a
[52:43] job because you need to pay your bills. I don't care what kind of an you are. the right thing to do and this is how human beings should treat each other.
[52:55] >> That's power. And and that's when I first got a glimpse of like what real first got a glimpse of like what real gentle power in our human experience is is is kindness and compassion and forgiveness. And and as I I've come to
[53:11] learn, it's so much more difficult to do those things than it is to be led by the nose by hate or anger or fear or jealousy or greed. >> I can understand that. I mean, the idea of being kind to somebody that is a
[53:25] >> Oh, exactly. >> Right to personally, I I can't say it. >> Right. And I don't blame it. I It's It's easy to be nice to nice people. It's difficult to be nice to, but they're the ones who need it most, and that's also
[53:40] >> Okay? >> And it it's it's also where it it's most >> I've in the work I've been doing for the past 15 years, I've been fortunate to help a number of people make that same journey that I've been on. And and in
[53:55] almost every interaction, there's been times where I'm just like, I'm listening to this guy. I'm like, I just want to beat the living dog [ __ ] out of this guy. like he's never been beaten before in his life because I don't like staring
[54:07] my old self in the face. For one, >> and for two, I now have the the the grace to know all sorts of people from all over the world who don't look like
[54:19] >> who I love and who love me. And when people are using racial slurs and they're using language that dehumanizes them, I get every bit as angry as if you were talking about my mother >> because I love these people. And and and
[54:33] that anger makes me want to go like old school Arnold and just jump on someone and beat the dog. >> But I know first of all, if I do that, I lose. Like even it doesn't matter if I win or lose the fight, like if it
[54:48] devolves to violence now, I lose. And they're not. And I also remember that no matter how bad I got my ass kicked back in the day, which I did on a regular basis, and I'm I'm paying for it now. I have arthritis in all my joints. that
[55:02] somewhere I'm like I got no note from my doctor but it's it's very real like I'm paying the physical consequences now. >> Do you feel anybody should feel bad for you about that? I mean, >> no, no, but I I mention it for one of
[55:17] talks with middle school kids and high school kids, >> and I'm like, okay, kids, and first of all, when I was a kid, I I never fails all, when I was a kid, I I never fails to devolve to that time phrase, but I I
[55:31] also want to get across to him like please like treasure your health and treasure your body and take care of it in these years when you feel like you're invincible because there will be a time when you're not when it all catches up
[55:45] with you. And I'm saying I'm telling you about my aches and pains, not because I don't want you to feel sorry for me, but because I don't want you to be me. >> I don't want you to I I don't want you to be down this path in any aspect
[55:57] physically, emotionally, spiritually. It's it's it's toxic and deadly to >> right? >> And and it has a physical, emotional,
[56:09] intellectual, and spiritual impact on you. You said earlier that you were at a >> Yeah. >> Yeah. What what is that? boys [Laughter]
[56:25] and there was a group called the church of the creator which which sounds like some really like nutcase Christian identity thing. Christian identity is is a faction of under the big 10 of white nationalism that believes that the true
[56:41] lost tribe of Israel are the Aryan white people and that Jesus was a pure-blooded Aryan white man >> and that everybody else are the spawn of Satan and and they will sit there with a King James Bible and point to all kinds
[56:54] of passages that they think proves this. And even back in the day when I was in the movement and they're trying to tell me this like that it doesn't say that. I don't want How do you even get that from that? But
[57:06] it's a it's a very developed, albeit like batshit crazy ideology, but they they really believe that that Aryans are the real tribe of Israel. Um, and
[57:19] Hebrew is Israelites who do the same type of thing. So, but anyway, the Church of Creator sounds like it'd be something like that, but it was actually expressly atheist >> and very much
[57:32] >> and very much based on like a perversion of Darwinism. >> Okay. >> It it proceeded from the the utterly false premise that like white people were a different species
[57:45] and therefore like tigers don't care if hyenas eat or not. or not? >> We should only care about us. We shouldn't support anybody else. creativity as the the religion was
[58:00] called was rapidly anti-semitic, rapidly anti-Christian, rapidly racist against everybody. And that was kind of in the the second half of my white nationalist stint, what I was into.
