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Speaker 1: If you have your own story of being in a

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Speaker 1: cult or a high control group.

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Speaker 2: Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power

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Speaker 2: that you'd like to share.

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Speaker 1: Leave us a message on our hotline number at three

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Speaker 1: four seven eight six trust.

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Speaker 2: That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight, or.

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Speaker 1: Showed us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.

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Speaker 2: Trust me.

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Speaker 1: Trust me.

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Speaker 3: I'm like a swat person.

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Speaker 4: I've never lived. To you, I never live.

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Speaker 2: If you think that one person has all the answers,

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Speaker 2: don't welcome to trust me. The podcast about could extreme

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Speaker 2: belief and manipulation from two future memoirists who've actually experienced it.

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Speaker 2: I am Lola Blanc.

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Speaker 1: And I'm Megan Elizabeth.

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Speaker 2: Today, our guest is, finally, after years of dming, our

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Speaker 2: Derek Black, former poster child for white supremacy, now turned

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Speaker 2: anti racist advocate and author of the new memoir At

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Speaker 2: the Klansman's Son. So Derek, who actually came out as

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Speaker 2: trans in this book, is going to walk us through

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Speaker 2: the white supremacy movement and where it stands now, what

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Speaker 2: it was like growing up in this movement and being

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Speaker 2: very close to prominent neo Nazi David Duke, how they

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Speaker 2: were taught and believed that the whole world simply misunderstood

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Speaker 2: there's scientifically correct ideology, and speaking to the press and

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Speaker 2: becoming a public facing figure of racism as a child.

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Speaker 1: They'll tell us about hosting a white nationalist radio show,

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Speaker 1: going off to college, and how they began hanging out

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Speaker 1: with the Jewish girl there who had no idea about

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Speaker 1: this double life they've been leading. Say tune next week

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Speaker 1: to find out how their diverse friend group responded when

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Speaker 1: they found out Derek was a white supremacist poster child,

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Speaker 1: and how they began finally to deconstruct their racist beliefs.

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Speaker 2: There is so much to unpack here in this episode

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Speaker 2: and next week's episode. I'm personally just fascinated in how

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Speaker 2: you can go from such an extreme and deconstruct that

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Speaker 2: and what that process is like. And we will talk

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Speaker 2: about it, and it did involve some very kind and

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Speaker 2: patient people before we jump in. Say I said jump

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Speaker 2: and said, a die, I feel like that. Oh my god,

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Speaker 2: can you tell me your cultiest thing of the week.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, as the world continues to dissolve around

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Speaker 1: me and all these two by two things are coming

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Speaker 1: out and everything. I delved into my own psyche and said,

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Speaker 1: do I have a cult leader? Is there somebody that

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Speaker 1: I really would struggle seeing as bad? And I have

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Speaker 1: to admit mine is whim Hoff. He's just like Dutch

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Speaker 1: dude who teaches you breathing techniques and makes you get

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Speaker 1: in cold water and shit, I don't do the cold water,

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Speaker 1: but I do like his breathing techniques.

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Speaker 2: I only know him for the cold water. I actually

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Speaker 2: kind of thought that was the only thing. So, but

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Speaker 2: there's like other breathing stuff that people like or whatever.

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Speaker 1: I do his like ten minute breathing thing every morning.

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Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with it. There's something about him that is

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Speaker 1: so calming to me. He's just I really love him.

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Speaker 1: So I was like, ugh, if somebody were to be

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Speaker 1: like wim Hof did this to me or whatever, I

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Speaker 1: would be so sad. And then lo and behold this

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Speaker 1: week in the news, like my family member, like several

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Speaker 1: people have died doing the breathing in the cold water.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, is this a new thing or had

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Speaker 2: this been happening? Like what I.

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Speaker 1: Mean, it's the first time I'm reading about it, But

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Speaker 1: I'm sure if people are plunging themselves into ice, cold water.

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Speaker 1: It could happen, although the ones I've been reading about

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Speaker 1: this week are more about the breath. But yeah, I've

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Speaker 1: gone to like cryotherapy and frozen the shit out of myself,

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Speaker 1: and I do these breath exercises every morning. So I

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Speaker 1: don't know, Man, I can't leave this colt. But I

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Speaker 1: see the warning signs.

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Speaker 2: I mean, anytime you're gonna put your body through some

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Speaker 2: extreme physical circumstances, I think there are going to be

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Speaker 2: risks there. I'd be curious to hear exactly what happened,

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Speaker 2: but I mean I'm not shocked. Especially the way that

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Speaker 2: people do revere him is like I feel like people

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Speaker 2: do taut that stuff as kind of a cure all,

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Speaker 2: which is always, you know, alarming, because as we know,

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Speaker 2: not everything is for everyone. But also, if you love

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Speaker 2: cold water, cold ice baths and it's not dangerous.

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Speaker 1: For you, nobody loves it, but it is you know, like,

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Speaker 1: once you're in the freezing cold, you do have a

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Speaker 1: freedom from your emotions because you're so cold, you aren't

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Speaker 1: feeling anything anymore. So it's kind of like a little

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Speaker 1: break from yourself.

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Speaker 2: Right Anything that kind of gets you back into your

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Speaker 2: body and out of your head can be useful for

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Speaker 2: that reason. I the closest I came to that was

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Speaker 2: in Norway. They have these saunas and oslo that are

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Speaker 2: right on the edge of the water, so when the

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Speaker 2: water's freezing freaking cold, you jump in the water and

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Speaker 2: then you go in the sauna. But I personally was like,

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Speaker 2: why am I in here? I don't like this at all.

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Speaker 2: I am immediately getting out and going into the sauna.

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Speaker 2: I don't. Yeah, but you know, Jack loved it. Jack

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Speaker 2: stayed there for a frankly a dangerous amount of time. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: whim Hoff, Yeah, who would have thought? What about you?

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Speaker 1: What's your cultiest thing this week?

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Speaker 2: Well, I've been busy, so I have very little culty

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Speaker 2: things other than just being on set. But I did

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Speaker 2: notice that there is a new Jonestown documentary which I

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Speaker 2: have not watched. I honestly was a little put off

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Speaker 2: by the title called Cult Massacre When Dan in Jonestown.

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Speaker 2: It's quite a sensationalizing title, which I don't personally love.

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Speaker 2: But you actually watched it, right.

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Speaker 1: I watched it, and it is really well done. I

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Speaker 1: thought they show what the church was like before it

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Speaker 1: moved to Jonestown and became way more culty, and you're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I can totally see why somebody would join that, And

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Speaker 1: I like that they start referring to the deaths as

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Speaker 1: homicides not suicides.

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Speaker 2: Right because they were coerced. Nobody would have decided on

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Speaker 2: their own to up and you know, take their own lives.

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Speaker 2: That was coercive, essentially forced upon them, and a.

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Speaker 1: Lot of people were being held down and just this

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Speaker 1: squirt it in their mouth, like some of them had

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Speaker 1: needles in their back where somebody had ejected it into them.

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Speaker 2: Like it's just a full on murder. Wow. Wow. Maybe

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Speaker 2: I've mentioned this before, but one of the original things

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Speaker 2: that made me want to start this podcast with you

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Speaker 2: in the first place was seeing a YouTube video on

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Speaker 2: jonestown and seeing the comments about how stupid everybody was,

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Speaker 2: and it infuriated me so much because I was like,

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Speaker 2: you know, having obviously gone through what I'd gone through

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Speaker 2: with my mom, I was like, y'all don't get it.

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Speaker 2: This could be you. And so it's nice to hear

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Speaker 2: that despite a title like cult massacre, which again I

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Speaker 2: hate that, they're actually showing why people joined, how it

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Speaker 2: happened slowly, the coercion and actual force. It sounds like

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Speaker 2: that was happening. Yeah, so that's good because I do

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Speaker 2: think those survivors and those who did not survive also

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Speaker 2: like those are portrayals that we need to see because

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Speaker 2: also there have been horror movies about that cult, you know,

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Speaker 2: just kind of it's just making taking away everyone's humanity.

