"Life After Hate", A Deep Insight From a Reformed White Supremacist

Christian Picciolini is an Emmy Award-winning director and producer, a published author, TEDx speaker, global peace advocate, and above all, a reformed white supremacist. On Tuesday, February 27th, the UConn Hillel in partnership with the Leadership Legacy Experience hosted Christian Picciolini in the Student Theatre to give his talk on the topic “Life After Hate”.

In the speech, Picciolini first discusses the white supremacy problem in the United States basing on his unique experience. As a former leader of a skinhead organization, he shares his insights of how the supremacist groups recruit people and why it is attractive to the young people. They utilizes the basic psychological need of young men for the identity, community and purpose, as he argues. Entering a supremacist group endows young men a sense of power and belongingness to a large community, which fulfills the "potholes" in their mind.

In addition, Picciolini talks how he get rid of the racism movement and how he help 120 other people to do the same. The most important part to change someone in mind, he says, is not to yell at them or to argue with them, but to listen. In order to help the people in the racism groups, Picciolini emphasizes the influences of the compassionate and sympathy. As he argues that, young people turn to white supremacist groups when they experience “potholes”. And he listens for these “potholes” and tries to fill them in.

Then the next step is to introduce them to the the people they hate. The white supremacists usually do not know the people they condemned, Picciolini says. Thus, simply showing the similarities of all human beings will moderate the hate. He talks about his experience helping a veterans who has attended the Afghan war. The veterans hated the Muslim so much though he never met a Muslim before. As he said: "Muslims will kill me and bomb my house, why should I met them?". After patiently listening to the hatred and rage of him, Picciolini arranged a meeting for the veteran with a priest in the local Muslim church. Surprisingly, they found lots of commons in each other and became good friends later. As Picciolini points up that the hate is generated by the misunderstanding.

(Picture from Daily Campus. http://dailycampus.com/stories/2018/2/27/life-after-hate-why-do-people-turn-to-white-supremacy-and-how-can-we-help-them-escape-it)

Picciolini grew up in the Chicago in a Italian immigration family running a restaurant. The business of his parents keep them away from home 7 days a week. In the former 14 years of Picciolini life, he strived to fit in the American cultures and local communities but still failed and became an outsider. The abundant of communities is the "potholes" of Picciolini mind, which drives him to the local white supremacist organization, the Chicago Area Skinheads (CASH) when he was recruited by the group founder Clark Martell.

In the group, he was taught the superiority of his European heritage and began to blame all of his problem to other people like Jews, blacks, latinos, gays. The group endows him the perception of power, which is what he is long waiting for. As Picciolini said that, When he walked in the street with a skinhead and boots, those who tormented him become frighted. Them he gradually became the leader of the organization and set up all kinds of racism activities.

It was no until he was 19 years old had Picciolini decided to quit, when he just got married and became the father of a son. After tons of difficulties, he eventually managed to get a job with IBM installing networks on school computers. The real transition of his life happened when he was put to his old high school in the first day of job, where he saw the black security guard that he had bullied and attacked physically many times. Knowing that he is unable to continue his job without confronting his past, he approached the security guard, confessing and apologizing to him, which finally endows him the forgiveness from the guard. This experience set his life back on the right tract and inspired him to help other people like him by sharing his stories.

Though as Picciolini admits, his methods are unable to fix the systematic bug that caused the white supremacy, I believe that he is making things better through his own efforts, especially by sharing his stories in different platforms. The activities such as the talk of Picciolini is a moral reminder for us to be rational and critical in the racism problems. It reminds us to stop purely blaming those young people turning to the racism and violent extremism. Instead of that, we are proposed to focus more on filling their psychological “pothole” and avoid them to be utilized by the racism group.

In addition, the moral remind like what Picciolini does in his speech, is essential to develop people’s good character. As Christian B. Miller, Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, emphasizes the effect of moral reminders on changing the bad behaviors of individuals. In his new book "The Character Gap: How Good Are We?”, Prof. Miller argues that “often we know the right thing to do, but we get distracted or lose sight of what really matters. Moral reminders help get us back on track. And the more often we are reminded, the more natural it will be to think of what is right and wrong the next time" (Wall Street Journal). Therefore, I authentically hope that there will be more positive activities like the talk from Picciolini as well as more advertisement of them in the universities and the broader range of the society.

Quotation & Reference

WSJ: “Science-Tested Tips to Be a Better Person”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/science-tested-tips-to-be-a-better-person-1515169638

Daily Campus: “Life After Hate: Why do people turn to white supremacy and how can we help them escape it?”

http://dailycampus.com/stories/2018/2/27/life-after-hate-why-do-people-turn-to-white-supremacy-and-how-can-we-help-them-escape-it