[58:14] >> Okay. >> And the founder of the Church to Creator was this old man named Ben Clawson. and he had patented some kind of can
[58:26] opener in the 40s that did well enough to give him a seed to get into real estate and then he made a bunch of money and with this money he's founded the church of the creator which was like the other thing about church of the creator
[58:40] was and this got a lot of flack from the rest of the white nationalist white and and honest this is where the swastika comes from was from appropriating the the Viking age >> and like Norse folk religion.
[58:56] >> The the swastika was actually a ruin for Thor's hammer. And the church of the would point out all those things. The Vikings were cool with North Africans and Arabs. So how are they racist? Why are we making them our heroes? Not to
[59:09] other white people. So the Church of the Creator said, "We should be looking up to the American cowboy really conquered and gained territory for the white race." And so the the
[59:26] church of the Church of the Creator was like an old style western building in the middle of the the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina with a and the symbol was a big W for the white race and then it had a crown above it because we were so
[59:42] had a crown above it because we were so noble and then a halo above the crown because we were nature's finest creation or something. But I I got into that because I was invited to attend the inaugural session of the school for
[59:56] gifted boys, which was the Church of the Creator program to not only indoctrinate young men in the ideology, but also to train us in in paramilitary stuff,
[01:00:08] >> which how does that jive with the the Crown and the Halo being part of of their outlook? I mean, >> Clausen was All of his ideas were were
[01:00:21] utterly bull, but but he was an innovator in the sense that he kind of bucked a lot of the old tropes of of white nationalism going back to Hitler. >> And he was like, well, Hitler was great and everything, but this is a new thing.
[01:00:35] So that's why we don't use the swastika as our symbol. we have this new symbol that that's talking about and and also making points that he was heal he he espoused racial socialism rather than national socialism.
[01:00:49] >> What's the difference? >> National socialism was while it was very much about the Aryan race, it was also very much about Germany. >> Okay. >> Whereas racial socialism is about the
[01:01:01] white race as our nation. No, not geographic borders. All right. All like You got your your Joe workingclass white guy in America and he's watching a boxing match
[01:01:16] >> and if it's a black American boxer against a white Russian boxer, he's he's American when he should be rooting for the white guy regardless of what explain racial socialism. >> Oh, okay. and socialism in the sense
[01:01:32] that and it's funny because from the day one of national socialism Hitler said how it was it was not only about anti-semitism opposing communism but he he's he's a socialist
[01:01:48] but he he's he's a socialist >> like the the the the state is greater nothing >> and that was the socialism piece of our >> and that was the socialism piece of our racial socialism as well was that you as
[01:02:00] an individual don't mean anything. Your all you have is your race and and your race is what must be cherished and maintained and fought for above all >> So that that was the the socialist aspect of it.