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Speaker 2: And I don't like that me either, but I'm curious

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Speaker 2: to see and yeah, I'll report back on my thoughts.

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Speaker 1: Okay, wonderful.

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Speaker 2: Shall we talk to Derek. Let's do it. Welcome Derek

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Speaker 2: Black to trust me. Finally we have you on. Thank

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Speaker 2: you so much for joining us.

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Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me. I'm really glad to

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Speaker 3: finally be here. We've been talking for like a year

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Speaker 3: and a half or something like a really.

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Speaker 2: Long time, A long time. I have just finished your book.

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Speaker 2: I was absolutely transfixed. I'm so glad that you wrote this.

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Speaker 2: I think it's such an important book. Can you just

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Speaker 2: start us off before we kind of get into your

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Speaker 2: personal story by giving us some background on the modern

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Speaker 2: white nationalist movement, where it kind of started, where it

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Speaker 2: is right now, and where it was when you were

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Speaker 2: a child.

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Speaker 3: Sure, so it is a first of off a social movement.

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Speaker 3: It's not just racism. I think sometimes people think that

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Speaker 3: anti immigration or anti semitism of racism like white nationalism,

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Speaker 3: and it's much more organized and structure than that.

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Speaker 4: It's an actual.

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Speaker 3: Movement where people know each other and they don't join

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Speaker 3: any particular organization typically or they have lots of different

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Speaker 3: little organizations that are a part of the broader movement,

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Speaker 3: but they consider themselves to have this identity where white

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Speaker 3: nationalists or white power is the way they see themselves.

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Speaker 4: They marry people within the movement.

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Speaker 3: Most of my babysitters where people from the movement. Most

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Speaker 3: of my friends when I was growing up were kids

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Speaker 3: of my parents' friends. And they don't tend to live

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Speaker 3: in the same place. They live just anywhere where people live,

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Speaker 3: like they're spread out. If you do like a heat

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Speaker 3: map of where white nationalists live, it's like every suburban

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Speaker 3: city in any place in the United States. They have

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Speaker 3: regular jobs. They don't look different. They're not like you know,

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Speaker 3: people with shaved heads and tattoos. There's no way to

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Speaker 3: recognize them. They can often be reasonably polite, you know,

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Speaker 3: quite often normally, like I think people work with white

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Speaker 3: nationalists in their offices all the time and have no idea.

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Speaker 3: It's not a thing where racism is like spottable, I guess,

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Speaker 3: and its history is it's really formed in the nineteen

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Speaker 3: fifties pretty intentionally that there were a lot of different

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Speaker 3: organizations in the United States and Europe that considered themselves

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Speaker 3: to be like adherents of white supremacy essentially, although that's

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Speaker 3: a little complicated because they'll emphasize that it's about separation,

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Speaker 3: not superiority, but they come from a white supremacist society.

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Speaker 4: They believe that race is this real thing.

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Speaker 3: They think all races need to be separated, and they

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Speaker 3: think that white people are just like them, are the best.

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Speaker 3: And so in the nineteen fifties you're like Nazi organizations,

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Speaker 3: and you had Ku Klux Klan organizations, and you had

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Speaker 3: some of the early underground music groups that kind of

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Speaker 3: become skinheads, and just a broad array of like marginal

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Speaker 3: Christian organizations and people from all these different sort of

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Speaker 3: ideologies that were white supremases but hated each other and

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Speaker 3: saw each other as being like different classes or as

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Speaker 3: being a foreign thing or unpatriotic or something where they

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Speaker 3: just didn't get along.

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Speaker 4: They were like, we're not that, and.

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Speaker 3: What happened over the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties and

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Speaker 3: especially in the seventies was creating this sort of like

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Speaker 3: consensus umbrella organization, and again not member organization, but like

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Speaker 3: movement organization, where people could iron out their differences and

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Speaker 3: see themselves as a part of the same white power movement,

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Speaker 3: even if they were radical violent revolutionaries, or if they

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Speaker 3: were people who ran for office and were in politics,

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Speaker 3: or they had a lot of money and considered themselves

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Speaker 3: sort of like upper class. They could all sort of

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Speaker 3: see themselves as moving towards the same future and reading

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Speaker 3: the same books and literature. And my family were really

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Speaker 3: central to that. They got involved when they were teenagers

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Speaker 3: in the nineteen sixties and were really in the midst

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Speaker 3: of trying to create that kind of big umbrella.

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Speaker 2: Your parents' origin is fast, and so your mother was

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Speaker 2: married to David Duke before she was married to your father.

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Speaker 4: If she had.

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Speaker 3: David met in college, and my dad and David also

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Speaker 3: met when they were going to different colleges, and so

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Speaker 3: the three of them knew each other. But my dad

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Speaker 3: was also four years younger than her, and so at

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Speaker 3: that time I think it was a bigger thing for.

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Speaker 2: A younger folks maybe don't know who David Duke is.

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Speaker 2: Can you kind of explain who he is?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 3: So his longer history is like he met as a

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Speaker 3: teenager with my dad and then got heavily involved in

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Speaker 3: originally neo Nazis, and then they founded a Ku Klux

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Speaker 3: Klan organization in the seventies that tried to mainstream the

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Speaker 3: clan again in a way that it had been like

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Speaker 3: in the nineteen twenties, is what they were going for,

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Speaker 3: And they tried to wear suits and ties and run

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Speaker 3: for office and be seem sort of mainstream and sort

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Speaker 3: of use that branding. And then eventually they decided that

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Speaker 3: it was impossible that it was so associated with violence,

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Speaker 3: and they didn't want to be seen as like vigil

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Speaker 3: anti violence. They wanted to be seen as politics, and

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Speaker 3: so David quit the clan sort of gave it to that,

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Speaker 3: this particular clan organization, and then my dad took it

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Speaker 3: over for a few years, and then David started running

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Speaker 3: for office and he ran and won in this big

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Speaker 3: famous election in the late late eighties early nineties where

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Speaker 3: Ronald Reagan condemned him and George the first George Bush,

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Speaker 3: who was actively president, condemned him, and he still won

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Speaker 3: in Louisiana, and it was this big international thing.

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Speaker 4: And then he ran.

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Speaker 3: Again for governor and senator in Louisiana and he lost

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Speaker 3: those elections, but he won like sixty percent of the

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Speaker 3: white boat in Louisiana, even being this person who used

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Speaker 3: to be a Nazi, who used to be in the clan,

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Speaker 3: who was still a white nationalist. And so I was

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Speaker 3: like tiny. I was born after he won that election,

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Speaker 3: and I grew up with my family having this sense

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Speaker 3: that there is political possibilities here. He has demonstrated it.

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Speaker 3: It just needs to sort of find the right place

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Speaker 3: and the right message and the right idea, and they

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Speaker 3: just need to sort of be built, holding up resources

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Speaker 3: and sort of holding out for a time when they'll

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Speaker 3: be true again.

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Speaker 2: What's really interesting reading about your family's sort of ideology

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Speaker 2: and your community from that time of your life is

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Speaker 2: that there is this, like you said, mainstreaming, this desire

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Speaker 2: to go mainstream and to kind of be seen as

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Speaker 2: serious people and educated and worth and respectable. You talked

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Speaker 2: in your book about how you noticed they would sort

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Speaker 2: of try to distance themselves from this idea of violence

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Speaker 2: but then would still be kind of saying good things

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Speaker 2: about Hitler. And ultimately, like so many of these ideas,

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Speaker 2: eventually lead there. How did you understand that growing up?

