Arno Michaelis (author & activist, former white supremacist)

Arno Michaelis is a former white supremacist who now helps people leave extremist organizations.  He has written two books- "My Life After Hate" as well as "The Gift of Our Wounds" (co-written with Pardeep Singh Kaleka).  In this episode we discuss his story of joining and leaving the white supremacist organization, diversity of thought, racism today and what can be done about it.   

0:00:00 - Intro
0:00:59 - Former White Nationalist Turned Activist 
0:04:10 - Background & Childhood 
0:10:34 - From Breakdancing to Punk 
0:17:55 - Drinking, Fighting & Transition to White Nationalism 
0:23:07 - Indoctrination & Recruitment 
0:31:10 - Homosexuality 
0:34:35 - Native American 
0:37:40 - Fallacies with White Nationalism 
0:42:05 - Interactions with People Who Refused to Hate 
0:50:40 - Losing Friends & Walking Away 
0:53:38 - Goal of White Nationalism 
0:58:04 - Diversity of Thought
1:01:33 - Prevention of Hate & Exploited Needs 
1:07:13 - Community & Police Issues 
1:09:29 - Media, Fear & Collective Social Conscious 
1:14:20 - Traveling & Interacting with People In Real Life 
1:17:30 - White Supremacy & Racism in the World Today 
1:31:35 - Sikh Culture, Assumptions & Politics 
1:41:40 - Wrap Up 

The Gift of Our Wounds book:
https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Our-Wounds-Supremacist-Forgiveness/dp/1250107547

Parents 4 Peace website:
https://www.parents4peace.org

Chuck Shute website:
http://chuckshute.com

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:00

Coming up on the show, I've got author and activists are known Makayla, and Arno is a former White supremacist who's done a complete 180. And now helps people leave hate organizations and extremist organizations. And this is obviously going to be a little bit of a departure from my usual interviews, because I've had a lot of musicians and entertainment people on. But I have had some authors on the show on in the past, and I'd really love to do more episodes like this one. So we're going to delve into Arno's story. And then I get his opinions on a lot of topical things going on right now with our media, politics and race. And now these are just too many opinions and they don't represent everyone's view. And you may agree with some of the things we say and you may disagree with some of the things that we say, but I think you'll find the conversation educational and very interesting. I know I did. And we barely scratched the surface on some of these topics. So trigger warning. We talked about some very serious things adult topics here. So listen at your own discretion. Please welcome Arnaud mckaela. To the Czech shoe podcast. How you doing?

Unknown: 1:18

I'm doing great. Chuck, I appreciate you having me on.

Chuck Shute: 1:21

Yes, exciting. I've read. I just finished your second book, I read both your books, and some some overlapping things, and both of them. But there's definitely in the second one that gifts, the gifts of our wounds, I believe it's called right? Yes, like one, there's like you go into more detail some other things. And they're both just really fascinating books, people should definitely check them out. So I'm wondering if for what we can do is maybe just kind of do like an abbreviated version of your life story to kind of explain to the audience kind of where you're coming from.

Arno Michaelis: 1:51

Sure. So today, I best described as a storyteller. And I do that mainly in speaking engagements. Also Good idea, good amount of consulting, and educational stuff. I work a lot of corporate sector things. But also do stuff in middle schools, high schools, I work with law enforcement at all levels. And the main focus of my storytelling is to connect human beings, and help people see that we have a lot more in common than different. And I do that because I believe it's the most effective means of combating violent extremism. And I everything I do is informed by my past as a violent extremist from 1987 to 1994. I was involved in white power skinhead groups, I was a leader and an organizer of those groups, as well as a lead vocalist for a white power metal band that was very popular at the time. And the harm that I've done back then is something that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life. And really, it drives me to try to bring about a world where people don't commit that kind of harm and again, see themselves and others and see others in themselves.

Chuck Shute: 3:14

Yeah, so now is this your full time thing? Are you still doing it stuff as well or?

Unknown: 3:19

No, I moved on from it. It was kind of a gradual phase out tennis kind of thing. I wasn't independent IT consultant. So being my own boss, I was able to make a living while kind of developing a career and really a purpose as a as a activist and as a peacemaker. So I went public with my story about being a former White Nationalist and on the MLK holiday in 2010. And that kind of marked the new phase of my life. I started doing it independently in 2001. So they overlap by about three, four years. And nowadays, the only it I do is for myself pretty much.

Chuck Shute: 4:10

Okay, so this is your full time thing. So if we go back a little bit with your story, it's so interesting, because I think people have these stereotypes of of white nationalists or white supremacists and how they became the way they became but I know you had some trouble as a child, but relatively kind of a normal childhood. Am I wrong?