[01:02:15] >> Got it. >> Um and and so I was invited to this school for gifted boys. It was me and two of my buddies. I was 18. Mhm. >> We'd spend the morning doing Bible study because Clawson had written a book
[01:02:28] called The White Man's Bible, which again was inherently atheist, like going off. And I remember, so Clawson was this like daughtering old man that we we knew going to meet him that we weren't going to be really impressed by our, you know,
[01:02:42] to be really impressed by our, you know, rough street fighter kind of standards. rough street fighter kind of standards. But we meet him and he's like maybe 53 prototypical old man with his pants pulled up to his armpits like the little
[01:02:56] white golf shoes and he he talks like droopy dog. He's like the white race is like, >> "Yeah, this picture you're painting doesn't exactly sound like it's >> and we were like,
[01:03:12] all went back and we were all kind of snickering and laughing and we're like Ben Clawson. He's he started creativity, but he's just such a dork. Like he's just such a we didn't really respect him at all." And things got heated when
[01:03:29] first of all he he did there was no questioning anything in the white man's Bible. Everything he said would had to be just accepted as a law of physics. There was no questioning anything. And one of his things was that the planet
[01:03:42] >> Okay? >> And he was very adamant about this. He's >> And he was very adamant about this. He's like, exploring space is a waste of the white man's time. And so his plan was like we're going to conquer the entire
[01:03:55] planet Earth and then just it was going to be this wonderful whiter and brighter world and that was it. and we have no impetus to go looking elsewhere for places to live. And I was like, we had to call him Pontifix, too. He was the
[01:04:08] Pontifix maximist. So, I would raise my hand and I'd be like, but but Pontifix, you know, our our race is a race of explorers and conquerors. And once we've planet, doesn't it just make sense that we would go and explore and conquer
[01:04:22] we would go and explore and conquer space? And he would be like, "No, the planet Earth is the white race's one and only home." And he that was him getting really mad and I was like trying not to laugh at him and my buddies are trying
[01:04:35] not to laugh. But that that was like our mornings at the school for gifted boys. mornings at the school for gifted boys. And then in the afternoon they had these like crazy hillbilly mountain men who were like ex green berets and they would
[01:04:49] we'd spend the afternoon shooting like all kinds of guns which we loved. We brought all our guns and then after that we would go running through the Smoky Mountains like learning how to build and avoid man traps, how to evade people,
[01:05:04] how to do car bombs, how to >> repel down mine shafts and and that was a lot of fun. It was we loved it. >> How good were you at these things? >> I we were all very good at it. Uh me and my two buddies were all very athletic
[01:05:18] and we loved it. The the other like funny wild card in there was that there was like a counselor who was supposed to kind of keep us in line >> and it was this guy named AW and he he was maybe a couple years older than us
[01:05:33] but really kind of like not an alpha type like it it like if he have let him hang around if he had beer money but he probably would have got bullied and beat up. And and at the we get to the the school for gifted boys
[01:05:49] and they're like, "This is AW. He's going to be your boss." And we're like, >> Yeah. >> We we did not AW was not our boss. And and to to make matters worse, like all the repelling and climbing and swimming
[01:06:05] and all these things that we were really good at, AW was not good at any of them. spectacularly every time we tried to do something. And so he he became like the laughingstock of of me and my buddies and uh the
[01:06:21] Pontifix was getting angry about it by the end of the two weeks that we weren't the end of the two weeks that we weren't respecting AW and it was in in many ways it was really comical but at the same time it was really like diabolical and
[01:06:35] >> Oh yeah >> it it led me to to darker places from >> I I did feel a great deal of responsibility. Yeah. the the whole rave scene days was it was magical and it was very formulative and transformative in
[01:06:51] very formulative and transformative in the sense that I I literally hung out with the the polar opposite counterculture of where I was. >> How did you get into that? Uh I had one when I left the movement there I had one
[01:07:05] friend who was not in the movement and he he had dipped his toes in it for like I still kept in touch with him and he was my one non-skin head friend and I would hang out with him and he had a he wasn't in college but he lived kind of
[01:07:19] college kids and they had kind of a party house and I was over there every Saturday and I'm like wow this is crazy like people are having fun and nobody's fighting. Like just that kind of blew my mind. But then he started going to Ray
[01:07:35] parties in Chicago and he'd go every Saturday night and I he'd always invite Saturday night and I he'd always invite me and I'm like I I don't want to I can't dance like I really know how to dance on people's heads. I don't know I