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Speaker 2: Did you understand violence as an inevitable end or what

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Speaker 2: did you believe and what did your family believe?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that was always even as a little kid, that

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Speaker 3: was the thing that felt the most conflicting and confusing,

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Speaker 3: because my family made a lot of overtures to say

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Speaker 3: that they were against violence, condemned violence. My dad had

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Speaker 3: before I was born, tried to with some other white

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Speaker 3: nationalist mercenaries, tried to overthrow the island of Dominica and

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Speaker 3: sort of replace the government. And so this idea that

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Speaker 3: he was fully separate from violence was clearly untrue.

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Speaker 4: But the man that I knew.

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Speaker 3: Was much more calm and sedate and regretted that and

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Speaker 3: talked about how politics was the way, and you.

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Speaker 4: Know, he was very peaceful and loving. He was a

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Speaker 4: very loving parent.

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Speaker 3: And so when I was growing up, I tried to

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Speaker 3: be a spokesperson for the cause, Like I gave my

283
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Speaker 3: first interview when I was ten, and I started a

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Speaker 3: white nationalist website a few months before that, and it

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Speaker 3: was this sort of contradiction. As a kid, that was

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Speaker 3: really hard to square that they would say, oh, you know,

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Speaker 3: we hate violence, absolutely condemned violence. It's banned on the website,

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Speaker 3: and yet things like the Oklahoma City bombing was perpetrated

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Speaker 3: by a person who's motivated by white nationalists, anti government stuff,

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Speaker 3: and people were regularly talking about the violence and danger

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Speaker 3: of this.

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Speaker 4: Movement in the media when they would come I talk

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Speaker 4: to my dad.

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Speaker 3: And then even within that, a lot of the heroes

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Speaker 3: within this movement are people who were like assassins and

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Speaker 3: vigilantes and people who robbed banks and murderers, and those

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Speaker 3: people would be like mildly, you know, oh, you shouldn't

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Speaker 3: overemphasize them, or you shouldn't talk to the press too

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Speaker 3: much about them, but they were still clearly heroes within

300
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Speaker 3: the movement, and people historical people like Hitler were clearly

301
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Speaker 3: major heroes in my family, as like the ideal government

302
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Speaker 3: or something.

303
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Speaker 4: And yet this was something that.

304
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Speaker 3: Everywhere else in the world was very clear was dangerous

305
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Speaker 3: and violent and persecution. And like as a kid, I

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Speaker 3: remember just like not understanding how to square the idea.

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Speaker 3: They're like, well, okay, they are my family are not

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Speaker 3: violent themselves, which felt like the core thing to me,

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Speaker 3: and they said that they condemned violence, and so there's

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Speaker 3: got to be like a community misunderstanding or people just

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Speaker 3: don't quit. I'd understand the symbolism or something like that

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Speaker 3: was my like adolescent Yeah, trying to.

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Speaker 1: The cognitive dissonance must have been extreme. One of the

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Speaker 1: things that I find really interesting about your story is

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Speaker 1: that you were kind of like receiving a bunch of

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Speaker 1: hate on this website that you're doing, and it seemed

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Speaker 1: like you were able to handle it extremely well, like

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Speaker 1: it didn't really bother you.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it really bothered me, but it was, like

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Speaker 3: I think the main thing I look back on is

321
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Speaker 3: like my family had this sense that like really a

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Speaker 3: persecution complex. It was the sense that, oh, people call

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Speaker 3: them hateful, but like look at these really like they

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Speaker 3: got like genuinely visceral death threats and I got like

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Speaker 3: rape threats when I was a little kid, and people

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Speaker 3: would like call and try to describe what I looked

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Speaker 3: like physically and like say they were going to kill me.

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Speaker 3: And it was really like eleven years old and just

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Speaker 3: seeing that sort of stuff, and then it really accorded

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Speaker 3: with my family's sense.

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Speaker 4: Of well, you know, who's the haters here? Who are

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Speaker 4: the persecutors here?

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Speaker 3: And that's how they really saw themselves, And so I

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Speaker 3: was able to lean into this sort of like we've

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Speaker 3: got each other's backs, like the rest of the world

336
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Speaker 3: doesn't understand us, which is what something I was kind

337
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Speaker 3: of surprised to see myself say on like TV in

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Speaker 3: that first interview. I was like, Oh, they don't understand us,

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Speaker 3: and I felt terrible for ten year old me, and

340
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Speaker 3: we're the only ones who like understand and support each

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Speaker 3: other and protect each other, like that was the idea.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes sense. I mean it sounds like what

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Speaker 2: so many colts do, which is anyone who's against us

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Speaker 2: means we're being persecuted, and that reinforces my identity as

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Speaker 2: someone who's in the right, you know, especially when I

346
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Speaker 2: have this community around me saying, you know, where we

347
00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:49,080
Speaker 2: all agree with each other. So much of your childhood

348
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Speaker 2: was really centered around this ideology, right, Like it wasn't

349
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Speaker 2: like a side hop. Yeah, like this is what your

350
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Speaker 2: parents did, or at least what your dad did. Can

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Speaker 2: you just talk about like what that actually looked like,

352
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Speaker 2: Like what was your childhood Like?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I grew up in South Florida, and so

354
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Speaker 3: like I think immediately it already wasn't quite with Sometimes

355
00:18:08,080 --> 00:18:10,760
Speaker 3: people assume, like you grew up in like a rural area,

356
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Speaker 3: or like live in a I don't know, just somewhere

357
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Speaker 3: that's not relatively urban, multi racial, diverse, pretty Jewish South Florida.

358
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Speaker 3: And my mother's family had lived there for a couple

359
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Speaker 3: of generations, and so that my dad married her, and

360
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Speaker 3: they always wanted to leave because they hated how diverse

361
00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:31,040
Speaker 3: it was, but they stayed there, and so I grew

362
00:18:31,119 --> 00:18:34,280
Speaker 3: up there, and both of my parents were really committed

363
00:18:34,320 --> 00:18:38,159
Speaker 3: to the ideology, and they also hadn't expected to have me,

364
00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:41,240
Speaker 3: because they got married later in life. My mother was

365
00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:43,520
Speaker 3: forty when I was born, and I always sort of

366
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Speaker 3: got the impression that everybody was shocked and did not

367
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Speaker 3: expect a kid to happen here. And so there was

368
00:18:49,160 --> 00:18:53,080
Speaker 3: always this sense of like I was born after a

369
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,040
Speaker 3: lot of the stuff they had done, and it was

370
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Speaker 3: like the passion of their lives was building this movement,

371
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Speaker 3: and now I was here too.

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Speaker 4: It was like that feeling, and.

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Speaker 3: So I was being raised with this sense that like

374
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:07,480
Speaker 3: they are central to this movement and people were coming

375
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:09,080
Speaker 3: over to the house when I was a kid for

376
00:19:09,119 --> 00:19:12,280
Speaker 3: their Christmas parties and sort of talking strategy, and it

377
00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:15,040
Speaker 3: was clear that they were very central and very important

378
00:19:15,080 --> 00:19:18,760
Speaker 3: to this. My dad's full time work was doing the movement.

379
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Speaker 4: He started the.

380
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:24,040
Speaker 3: First white nationalist website in the mid nineties, and it

381
00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:27,760
Speaker 3: just became he always had people coming over and to interview.

382
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Speaker 4: Him, like major news. He had an office at the

383
00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:31,800
Speaker 4: end of the house, and so when I was.

384
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Speaker 3: Really little, I watched him give those interviews, and that's

385
00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:36,560
Speaker 3: the thing that made me want to When I was ten,

386
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Speaker 3: you know, I want to help I want to do this.

387
00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:39,320
Speaker 4: I understand this.

388
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Speaker 3: And I was this kid who kind of only was

389
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Speaker 3: talking to adults too. There were no other like kids around.

390
00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:47,359
Speaker 3: It was like the adults of the white nationalist movement

391
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Speaker 3: coming over and I would sit there and talk to them,

392
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Speaker 3: and I thought I understood and I did understand their ideology.