Unknown: 4:31

No, you're absolutely right. It is an interesting point to make. Because as you as he said, a lot of people if they see someone in the Ku Klux Klan or a neo Nazi, they think you can think a range of things. A lot of people think well, that person is just a monster. And society would be better off if they weren't around. And you can't blame anybody for feeling that way. But a lot of people would also assume that you Someone mixed up. And that kind of thing was like taught to think that way by their parents and or came from a really rough background with a lot of adverse childhood experiences. And it's been my findings working in the field of counter violent extremism internationally for over a decade, that in most cases that that's true. To put it very simply hurt people hurt people. And I've never seen an instance where someone who had a good sense of who they are and their own value as a person was moved to hate and hurt other people in the hate comes from trauma. And it comes from suffering. So I have a lot of colleagues in this space. We all call ourselves former's is a former violent extremist, and not just former white nationalists. They have a lot of friends who are former GE hotties. One of my closest friends is a former Antifa from Denmark and him and I would talk to each other limb from limb 30 years ago, but now we're best friends. In every instance, talking with these guys, you hear about their childhood trauma, which in most cases was a lot more egregious than mine. I grew up in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. My parents were together, they both loved me very much. They let me know that at every turn, but my father's alcoholism put a lot of pressure on my mom. We were literally living beyond our means the whole time. I grew up and my dad had more drinking than work and all too often and my mom would have times have to work two jobs to keep the lights on the bills paid. And it just ended her relationship with my dad saw my dad wasn't abusive, but you know, when you're partying all the time and your wife's trying to keep things, keep things running in the financial stress drives a lot of arguments and stress in the household. So I just grew up seeing my mom suffer and that was my pain point. But but as you didn't suffer

Chuck Shute: 7:16

right you said your dad was a happy drunk and

Unknown: 7:20

I always call him a fun drunk. Yeah, he was it he still is he my dad is a certified gun nut and we had a gun room in our basement where he you know that just a gun safe. He had a whole room for his guns and we had a pistol range actually InterBase that and as soon as I got hold a pistol we were down there. Shoot that and point off it at like midnight at a date with mom so is

Chuck Shute: 7:50

working two jobs Weren't you like lighting fireworks off and stuff like

Unknown: 7:54

fireworks are a big, big thing. There was one there was many fireworks incidents but the one that comes to mind was I was in sixth or seventh grade and I had a buddy's spending the night and my dad had just come back from up north Wisconsin with a huge cache of illegal fireworks like bottle rockets and Roman candles things like that. And we're all laid them off in the backyard and my dad has his buddy over and they're both like rip roaring fallen down stupid drunk. And I don't even know who started it but somebody named a Roman candle at Bed another guy and real suited broke out into being my buddy against my dad and his buddy and see it as that we were kids and very nimble and sober. We were literally kind of running circles around them blowing them up with bottle rockets and home and candles

Chuck Shute: 8:52

that's why it's so isn't that it's interesting to hear you talk about your childhood because Wasn't there a point where your your school tested you and said hey, this kids really bright. You need to let him like you know, expand his wings and like maybe did maybe your parents let you have a little too much freedom because it sounds like you kind of went crazy for a while. That could

Unknown: 9:13

definitely definitely make a case for that. A lot of times when I talk about my childhood a lot of people are like you just need to go and ask what is What's your

Chuck Shute: 9:24

theory? Yeah,

Unknown: 9:25

I don't believe violence is a way of teaching anybody anything. Children boy,

Chuck Shute: 9:33

maybe some some more stricter boundaries and Exactly,

Unknown: 9:36

exactly. Yeah, I definitely think that that could have been beneficial in my childhood. It was actually a pediatrician who told my mom that of what a gifted genius I am and that I shouldn't be allowed to run amok and explore my gifted geniusness but and I think my my dad being kind of a while Smart, gifted genius guy himself not real comfortable with like rules and boundaries put out how, you know, it translates Yeah, your parents raised you as who they are. And that combined with just my personality type and my met whole nature nurture combination. It created this rule kind of wild kid, but there was the suffering that kind of set it in a dark direction.

Chuck Shute: 10:33

Right. So because you didn't grow up with hate, in fact, I think I read about you going to like a Run DMC concert in the 80s, which is awesome. And you were involved with like you're hanging out with like the breakdancing kids. And so then explain this story to my audience. Because this kind of seems like if I would say there's one moment that kind of like, got you angry. It was this moment where you got bullied on the playground or whatever.