[01:07:48] can't I couldn't picture myself dancing to techno or house music or I was like but I finally I got so tired of being alone every Saturday and I said fine I'll go. And so we went to one in Chicago. I wrote a chapter about it in
[01:08:01] my first book. And it was love at first sight. Like it it just absolutely blew my mind to see thousands and thousands of people spend like 12 14 hours of people spend like 12 14 hours together in this state of complete bliss
[01:08:17] where you literally felt like just like a cell in an organism like just and and there was like a genuine spiritual love >> between everyone there. Did you accept that right away or were you >> I did. Okay. I did. Yeah. I I've always
[01:08:33] Buddhist at heart that I there's always a bit of beginner's mind to me where I'm "Okay, I'm done with that. Hey, what's this?" Like, "Okay, I'm into this now." And and so it it wasn't hard. And also because it felt so good. It it it felt
[01:08:48] amazing to and at the time I still had it was before I had all my swastikas covered up. >> And at the time there people who forgave me and accepted me and said it didn't matter where I was. It mattered where I
[01:09:01] where I was in the past. It mattered where I was now. And the sweat out. >> Yeah. Well, it was I sweat like I'm in a
[01:09:14] $250,000 sweating contest. >> Been there before. So, like when I'm at a party and I'm dancing for a half hour, much less five hours, and and yes, there's substances involved. Like, I look like I jumped in a pool with my
[01:09:27] clothes on. And I my whole thing was like after a party, I'd ring my my my shirt out and the sweat would pour out of it and some of the more posh raver kids would like look at me and I'm like, "This ain't no fashion show. I'm here to
[01:09:40] dance." And and that that was like how much and the real down kids were like, much and the real down kids were like, "Yeah, Arto." But I it it was it was amazing because it was a proof of concept of how life could be and and
[01:09:52] people can love each other and we can transcend transcend >> all these bull differences of race and and that underneath it we're all human beings. Like the rave scene demonstrated
[01:10:06] that for me over and over and over again for almost another seven years. But I I really hadn't reconciled my past. And I and I wasn't I wasn't avoidant of it.
[01:10:18] There there was many like afterparties or after after parties where I'm still up 16 hours later and me and my buddies are drinking ice cold boons out of a cooler on the hill or something as the sun's setting after it already rised.
[01:10:33] I'm like, you know, I used to be a neonaut skin head. And I sometimes I'd tell some stories and be like, "Wow, that's crazy." So it's like I I was never shy about talking about it, but I I never had the idea to like really
[01:10:47] I I use the analogy of cleaning a wound. >> Okay. I was essentially like scrubbing the scabs off a spiritual wound that was actually a lot more painful than that actually a lot more painful than that physical process was because I had to go
[01:11:01] for years >> and and a wound that had never been properly cleaned because I I while I would talk about it here and there, I was mainly just avoiding it with substances and house music and partying
[01:11:15] and not really facing it. So now that I'm I'm clean and I I was clean at the time. I I use cannabis now moderately and responsibly, but back then I was I was just straight sober and I didn't have anything to mask or numb my past.
[01:11:31] And it sucked. It was it was really difficult. And and it was this morbid year. >> My daughter once again saved my life. Like she literally grabbed me by the collar and was like, "Dad, like I need a
[01:11:45] like, >> "How old was she at this point?" an adult. >> Yeah. Exactly. So, it was at her
[01:11:57] uh instigating like I I started writing and when I started writing, I started and when I started writing, I started feeling better about things and that eventually led to me going public with my story in 2010. And and so, but when I
[01:12:10] when I first did it, it was it was >> it was self-preservation. Mhm. past, I'm going to die. >> White power military camp that you went to was run by a group that by a guy that had invented something.
[01:12:22] >> Where does the funding for a lot of this movement these movements come from? Because >> it's an interesting question because in the late 1980s, early 1990s, there was no Kickstarter.
[01:12:37] no Kickstarter. There was no uh crowdfunding. It it really didn't exist. So back in those days, it really was up to individuals like Clawson who had managed to make some money somehow, which again is an
[01:12:53] outlier because when you hate Jews and you hate everyone who doesn't look like you and you're afraid of them, it's just not good >> Like you're not going to be successful at anything you do really. And so for
[01:13:09] and of course Henry Ford being a raging exception, but not to say it doesn't happen, but for the most part it it makes realizing that kind of success even more of an a long shot than it would be for any average person.