393
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:58,560
Speaker 3: I was like a little, uh, preditor, natural kid, who could,

394
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Speaker 3: you know, explain they're like worldview ideology back to them

395
00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:03,400
Speaker 3: when I was like eight and so I think they

396
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:08,200
Speaker 3: all really liked that, and I felt like I believed it,

397
00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:09,080
Speaker 3: but I also.

398
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Speaker 4: Felt like, oh, I want to make them proud.

399
00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:13,119
Speaker 3: I want to speak up for them. And it was

400
00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:16,520
Speaker 3: increasingly from that point that I was sort of traveling

401
00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:19,359
Speaker 3: with my dad going to white nationalist conferences, which are

402
00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:22,920
Speaker 3: also not maybe what people would expect. They're usually posted

403
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:26,760
Speaker 3: in business hotels and they have speakers, and a lot

404
00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:30,400
Speaker 3: of those speakers like tenured professors who are out, you know,

405
00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:32,879
Speaker 3: out as like white supremacists, but they're tenured, so they

406
00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:35,359
Speaker 3: sort of stay in their position and they have this

407
00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:38,600
Speaker 3: sense that they're like credentialed, but then they just go

408
00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:41,600
Speaker 3: off and say a bunch of weird fake science. And

409
00:20:41,960 --> 00:20:43,959
Speaker 3: it was this kind of like, oh, this is culture,

410
00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:47,359
Speaker 3: this is sophisticated, this isn't you know what anybody thinks

411
00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:49,440
Speaker 3: it is, which I think as a kid really made

412
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:52,040
Speaker 3: me feel like, wow, they just don't know like this

413
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:53,119
Speaker 3: idea and that's.

414
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Speaker 2: I'm meeting in a barn.

415
00:20:54,760 --> 00:20:57,040
Speaker 1: Like did you have a sense And maybe this was

416
00:20:57,119 --> 00:20:59,920
Speaker 1: unconscious that you were like a prophet in some way,

417
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:04,040
Speaker 1: this like surprised baby coming through that like like things

418
00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:06,800
Speaker 1: were like like put on your shoulders a little bit.

419
00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:08,240
Speaker 4: I don't really know.

420
00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:12,199
Speaker 3: I think my full answer to that is with the

421
00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:16,280
Speaker 3: covey that my family are atheists, like really explicitly atheists.

422
00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:19,280
Speaker 3: They had this sense of that was like apocalyptic, that

423
00:21:19,359 --> 00:21:22,680
Speaker 3: they saw the future like not in a mystical way,

424
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:24,879
Speaker 3: not in a like we predict the future, in a

425
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,760
Speaker 3: way where they're like, yep, all the political trends are

426
00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:32,800
Speaker 3: going a certain direction like that kind of foreseeing violence

427
00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:35,639
Speaker 3: and civil war and destruction and like this country is

428
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:38,360
Speaker 3: going to fall apart, and they're just like absolutely committed

429
00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:40,280
Speaker 3: they know this is going to happen, and they're not

430
00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:42,640
Speaker 3: even like immediately, they're like some point in then that's

431
00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:45,000
Speaker 3: like thirty years. Is kind of that sort of belief

432
00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:49,239
Speaker 3: that they are just absolutely staunchly right about this and

433
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:52,680
Speaker 3: it's going to be like racial conflict and white people

434
00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:54,840
Speaker 3: are going to become very militant, like that was their view.

435
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:58,840
Speaker 3: And so already they had this idea that they understand

436
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,679
Speaker 3: the past the future better than most people do, and

437
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 3: they just have this responsibility to get other people to

438
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 3: understand it, to sort of get on board with the

439
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,280
Speaker 3: movement to sort of like at the very best.

440
00:22:11,359 --> 00:22:12,440
Speaker 4: Sometimes my dad would.

441
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:14,639
Speaker 3: Say, oh, you know, if he's successful, he'll like prevent

442
00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:16,920
Speaker 3: this civil war from happening. He can sort of create

443
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:19,800
Speaker 3: a like racial white national nation and then there won't

444
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:22,199
Speaker 3: be a big conflict like that. That was like his

445
00:22:22,359 --> 00:22:25,520
Speaker 3: best vision for how things would be peaceful. And so

446
00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:28,240
Speaker 3: when I was born and growing up, I think they're

447
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 3: all surprised that I was so engaged and it didn't

448
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 3: feel like people coerced me into it. I think that's

449
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,280
Speaker 3: something I want to emphasize that it wasn't. My dad

450
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 3: always asked me.

451
00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:40,480
Speaker 4: Over and over like do you want to do the interview?

452
00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:43,000
Speaker 3: Even like each one, not even like oh, you've started,

453
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,600
Speaker 3: now you have to. It was like you know, you

454
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:47,280
Speaker 3: cannot do it, And sometimes I didn't.

455
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:50,680
Speaker 4: There would be like an interview where we ended.

456
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 3: Up being like an HBO documentary that it was really

457
00:22:54,200 --> 00:22:56,680
Speaker 3: it felt mean to me, like it was showing pictures

458
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,000
Speaker 3: of lynchings and it felt scary, and I was a kid,

459
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:00,680
Speaker 3: and I really didn't like that I was in it,

460
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:03,680
Speaker 3: and so I refused to do anymore after that. And

461
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:06,439
Speaker 3: then some interview crews came who were really kind and

462
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:08,520
Speaker 3: were like trying to understand me, and I was like, well,

463
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 3: now I regret it, and then so I started doing

464
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:12,800
Speaker 3: it again, and my dad would always leave the room

465
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 3: when I would give an interview he would always like

466
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 3: he like explicitly, he didn't want me to feel like

467
00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 3: he was like watching me or trying to catch me

468
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 3: in something. He wanted to make sure that I felt

469
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:24,240
Speaker 3: like I could say whatever I wanted. Also, the person

470
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:26,199
Speaker 3: like talking to me could know that I felt like

471
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:27,399
Speaker 3: I could say whatever I wanted.

472
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 4: That I felt like freedom so.

473
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 1: Much more confusing Almost all time, I made.

474
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:35,160
Speaker 3: It so much worse because you know, if you see

475
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:36,919
Speaker 3: where it's going, it's like I get to be a

476
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:39,679
Speaker 3: teenager and a later teen and I'm like, especially at

477
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 3: the point when I was like, you know, eventually I

478
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:43,240
Speaker 3: go to college. I went to college and like, you know,

479
00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 3: got exposed to things that condemned it. But my feeling

480
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:48,639
Speaker 3: was like I am fully responsible for all of that.

481
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 3: I made all these decisions, and I couldn't din't even

482
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 3: have this sense that I could be like, oh, you know,

483
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 3: it was brainwashed. I was like exposed, I was forced

484
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:57,760
Speaker 3: to do any of this. I was like, I made

485
00:23:57,760 --> 00:23:59,439
Speaker 3: all these choices along the way, and I need to

486
00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 3: live with it responsibility.

487
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 4: And so I started almost developing that when I was

488
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 4: like twelve, I.

489
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 2: Mean, at the same time, when you're eight years old

490
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 2: and everyone around you will be proud of you when

491
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 2: you do something I think, you know, like most eight

492
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:14,080
Speaker 2: year olds would be like I want to please the

493
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:17,679
Speaker 2: adults without having any other context for other world views.

494
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,119
Speaker 2: But obviously once you get older it's a bit different.

495
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:24,640
Speaker 3: The part that I think was very mind bending was that,

496
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 3: like there was never a moment I didn't know the

497
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 3: entire world thinks we are wrong.

498
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 4: Like this was my childhood experience.

499
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,439
Speaker 3: Everybody, like essentially everybody in the world except for the

500
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 3: people in our movement, I think we are maybe dangerous,

501
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:42,439
Speaker 3: but definitely wrong. And I had to have this sense

502
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 3: that all the people around me know, well, they're just wrong,

503
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 3: like they are actually everybody's mischaracterizing us, everybody's misunderstanding us,

504
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 3: and we are right and whatever it takes to fix

505
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,679
Speaker 3: the world, like that's what's necessary. And like that sense

506
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,959
Speaker 3: was the thing that was deeply mind bending. Like I

507
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 3: was like, oh, nobody ever told me racism was bad.

508
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 3: It was like people talk me a million times, sometimes

509
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 3: in death threats, but like also kind emails where people

510
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 3: are like, oh, you know.

511
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 4: This is awful. You should try to not believe this.

512
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 3: So when I got to a point when I was

513
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 3: an adult, and I still believed it, and then I

514
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,919
Speaker 3: got like walked out of it in college and had

515
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 3: that feeling of like, how did I not listen every

516
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 3: other time?

517
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously we talk about cults

518
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,200
Speaker 2: primarily on this podcast, but there's just so many parallels

519
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,639
Speaker 2: with when information is coming from your outgroup, it's so

520
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 2: much more difficult to hear it, especially if it seems

521
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 2: like they're attacking you. That seems like a very very

522
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 2: dissonant childhood. It's a miracle that you overcame it, but

523
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 2: obviously with the help of a lot of very kind people,

524
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 2: which we will get into. There were just a quote

525
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,159
Speaker 2: that's in your book that your dad said, which we

526
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 2: kind of already touched on this, but I just found

527
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 2: it interesting and wanted to mention it. Jesse Jackson was

528
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 2: speaking and there were a bunch of Bush Republicans as

529
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:54,199
Speaker 2: well as white nationalists who were trying to force him

530
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 2: off the stage. Tucker Carlson says, some racist Tucker Carlson shit.

531
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 2: That night, you quoted your data saying that being explicit

532
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 2: about white nationalist messaging is not going to work, And

533
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 2: he said, that's the kind of thing that I'm sure

534
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 2: the Bush campaign doesn't want us to get into that's

535
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:11,920
Speaker 2: not the focus of it right now. It's an implicit

536
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 2: racial issue here, which most people understand, but it's probably

537
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 2: not to our advantage to turn it into an explicit one.

538
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 2: So this really, like hiding the racism and making it

539
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 2: not be explicit, was the explicit goal, which is something

540
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:27,440
Speaker 2: that I feel like a lot of people on the

541
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 2: left are like, no, this is happening intuitively, but it's

542
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 2: interesting to see that it was so explicitly outlined, like, yes,

543
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 2: this was the actual goal is to make racism palatable,

544
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 2: make racism something that the average white American can get

545
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 2: on board with. And your dad also said that you'd

546
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 2: be looking for people who started their sentences with the

547
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 2: phrase I'm not racist, but which obviously that's a lot

548
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,679
Speaker 2: of American. Did you get the sense then, and do

549
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 2: you have the sense now that like these types of

550
00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:02,200
Speaker 2: recruiting tactics of making it seem very nice and soft

551
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 2: work and are working.

552
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 4: Yes.

553
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's all also very strategic. They even just in

554
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 3: that two thousand Bush election, I think I was eleven,

555
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 3: and it was down the street from my house where

556
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,440
Speaker 3: all the Palm Beach County election recount stuff was happening,

557
00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 3: so it was like we could walk to these protests

558
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 3: from my house when I was homeschool so I could

559
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 3: just be out during the day. And even in that

560
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 3: explicit example, sometimes he would be asking his people to

561
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:36,880
Speaker 3: like fly Confederate flags and make a big spectacle about

562
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 3: like the white nationalists are supporting the Bush administration and

563
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:42,920
Speaker 3: they're here, and try to gain supporters who are interested

564
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 3: in that kind of more explicit messaging. And then at

565
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:49,399
Speaker 3: a different rally where the focus was different, he would

566
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 3: tell people that don't have those kind of flags just

567
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 3: pick up Bush signs and then just be yelling things

568
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:57,640
Speaker 3: that are more.

569
00:27:58,040 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 4: On their side.

570
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:02,159
Speaker 3: Look at some of the signs from that, it looks like,

571
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 3: you know, the stop to steal stuff.

572
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 4: It's like all the signs are.

573
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,199
Speaker 3: Like, you know, people who count the votes are the

574
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 3: real ones who decide the election, and like this election

575
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 3: is being stolen and don't allow these people you know,

576
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 3: by that they mean like multi racial, black and Jewish

577
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 3: coalitions to like steal the election from them. Like that

578
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,439
Speaker 3: was exactly what they were doing in two thousand and

579
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 3: sort of rallying this broader right. And my upbringing, I

580
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,679
Speaker 3: think there's this aspect that is, if you have not

581
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 3: existed in a world where people see you as the

582
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 3: you know, spokesperson for racism, which I assume most people haven't,

583
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 3: you probably don't necessarily imagine. And I grew up in

584
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 3: South Florida, but it's true, and I knew lots of

585
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 3: people around the country who had similar experiences. Where once

586
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 3: I ran for office when I was nineteen and I

587
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:55,719
Speaker 3: got really well known, and that was two thousand and eight,

588
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 3: the election that Barack Obama won. The first time people

589
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 3: came up to me in South to constantly, like just normal,

590
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 3: normal ass white people would just come up to me

591
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 3: and just like congratulate me and say that I was

592
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 3: like speaking the stuff that they were afraid to say,

593
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 3: and like they knew that I was being called a

594
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 3: white nationalist, that I was like my parents had run

595
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 3: the Klan, Like they knew all. It wasn't even something

596
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 3: that they could sort of say, well, you know that

597
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 3: they're not tied to that explicit stuff. They were saying, yes,

598
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 3: you are, you know, speaking my mind. And that was

599
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 3: the vast majority of the sort of experiences that I

600
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 3: had that like white nationalist people who are spokespeople have,

601
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:35,719
Speaker 3: and you start recognizing just how potent the more latent

602
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 3: white nationalists like beliefs are and how easily people are

603
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 3: willing to lean into a movement that just tells them

604
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 3: that they don't have to be ashamed of being called racist.

605
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 2: M Wow, that's so fascinating because yeah, I would imagine

606
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 2: you would be primarily receiving hate from strangers, but to

607
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 2: know that regular as people are like, good job, racist kid,

608
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 2: you know.

609
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 3: That's cora, yeah, constantly, Like it was weird, and it

610
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 3: was one of the more like turned out it was

611
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 3: something right before I went to college, So it was

612
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 3: actually personal experience that was like very alienating, but just

613
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 3: the feeling and that was like an important probably aspect

614
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 3: of once I got to college, I realized, like I

615
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 3: didn't like the feeling of being like, ah, good, you're

616
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 3: the person who like tells us we can hate other people.

617
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 3: I was like, that's not who I am, please, don't

618
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 3: you know? It was like that, but the feeling is

619
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 3: very easy.

620
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 4: People who lean.

621
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 3: Into that become spokespeople for a lot of like not

622
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 3: at all the stereotype like white nationalists, I think benefit

623
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 3: from the idea that there's the stereotype that like, if

624
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 3: somebody's racist, obviously you'll be able to tell, because they'll

625
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 3: be stupid or ignorant, or uneducated, or rude or crass,

626
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 3: or wear clothes that are strange. Like, none of this

627
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 3: is true. Racism is a very average belief and a

628
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 3: kind of disposition people have in America, and being having

629
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 3: a racist belief does not make people look different, because

630
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 3: lots of people have racist beliefs and you interact with

631
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 3: them all the time. But when why nationalists are trying

632
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 3: to sort of channel it. They recognize how potent it

633
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 3: is in a way that other people can maybe sort

634
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 3: of ignored.

635
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 2: Sometimes tell us about the experience of going to college.