[01:13:25] >> So the only real funding I knew of back then was the money that Clawson had made. >> Okay. Uh we had a we had our own church we rented out >> and I think it cost like 4 or 500 a
[01:13:42] month or something and we all chipped in for that. And when I say we like we had probably 30 40 people that would all chip in
[01:13:54] >> and most of them for work. What were they doing or where is this money coming from? the the majority pretty much all of us just had menial low wage jobs doing whatever. >> Um so yeah, there weren't a lot of any
[01:14:07] >> Um so yeah, there weren't a lot of any like high wage earners involved in in my >> Um nowadays, while of course they're not going to allow you to do a white expressly white nationalist thing on Kickstarter, and
[01:14:20] thank God, more power to him for not allowing that. Uh there still are ways that white nationalists can raise can crowdsource
[01:14:32] crowdsource essentially from their online networks. >> Really? How so? >> Uh typically with cryptocurrency. >> Okay. >> But uh it it it really is it's type of
[01:14:44] thing where everybody chips in. It see same kind of concept like everybody's just chipping in where they can chip in. And uh unfortunately that does result in
[01:14:56] in quite a bit more funds being raised nowadays than there were in my day. >> And how does that affect things now that they're getting more money from other areas from crypto whatnot? >> It it kind of goes in into this
[01:15:12] whack-a-ole effect. So to give you a for example, I I've done a lot of work with like every big tech company there is >> and sadly this doesn't seem to be as
[01:15:24] much of a priority as it used to. But in in the the 2010s, um, big tech companies were were extremely concerned and very dedicated
[01:15:36] to make their platforms less conducive to the spread of hate. >> And I I've done a lot of talks at at these companies as part of that, a lot of workshops. And beyond just bringing
[01:15:50] people like me in, they would have uh quite sizable departments of their own who are dedicated to keep hate off the platform. What that results in, I can
[01:16:02] platform. What that results in, I can use YouTube for an example. Uh, YouTube use YouTube for an example. Uh, YouTube is is still sadly I think a a a very considerable vector for hate speech and hate ideology
[01:16:18] despite the fact that there's entire teams of people meant to keep that kind of content off of YouTube. But be that as it may, the more extreme as it may, the more extreme hate content that would get flagged and
[01:16:33] taken down off YouTube, it wants to it it needs to have some sort of other >> So, a lot of what this white nationalist crowdfunding does is they and over the years there has been like a white nationalist version of every popular
[01:16:48] social media that there is like a white nationalist Twitter, a white nationalist YouTube, a white nationalist Instagram, a white nationalist Facebook. So, when they get kicked out of all these the the conventional platforms, they go start
[01:17:02] their own platforms. But, and I learned this from working like with Google. Yeah. >> And and they it was it was funny and it and as an IT guy appreciate this as well that the Google people were saying like
[01:17:16] well when you go to start your own video streaming platform you realize that it can't really run off of uh a computer box in your basement. Like >> I was going to say yeah where where I mean starting up a tech company that's
[01:17:30] that? >> Exly. Well, a lot of these uh white nationalist similacrims of things like YouTube and whatnot tend to be really
[01:17:43] third rate, if not tenth rate knockoffs that can't perform properly and really don't function properly. So, it's it's kind of like the thought that counts type thing. And it it does none of them take off obviously the way that uh their
[01:17:59] conventional counterparts have. Mhm. >> But that that's definitely an issue >> But that that's definitely an issue nowadays and and I think uh going back to a kinetic approach and maybe not necessarily actual kinetic
[01:18:12] force being used but law enforcement pressure being put on uh domestic terrorists. And the other thing too is that the whole domestic terrorist label is kind of p in my opinion because any
[01:18:29] bad actor white nationalist group in the United States that is propagating hate and violence there there's none of them that aren't connected to other groups around the world >> which automatically qualifies them as a
[01:18:45] according to the letter of the law that laws that we have about terrorism and those laws are being exercised more and more often, which I I'm all in favor of.