636
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, you're already this leader in

637
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 2: this community. You had a radio show with your dad

638
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 2: called the Don and Derek Black Show. Well, first it

639
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 2: was just the Derek Black Show, right, yeah, and then

640
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 2: it was the Yeah.

641
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 3: It started it after I ran this election and I

642
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 3: didn't get seated because my family were like a clan family,

643
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 3: and so they didn't seat me. I started this local

644
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 3: AM radio show primarily because I wanted to sort of

645
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 3: explain myself. I'm sort of recognizing that there's this through

646
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 3: line of my whole adolescence and young adulthood of like,

647
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 3: let me explain and you'll understand why. It's not why

648
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 3: I'm not scary like that kind of okay, you know.

649
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 4: Maybe be a little bit more open than that.

650
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 3: You know, I look back at my like teenage self,

651
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 3: and you know, maybe you could listen more than speak.

652
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 4: But that was like just through life.

653
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,479
Speaker 2: But this like radio show, right, why did you end

654
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 2: up deciding to go to college instead of just like

655
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 2: pursuing leadership in the white parmis this community.

656
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 3: Honestly pressure for my family Actually, like everybody in my

657
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 3: family had a college degree. It wasn't like I think,

658
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 3: you know, I have this story where I went to

659
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 3: college and I didn't expect to change my mind, but

660
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 3: I had this strong experience and came out the other end.

661
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:27,239
Speaker 3: But everybody in my family went to college. They just

662
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 3: did had different experiences. I think it was different colleges,

663
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 3: different times, larger. They found their people, like they most

664
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 3: of them found another white nationalists there, and they dealt

665
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 3: with the community that was more liberal because it's colleges

666
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 3: that have always been more liberal who condemned their racism.

667
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 3: But they also found their people because there's like everywhere else,

668
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 3: there are white nationals and just sort of average racist

669
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 3: people at every university. Even at this liberal arts college

670
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:55,479
Speaker 3: that I went to, there were people there who had

671
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 3: grown up like you know, reading Stormfront. They were just

672
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 3: not many of them, and they were not out spoken

673
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 3: and they weren't the ones I listened to while I

674
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 3: was there. But my family pressured me.

675
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 4: That I needed to go to college. I wasn't.

676
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 3: I had been homeschooled for all of my teenage years,

677
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 3: and they did it in this extreme way where they

678
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 3: just didn't educate me. They had plenty of books around

679
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 3: and they and I was the only kid in the house,

680
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 3: so they let me do what I wanted. If I

681
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 3: wanted music lessons, I could have them. If I wanted

682
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 3: to get a course of study, if I wanted to

683
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 3: sign up for a community college plus whatever, I could

684
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 3: always just do it. But it was self directed, and

685
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 3: I chose what I didn't want to study, and I

686
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 3: didn't have any tests. So like when my mother was

687
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 3: telling me I had to go to college, I had

688
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 3: this real fear that I'm going to get there, and

689
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 3: everybody's been telling me I'm so smart and I'm going

690
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 3: to get there and just fail out and feel like

691
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 3: an idiot, and so I was kind of afraid of it. Nevertheless,

692
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 3: she made me go to community college and I did well,

693
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, I am good at writing essays,

694
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 3: and so then I like did well at college and

695
00:33:55,200 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 3: then applied to New College of Florida. Even though known

696
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 3: as this major liberal arts like liberal college, I wasn't.

697
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 4: Worried that my beliefs were fragile. I didn't think like,

698
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 4: I need to.

699
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 3: Make sure I don't get exposed to contradictory beliefs because

700
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 3: my world, you will fall apart. I thought like, I

701
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 3: can debate with somebody all day. I don't really want to,

702
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 3: but I can do that. It's fine. I'm confident in

703
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 3: what I think. And I wanted to go study medieval

704
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 3: history partly because I wanted to feel less controversial. I

705
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 3: wanted to feel like what I was studying was like

706
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 3: irrelevant and to be clear, like, now this field, it's

707
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 3: not the point here, But now this field has started

708
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:35,840
Speaker 3: to really recognize the way that there's a lot of

709
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 3: racism baked into medieval histories as an academic field because

710
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 3: people say, oh, it's a europe and so it's.

711
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 4: Alienating right now.

712
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:44,799
Speaker 3: But at the time, I was like, Ah, nobody will

713
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 3: ask me to talk more about the Middle Ages. I

714
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 3: won't becomes And I thought I would be like going

715
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 3: to school and I could have like a few more

716
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 3: years where I didn't have to embrace this role that

717
00:34:57,600 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 3: almost felt inevitable.

718
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 4: It felt like I have.

719
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 3: To now become and the person who is like the

720
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:10,280
Speaker 3: known white supremacist in America spokesperson. And this is coming

721
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 3: and it's going to be a big thing, and there's

722
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 3: a big backlash already at that time against Barack Obama.

723
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 4: There's going to be.

724
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 3: Major political stuff where white nationalists become major focuses.

725
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 4: Again, that just always happens. Over time.

726
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 3: It happened, and under the Reagan administration it just happened

727
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 3: in the nineties. It's just iteratively always happens. But next time,

728
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:31,279
Speaker 3: I'm going to be the big spokesperson and I have

729
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 3: to be the role that my family and my white

730
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 3: nationalist community needs. And I saw college as like a

731
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,279
Speaker 3: way to spend a few more years just avoiding that.

732
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:46,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, So when you arrive there, you start dating someone

733
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 2: named Zoe who was Jewish, and hang out with a

734
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,319
Speaker 2: group of people that had other Jewish people in it

735
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 2: and they didn't know who you were at first. Talk

736
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 2: about that cognitive dissonance, and most yeah, talk about that.

737
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 3: At first, it didn't feel like I was doing anything

738
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 3: differently than I had done before, because I always, you know,

739
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 3: existed in South Florida. It was a place where it

740
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 3: wasn't like people were just like white nationalists everywhere. I

741
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 3: was like most people I happened to meet if I

742
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 3: was at an extracurricular were going to be kind of

743
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 3: weirded out once they realized that I was like on

744
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 3: TV talking about white supremacy, and they would bring it

745
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 3: up if they saw it, and then I would make

746
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 3: it pretty clear I just didn't want to talk about it,

747
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 3: that I wanted to have these like separate spears of

748
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 3: my life, and most people in those circumstances would either like,

749
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:38,399
Speaker 3: you know, distance themselves or say, okay, sure, let's talk

750
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 3: about like.

751
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 4: The hobbies we have in common here.

752
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 3: And even when I was a kid, I the year

753
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 3: before I had started a white nationalist kids page, I

754
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 3: had started a personal one where I wrote blog stuff

755
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 3: about tornadoes and Spider Man and just Chernobyl and just

756
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 3: stuff that I got curious about when I was a

757
00:36:58,000 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 3: little kid, and I would like write a random essay

758
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 3: about it.

759
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 4: And I always had that idea that, like, ah, yes,

760
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 4: I can be somebody.

761
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 3: Who's open to anybody, and like I can sort of

762
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 3: embrace this feeling of curiosity that I have, and I

763
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 3: can also be the spokesperson for my family because I

764
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 3: believed that they were like morally right and had this

765
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,840
Speaker 3: sense of destiny about them, and I can just have

766
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 3: both of those things. And as a homeschool person it

767
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 3: kind of worked.

768
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 4: Sort of.

769
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 3: I was really isolated and that was part of why.

770
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 3: And so I showed up at college thinking I'll just

771
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 3: do the same thing. I just won't bring it up

772
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 3: and I'll lean into what we have in common. And

773
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,280
Speaker 3: it became really clear over that first semester where nobody

774
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,799
Speaker 3: did google me, nobody did recognize who I was, and

775
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,760
Speaker 3: I was making these relationships sort of being a person

776
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 3: who thought I could be open to anybody. And I

777
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 3: didn't want to foreclose on any friendship or relationship just

778
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 3: because somebody was whatever identity like I thought.