[01:18:57] Um, and I I would want to see those laws prosecuted to the same degree that uh ISIS has been pursued by the CIA and by
[01:19:10] the FBI because these are groups that are every bit as dangerous >> and need to be taken every bit as seriously as as ISIS at all. And here here in the United States, how do you feel about the level of hate that and
[01:19:25] national discourse right now? Do you think it is heading in a which direction do you think it's heading again? >> I so I I learned a lot from my Punjabi
[01:19:38] friends after the sick temple shooting. This tattoo I have here is uh it says This tattoo I have here is uh it says Chardika in Hindi script actually. Chardika in Hindi script actually. Charikala is the belief. It translates
[01:19:53] loosely as relentless optimism. And I I witnessed this from the Punjabi community after the the temple shooting. Whereas even days after the shooting had happened and before people had even been buried, the people in the Punjabi
[01:20:07] community were saying like we're we're not going to hate anyone back. And chartikola means that everything happening in the world, good, bad, or ugly, is a divine creation. And therefore, it's something to be grateful
[01:20:20] for. So they're not necessarily grateful that their temple was attacked and grateful that seven people were killed, but they are grateful for the community that all showed up and and stood with them after it happened. They're grateful
[01:20:32] for all the connections that happened afterwards. Um my dear friend Parardep Singh Kalika his father Satwant was the aforementioned man who who was the last person killed that day. And Parardep and I have written a book together called
[01:20:46] all over the world. We've done a lot of work with young people. And again party is never going to be grateful for his father's murder. But he is grateful that him and I met. He's grateful for all the work we've been able to do. And I
[01:21:00] mention this just because if you ask me if I'm optimistic or not, I have to run through that in order to say like I'm going to find a way to be optimistic because we we we literally create the world we live in by
[01:21:14] the way we look at it. And I I think what makes me most pessimistic are these damn things, which I I brought out before, but screens are are
[01:21:29] well in the process of like killing human society. I believe when the more time we spend on a screen, the less time we spend talking with one another in person, actually engaging with people face to face,
[01:21:44] >> the more cut off we become from each other, the more isolated we become, and the more the easier it is to hate people. It was easy for me to hate people when I was a white nationalist as long as I I somebody wasn't handing me a
[01:21:58] >> How do you think you would have been today if you today if you if the dawn of the internet age and smartphones had been in the say 70s and 80s?
[01:22:11] >> It's it's hard to say. I I even as things were for me, I there were all sorts of planets that aligned to thank God lead me from that place. And I think if one of them would have been missing,
[01:22:25] if one of them would have been missing, >> I I could have became further embedded in the movement when that second murder happened instead of using it as as an happened instead of using it as as an excuse to leave. And the the danger of
[01:22:38] the screens is again talking about addiction when I was drinking like I had >> Mhm. >> The beer wasn't just in the air. I had to go to the liquor store and buy it. In Wisconsin, you can't get it after 9. So
[01:22:52] I had to plan. It all had to be obtained before 9:00 p.m. When you're addicted to hate, all you need is a screen and a data connection and you literally have
[01:23:04] are plugged into a mainline of all the hate you can possibly wallow in. At Parents for Peace, every single case we have is about
[01:23:16] little Joe pissed off white kid won't come out of his room. He's on the internet for hours and hours a day. The first thing we tell these parents and and this takes this can't be done in just one fell stroke. Typically, it
[01:23:28] takes a lot of maneuvering and getting into position and like how are we going to enforce this? But the first thing we tell them this kid's internet, he's never going to
[01:23:40] >> As long as he has access to the substance he's addicted to, he's going to be in the throws of the addiction. So what that brings me to in a larger scale if we're talking about our polarized society our societyy's polarized because
[01:23:55] of these screens >> I I society's always been polarized there looking back through history and and another really important thing that we always lose sight of I think because of the screens again is that there's so
[01:24:07] many things in human society at this moment in time right now that are exponentially better than they've ever been. People are living longer. there's le less infant mortality which means there's going to be more people again.
[01:24:20] So these are problems that these are good things that also kind of compound the problem but we we lose sight of like how much we have going for us and how great life is nowadays >> because these screens like keep clawing
[01:24:35] >> Got it. >> We're where rather than I have I have a as I mentioned I'm a Buddhist. I I've been meditating since 2009 and I started
[01:24:47] doing this recently like it actually since October 7th and it has helped me not be so as as it's helped me to not hate. tell me to not use
[01:24:59] and and that is I I it started out when I I just every night when I I get in bed when I get to that point where I'm all comfy and this pillow's in the right place and I got like a huggy pillow I'm hugging on that and just as I sit there
[01:25:14] hugging on that and just as I sit there I just think this is nice and I I just kind of just I just settle into that thought and and lately I I just The other night I I went to go last night I went to go see a movie at IFC
[01:25:29] Center. Favorite place to see a movie in New York and I was early so I just went down the street to the to a fountain and I sat there in front of the fountain. I put my phone in my pocket and I just stood looking at the fountain and and
[01:25:42] watching people walk by and just seeing life in New York and and again I just sat there and said, "This is nice." And I and I I literally I I feel a thrill just saying it now. Like I we as
[01:25:57] as a human species need to spend more time doing that. >> And I think if we can, there's no problem that we can't solve. But I I think the more we retreat into our screens and again it
[01:26:13] necessarily mean you're going to be a white nationalist but it might be mean you're a Republican who hates Democrats or a Democrat who hates Republicans or a capitalist who hates socialists or a Catholic who hates Protestants or a
[01:26:27] Protestant who hates Catholics, what have you. the the screens have you. the the screens exacerbate our our already innate human tribal tendency >> because it's an instant connection to
[01:26:40] whatever our tribe is to that Orwellian nationalism of saying like these are my bad guys. The bad guys can all go to hell. The good people are gonna, you know, we're we're this and and screens
[01:26:54] are exacerbating that. So I I I mentioned in the in the other BI piece mentioned in the in the other BI piece uh there there is a growing movement to uh not allow kids under 16 have smartphones
[01:27:07] >> and to get more kids out there playing in nature unsupervised getting their knees skinned doing stupid stuff >> and and realizing the consequences of it but it it's that that's what we need to grow up in into healthy people and the
[01:27:23] the way a a big factor in the growing radicalization and the growing pelarization again is and I I love Kevin that you you just you nailed it with laziness
[01:27:39] that does nail it and I think a lot of this laziness is we now have a generation of of human beings if not two generations of human beings who grew up generations of human beings who grew up on screens who who were conditioned from
[01:27:54] their earliest formulative minutes to expect an instant response. The second >> the second they touch this, they want to see something happen. They touch that, they want to see something else happen. If you hand them a a book, say, "Hey,
[01:28:08] read this great book." What? How am I gonna read a book? I I video. How am I gonna sit and read a book? So, it it's it's really like
[01:28:20] destroying our attention span. And it's making us expect instant gratification in everything. And that's why it makes it so much easier for white nationalists to approach Joe pissed-off white kid because Joe pissed off white kid was
[01:28:33] lazy in 1986 87. >> He still didn't want to do the work to that it takes to get a proper girlfriend. Nowadays, he's even lazier instantly because he's used to having it happen on a screen. Anything that
[01:28:47] requires imagination or effort or work, that's boring. That's a chore. That's hard to do. So th that's really what we're up against. I I think all of our societal polarization that we are experiencing
[01:29:02] is not about an ideology or another. It's not about socialism versus capitalism. It's not about oppressed versus oppressor. It's all about these screens conditioning us to expect things instantly and and not having the
[01:29:16] wherewithal to to put in work and to do what it takes to to accomplish great things. >> All right. Um I also want to ask you uh Johnny pissed off white boy. >> You have a very jovial uh presence about
[01:29:30] >> Doesn't kind of seem to fit with a Johnny pissed-off white boy. How do how do you the justosition of those two characters? H how do they work out? >> Well, I was certainly Johnny pissed off white kid. I white boy. I like Johnny