779
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 4: That was a version of me I didn't want to be.

780
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:55,839
Speaker 3: I thought I was ignorant and stupid, and I don't

781
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 3: want to be closed like that. And it was like

782
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 3: making those relationships and multaneously realizing that they're going to

783
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 3: feel so betrayed, like they are going to feel like

784
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 3: I am deeply lied to them, and I'm like recognizing

785
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 3: that as it was going on, and also that it

786
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 3: was affecting me more than I expected that. I thought

787
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 3: I had rationalized white nationalism as like it was true

788
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:22,400
Speaker 3: for large numbers of people, like race was real and

789
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:26,760
Speaker 3: like statistical aggregates, but individually people could just be anything,

790
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 3: and clearly because you meet people and they're just anything,

791
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 3: like you can't ever predict what people are like.

792
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 4: You can just sort of see that in your day

793
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 4: to day life.

794
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 3: And making very close friendships with people though, where we're

795
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 3: talking and they're like confessing to me about how they

796
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 3: were afraid of like Ku Kluk's clan organizations near their

797
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 3: high school where they were growing up, and I realized, like,

798
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 3: I know that group you're talking about, and I can't

799
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 3: say that, and you were terrified of them, and I

800
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 3: know that they would say that you were like less

801
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,239
Speaker 3: than human, and I can't square these two things, like

802
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 3: that sort of feeling of I need to understand how

803
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:07,240
Speaker 3: to bridge this was feeling very impossible in that moment,

804
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 3: and then I also knew I'm going to get out

805
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 3: it eventually, and these relationships are just going to explode.

806
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you were still doing the radio show

807
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 2: in the morning talking about white supremacy and then going

808
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 2: and hanging out with your Jewish friends later in the day.

809
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 2: I mean, it's such a what a wild what a

810
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 2: wild way to live, and I.

811
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:27,319
Speaker 4: Like just tried to like square it all.

812
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 3: And the things that I was saying like horrible for sure,

813
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 3: but it was like I was trying to rationalize them

814
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 3: as like, Ah, the thing I'm emphasizing here is I

815
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 3: think white people are in danger, and I think my

816
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 3: like movement as being mischaracterized as so scary and hateful.

817
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 3: And as long as I'm showing up and standing up

818
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 3: for that community, I could feel like I'm supporting my community,

819
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 3: and then in the in the afternoon, I'm supporting.

820
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 4: My new community.

821
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 3: It was like that was how it felt, and I

822
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 3: was like, these two communities are not going to mix though.

823
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 2: Right You wrote about how there were a couple of

824
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 2: different racially motivated mass shootings during that period, and your

825
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:07,200
Speaker 2: dad would be quick to go online and denounce the violence.

826
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 2: But of course, as you talked about earlier, engaging with

827
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 2: violent people or holding up very violent people, so like, yeah,

828
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 2: there's so many conflicting things going on, and like the.

829
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 3: Way that he would condemn the violence was he would

830
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:25,839
Speaker 3: say it's like counterproductive and an individual psychopath who he

831
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 3: hadn't who he would never say, should do that. And

832
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 3: then he would say, but if there wasn't immigration, then

833
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 3: people wouldn't be flying off the handle like this, like

834
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 3: if they're if they hadn't been put in this situa,

835
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 3: like it was like that kind of thing that would

836
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 3: be so cold. It's like the families who are reeling today.

837
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 3: The way that you were distancing them yourself from them

838
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 3: is by saying like, well, I guess they shouldn't have

839
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 3: been there is like wow, that feeling of like I

840
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,839
Speaker 3: could know the person you're talking about was feeling just

841
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 3: I mean talking about cognitivefsenance.

842
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,240
Speaker 4: It was this feeling of like I love both.

843
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 1: Of you, Like wow, I grew up super Christian, right,

844
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:10,439
Speaker 1: so when I went to college, it was like you're

845
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 1: very prepared that your faith is going to be shaken,

846
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: and this is like a real test of the fruits

847
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: and all of those things, But it sounds like you

848
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 1: were a little bit less prepared maybe and just thinking

849
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:24,359
Speaker 1: that like I got this.

850
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.

851
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,759
Speaker 3: I actually think my family it's not not prepared. I'm

852
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:31,279
Speaker 3: sure it's like a perspective that their white nationalist friends have.

853
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:37,799
Speaker 3: But like the way they raised me was explicitly this

854
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 3: idea that you should always be willing to debate with somebody,

855
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 3: like if you ever catch yourself putting your fingers in

856
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 3: your ears and going la la la when somebody is

857
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 3: like contradicting your beliefs, like you really maybe need to

858
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,360
Speaker 3: question why you need to do that for your beliefs

859
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 3: to stay your beliefs. Woe because they saw themselves as

860
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 3: like rational, They thought they had explained all this with like,

861
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:05,320
Speaker 3: you know, elaborate conspiracy theories, and like those tenured professors

862
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 3: at the conferences we went to who talked about how

863
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 3: like actually race is biological in a way that I

864
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 3: look back and I'm like, how in the world, Like

865
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 3: it's insane, it's just so obviously disproven, Like how do

866
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 3: you live your life this way? And just like the

867
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 3: smartest people in the world can convince themselves of like

868
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 3: the craziest stuff. Yeah, but like that sense that you

869
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 3: shouldn't be afraid of being contradicted. Maybe I took it

870
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 3: more seriously than they did, but like it wouldn't have

871
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 3: shocked them for me to be somebody who was like

872
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 3: open to anybody talking to anybody, like my dad, even

873
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 3: to some extent, like we would remember when I was

874
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 3: a kid, we went to a boxing gym and I

875
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 3: would take like a kid's kickboxing class, and then he

876
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 3: would like work out in the back and most of

877
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 3: the people there were like black or Hispanic or Jewish,

878
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 3: and then he would be on like an HBO documentary

879
00:42:56,520 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 3: about white supremacy, and there'd be this moment because they

880
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 3: also have HBO for the fights, where they would see

881
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 3: the documentary and they would be like, dude, what in

882
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:07,399
Speaker 3: the world, And then his explanation, and I remember, being

883
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 3: a kid, would just be like, you know, I believe

884
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,279
Speaker 3: what I believe, and also we are good. I do

885
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 3: not you know, I show I've been showing up to

886
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 3: this gym for years, like we boxed together, I respect,

887
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:21,239
Speaker 3: two years, and they'd be like okay, sure, sure, And

888
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 3: it was just that that like sense that you don't

889
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 3: run away from people individually, I think felt like consistent

890
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 3: with my upbringing, right.

891
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 2: And also you've been someone in the community at that

892
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:36,280
Speaker 2: point who's considered sort of a leader in like proselytizing

893
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 2: and kind of bring people into the movement. So it

894
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 2: actually that makes sense that you'd be wanting to engage

895
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 2: with people, although you weren't really doing that necessarily.

896
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wasn't trying to bring people into the movement.

897
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:49,280
Speaker 4: I was trying.

898
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 3: I think what I consciously thought I was doing was like,

899
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:56,280
Speaker 3: I want to understand what the arguments against this are,

900
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 3: because that's going to.

901
00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 4: Make me better at arguing it.

902
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 3: I thought it was objectively, there's like no world I

903
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:03,239
Speaker 3: thought I had worked so hard. It's obviously true what

904
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 3: I thought, but like whatever counter arguments, like, bring them,

905
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 3: I'd like to know what they are, please.

906
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:09,279
Speaker 4: Like that kind of thing.