[01:29:43] pissed off white boy. That's good. I I always say Joe pissed off white kid, but white boy. I was Johnny pissed off white boy for sure. Uh and and I was it was because I was addicted to that kind of behavior. I I was in the throws of
[01:29:58] addiction. I was under the influence of antisocial behavior, under the influence of hate. And again, it's it's my greatest asset now. th this and and
[01:30:12] being real, I I have I I've lamented my physical issues I I deal with right now. destroyed, I have postconussion syndrome, which means chronic migraines, mood swings. Sometimes I like just I'd get frustrated
[01:30:27] to tears trying to tie my shoes. So, I have days where I wake up and I'm just like morbidly depressed >> and and knowing it's a physiological thing, I'm just like, "Okay, I just got to get through this day and then I'll be
[01:30:41] okay." And when I have days where I'm not morbidly depressed, I am overjoyed that I'm not in that in that place anymore. And and also again, this is nice. Like, there's so many little stupid things about life. every single
[01:30:56] day you could go through so many moments of this is nice and and when I do that not only does it make my life a much more enjoyable process but when I am talking to Johnny pissed-off white boy he sees that
[01:31:11] >> and and as much as he's going to cuss me out for being a traitor and or whatever he's this this and that I'm the scum of the earth no matter what he says or does I'm touching his heart with my presence
[01:31:26] just by demonstrating what happiness looks like. And another thing that I need to remind myself because believe me, I there are many days where I'm Johnny pissed-off white kid, boy, whatever you want to call him. I'm I'm
[01:31:40] done with dealing with these kids. I can't do it anymore. I want to go be a scuba instructor in Honduras." Like, to hell with all this. I I have to remind hell with all this. I I have to remind myself that quite often
[01:31:53] doesn't have a girlfriend. He's pissed off because he doesn't know what genuine happiness looks like. >> He's never seen it in his life. His parents were miserable. They they've never seen it in their lives. Like
[01:32:07] there's generational trauma happening. And when you again bring back in the compassion piece, I have to I have to have compassion for Joe or Johnny,
[01:32:19] whatever his name is going to be. I I have to bear witness to his suffering without judgment and just be there and be present for it and and let him know that I'm I'm here to help in in whatever way. And and what that involves is is a
[01:32:35] lot of listening to a whole lot of [ __ ] I don't want to hear. But but that listening creates a rapport that and and and again the more time I spend with this kid, the more he's going to see what genuine happiness looks like. And
[01:32:50] and honestly, that's all people, every human being, that's really all we want in our life is we want to be happy. We want to experience love. And if we haven't experienced those things, we're going to be pretty salty, not much fun
[01:33:03] >> Yeah, I agree. It's a nice thing that everybody should feel. Sure. had for today. Uh is there anything that you wanted to touch on or I mean we we've covered a pretty broad range of things here, but uh I I you excellent
[01:33:17] questions, Kevin. I I love how you led the conversation. I I don't think there's a whole lot more to cover. I would just like to reiterate that uh hate and violence are preventable, and that's what we do at Parents for Peace.
[01:33:30] parentsforpeace.org with the number four. at the website. We have a uh help email. We also have a toll-free North Americawide helpline at
[01:33:43] 84449 pac. When people call that number and they're concerned about a radicalized loved one, concerned about a radicalized loved one, we have a brilliant intake staff and if
[01:33:55] we feel it's a situation where we can help, we will begin a relationship with that family. Um our services are all completely pro bono. doesn't cost >> And can people call any time of day, any time night? Are you as a response time?
[01:34:09] >> We're manned in a 9 to5 session right now, but if people call after hours, it get us. All right, good. >> So, um we're not necessarily uh brain surgeons on call, but we're we're building up to that capacity. We're
[01:34:23] building up to that capacity. We're always uh if if people are in a space where they're able to help fund us, that that's what the funding goes to is to scale, build capacity. Eventually, we would love to have a 24-hour uh manned
[01:34:38] would love to have a 24-hour uh manned helpline and u increase the the scale of >> All right, thanks so much for joining us today and uh everyone that is So check them out. I'm your host Kevin Riley. Till next time.
[01:34:55] >> Hi, I'm a producer on authorized account. If you like this episode, then comment below with the names of people you'd love to hear us interview.