907
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,839
Speaker 2: Interesting? Yeah, I remember watching there was a Louis Through

908
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 2: documentary on a white supremacist gut. You know, it's what

909
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. Yea whose neighbor and like best friend

910
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 2: was a black dude, and Louis Through would be like,

911
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:26,920
Speaker 2: what's how are you what? And it is so interesting

912
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:29,439
Speaker 2: that so much of your life seems to be such

913
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 2: a similar experience, and the way you kind of justify it,

914
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 2: or with the way you said you justified it in

915
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:37,919
Speaker 2: the book, was that like, well, on an individual level,

916
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 2: there's all kinds of people, but generally right, this idea

917
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 2: that like, yeah, can you explain that?

918
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was my rationale and it wasn't something

919
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 3: my family explicitly taught.

920
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:53,879
Speaker 4: They thought race predicted people on individual levels too.

921
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 3: And it was this sort of feeling like I need

922
00:44:57,120 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 3: even from the time I was a little kid. I

923
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 3: was in public school for up until I was nine,

924
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 3: and I have all these memories, like most of my

925
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 3: friends were not white or were Jewish, and I just

926
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 3: kind of had to rationalize, even as an eight year

927
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:12,320
Speaker 3: old or a nine year old, like individuals must be

928
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 3: anything because I'm friends with.

929
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 4: You and you're not.

930
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 3: You're like, graceisn't telling me anything about you? And so

931
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:20,360
Speaker 3: I had to deal with that. And maybe that's an

932
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,680
Speaker 3: effect of living in an actually diverse place that once

933
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:25,839
Speaker 3: I was homeschooled, I didn't have to deal with it

934
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 3: because I could say, yeah, I'm open to people. I

935
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 3: talked to people, but I didn't recognize the level that

936
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 3: the relationships were closed. They were at arm's length, like

937
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 3: it felt like, yeah, I friends, I've talk to you,

938
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 3: I'm not closed off to you, and then I go

939
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 3: home and we don't really.

940
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 4: Stay that close.

941
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:43,719
Speaker 3: And the difference in college, and you know, immediately I

942
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 3: was feeling it, but like, definitely in retrospect was the

943
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 3: sense of like commitment and intimacy and closeness and the

944
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:53,839
Speaker 3: fact that it's not like, yeah, you're you and I'm

945
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 3: me and like it's cool we've talked, but more like

946
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 3: I feel responsible. I feel like I care for you

947
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 3: and I cannot harm you.

948
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 4: Like that feeling was what.

949
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 3: I did not notice happening when I was a teenager.

950
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 4: I didn't notice wasn't happening when I was a teenager.

951
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 2: Okay, let's leave that there for now. Come back next

952
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 2: week to learn how they actually began to deconstruct this

953
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 2: awful belief system and the people that helped them get there.

954
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 2: You know, I mentioned in the interview, like when Derek says, well,

955
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 2: I did choose to do those press interviews, and I

956
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 2: was like, well, yes, but you were a kid. It

957
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 2: made it just kind of made me think about and

958
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:33,880
Speaker 2: obviously I don't think Mormonism is anywhere near as harmful

959
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 2: as neo Nazi you know groups, or the heinous racist ideology.

960
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:41,800
Speaker 2: But it did still in a way make me think

961
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 2: of being eight years old as a Mormon and being,

962
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 2: you know, given the choice I'm using air quotes of

963
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 2: whether to get baptized or not. And I'm sure that

964
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 2: there are kids who don't do it, But I was eight.

965
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 2: I wanted my family to be happy. I no one

966
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 2: told me I had to do it. They specific told

967
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 2: me I did not have to, and then it needed

968
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 2: to be my choice. But also there was no world

969
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 2: in which I wasn't going to do it, you know,

970
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 2: like I'm a I'm I'm like, I want mom and

971
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 2: dad to love me, and if they believe it, it

972
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:16,319
Speaker 2: must be real, you know. I think the only age

973
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:20,280
Speaker 2: at which it really would have maybe started to actually

974
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 2: feel like my choice would have been in my teen years.

975
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:24,960
Speaker 2: For me personally, I don't know. I mean, did you

976
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:26,719
Speaker 2: have anything like that as a kid where you were

977
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 2: given a choice?

978
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, you and the two by twos. You make

979
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:32,880
Speaker 1: your choice to profess where you stand up at the

980
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:36,959
Speaker 1: last verse of a hem and it means you're now

981
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 1: in the group and you have to take part in

982
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,479
Speaker 1: meanings speaking and all the religious meetings and stuff. But yep,

983
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:45,279
Speaker 1: I did it when I was also eight or nine.

984
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:48,359
Speaker 2: I think, oh, interesting, like you you don't stand up

985
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:50,400
Speaker 2: when you're like a small kid, and then at some

986
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:52,959
Speaker 2: point you're like, okay, I'm standing. This is me making

987
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 2: the choice, not a like commit more.

988
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: You don't stand as a child, you usually people do

989
00:47:57,480 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: around twelve.

990
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 2: Really, so it's just just the action of standing. That's like,

991
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:03,479
Speaker 2: I'm committing to this religion more.

992
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: And then you get baptized later in life, and that's

993
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:06,840
Speaker 1: also a choice.

994
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's like someone verbally saying you have

995
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 2: a choice. A lot of cult leaders also say you

996
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:15,800
Speaker 2: have a choice. But then the underlying, you know, the

997
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 2: like hidden consequences of not making that choice are a disappointment, ostracization.

998
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:25,720
Speaker 2: Obviously in different groups, it totally varies. In some groups

999
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:28,799
Speaker 2: the consequences would be more extreme, like maybe you go

1000
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 2: to Hell forever or whatever. It always varies. But regardless,

1001
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:35,760
Speaker 2: even when the consequences aren't going to be that extreme,

1002
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:38,600
Speaker 2: when you're a child, you want to make your family happy.

1003
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 2: So that was just I don't know, that just brought

1004
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 2: that up for me, and I thought it was worth mentioning,

1005
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 2: and it is an interesting question of like, at what

1006
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 2: point do we are we accountable for the choices that

1007
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 2: we're making based on the belief system we were given right?

1008
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 2: And I think that's an eternal debate that doesn't really

1009
00:48:57,080 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 2: have a clear answer. But I don't think that if

1010
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 2: you're not even a preteen yet that you know you

1011
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 2: can really be held responsible. I mean, Lala says that

1012
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 2: eighteen years old you're responsible. I guess that's where we

1013
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 2: arbitrarily hold it. You know, there's so much more to

1014
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 2: get into this week, including about one of the people

1015
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:16,879
Speaker 2: who help them who I know. So please come back

1016
00:49:16,920 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 2: next week.

1017
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. We can't wait to see

1018
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: you again next week, and as always, remember to follow

1019
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:24,760
Speaker 1: your gut, watch out for red flax.

1020
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 2: And never ever trust me Nice. Trust Me as produced

1021
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,800
Speaker 2: by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and Steve Delemator.

1022
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:37,280
Speaker 1: With special thanks to Stacy Para.

1023
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 2: And our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

1024
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:42,719
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,

1025
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: Twitter at trust Me Cult pod, or on TikTok at

1026
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 1: trust Me Cult Podcast.

1027
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,480
Speaker 2: I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.

1028
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:54,799
Speaker 1: And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham

1029
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 1: Hicks on Twitter.

1030
00:49:56,200 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 2: Remember to rate and review and spread the word. Hello,

1031
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:03,240
Speaker 2: I'm Robbia Chaudhry.

1032
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: I invite you to join me every Tuesday for new

1033
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:08,840
Speaker 1: episodes of Nighty Night, bedtime stories to keep you awake,

1034
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 1: now on podcast one. This new incarnation of Nighty Night

1035
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:15,719
Speaker 1: is an anthology of stories that bring to life classic

1036
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:19,319
Speaker 1: horror stories, some you're definitely familiar with and others you'll

1037
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:21,719
Speaker 1: be hearing for the first time. Join me as I

1038
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 1: tuck you into bed with stories that will leave you

1039
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:27,399
Speaker 1: sleepless all night long. Get new episodes of Nighty Night

1040
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.