Unknown: 10:55

Yeah, so I it was about sixth grade for me, which was early 1980s. And I, I was also really kind of this day, I'm kind of adverse to trends and whatnot. But I did often find myself at the forefront of trends. And I did in my tween years in that I was one of the first like suburban white kids to get into hip hop and black culture and whatnot. And I was into breakdancing. And I did see Run DMC and 1984, I believe, saw Grandmaster Flash The Furious Five, I was really like, super into that scene, and then got kind of discouraged when it became trendy. But the incident that you're talking about was, I believe happened in seventh grade, in that I would have my little breakdance crew and we'd like kind of dip out of the suburb and heading to the city on Saturday nights and go do breakdance battles at a roller rink and the fashion at the time for you know if you had like white people here was having a little rat tail in the back. And so I had that rat tail going it was probably about six inches long. I dipped it peroxide and had a little little blonde streak at the end. And yeah, it was it was pretty, pretty fashionable. And I was thrilled by life. This has always kind of been the case like, very few people don't know who I am, as far as you know, in whatever circle oven and in school, like everybody knew who I was, and they either love me or hated me. There was very few people that like a neutral opinion on me. And I was an asshole I was a bully. Since I was a little kid I definitely. Again, like I said, I don't think violence is the way to teach things. But at the same time, I kind of had this common and what came was, was as I kind of prancing around school with this breakdance crew and getting the attention of a lot of girls, the whole like jock scene, were it really kind of like getting fed up with me. And I had bullied a few of those guys before and at the same time like I played football with them. I was always kind of able to traverse all these various cliques in school. Like I wasn't a jock but I played sports and I knew all the jocks I wasn't like a full on nerd but I but I was still in a dirty things that I hung out with the nerds that will later go on to like the punk scene and whatever. But in seventh grade these jocks are pretty sick of my bullshit. And they decided they're going to teach me a lesson. So they all kind of sidled around until they're surrounding us on the playground. And I didn't really notice because being my guys are all doing or breakdance slavers and all of a sudden the jocks all jumped on me and I realized one of them had a scissors. And so it became this really violent kind of scramble of me trying to fight off. I don't know how many guys but ultimately, they got my hands separated from my tail and one of them took a scissors out, snipped it off for whatever reason like hold it the air like a trophy, like I got it, I got it and then they all kind of disappeared and I looked up and all my guys had disappeared also. And I was i i was utterly like, humiliated and felt violated. It was it was really an probably the most traumatic moment I endured in my life to that point. And a lot came out of that and one of them being that I felt like kind of betrayed by all my my breakdancing crew. I don't know that I really put put like a racial spin on it at that point. But I think it would be fair to say that there may have been some like underlying feelings after that like yeah, these guys are supposed to have my back and they didn't I don't know that I consciously extrapolated that on to all Afro Americans right but I think later on it it may have been some of that that surface but but really the big driver for me getting involved in white nationalism was this because it pissed people off. Right? Because

Chuck Shute: 15:32

isn't that what happened? So then you start to get into punk and and that was what what punk was all about was just rip. It's not like you went to join white supremacy right after that. But it was like, the punk movement was all about rebelling. And that's what you were drawn to was more it was more about pissing people off. And that was a way to piss people off was with swastikas and racism and things because that wasn't that you really believed the propaganda at least at that point, right.

Unknown: 15:56

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, it was. You nailed it. It was definitely like, to me punk was about breaking shit and pisses people off. Yeah, I just I wanted the most drastic means of lashing out and repulsing civil society that I could dig up and give you an idea like as a punk rocker. i There was one sovereign at summer camp I met some kid for blocky who was a big head banger and he was like into Slayer and Venom and Exodus and I turned him into like him onto like Agnostic Front and the curl bags and fear. Like we're all like all this. We're both like really delighted at the are kind of exchange of heavy music. And I again, like I love slayers because like I'll fasted hard they were just like cry that the adrenaline rush you get from it, but even that the guys in the band for what I know were very like tongue in cheek with all the Satanism stuff. It I like got into that also, I was like, Ooh, we have Satan's a real thing. I'm gonna go sacrifice the dead baby years of that, but it was like, wow, people get really pissed off if you put an upset on prosign Yeah. And it actually one of my first tattoos was a big upside I would cross it said Amen above it. And it is what I was a punk rocker and I also to match it in shop class, I made a big upset on cross hearing about this thing, which was short lived and got ripped off in a mosh pit a couple months later, but that it just kind of it shows this pattern of like, Oh, here's a way to really piss people off. Put it upside down across around who this is awesome. Oh, you think it upside down cross pisses people off? Try a swastika. Wow. Now they're really pissed off. And so that was kind of the progression that led me to white nationalism. It was it was really more for the shock value than the ideology itself. Initially.

Chuck Shute: 17:51

Yeah. And then Didn't you also you started drinking at 14 You said that was like pouring gasoline on the fire that just made you more destructive and lash out and and then you start to like, you kind of like seeking out fights and things right?

Unknown: 18:04

Yeah. I so I did start drinking. I was 14 It was actually a forementioned heavier headbanger kid I was drinking with there was a appropriately enough there's like a graveyard at Milwaukee where the kids would go party. And so here we are out there. Habit is Slayer jacket. Like dusty, ripped up t shirt. And I think we had like an eight pack a load bra or something that I I had like probably three four beers and passed out. But it was definitely like, as soon as I started drinking, I went from zero to alcoholic. It was I come from long lines of alcoholism on both sides of my family. So I was kind of genetically predisposed to it. As soon as I started drinking, it was like boom, alcoholism. And I've been violent since I was a little kid. So violence is something I was very accustomed to. And you add the alcohol to the violence and then yeah, I would go out and get in fights in the street. I have a big dude. And like people are to this day, find my physical presence kind of intimidating, but like it I was as a kid also, but I've never been very coordinated. Or like very fast. And so to get in fights, I get my ass kicked as often as I kick anybody else's acts, but it was really like that about winning the fight. It was just about experiencing the violence.

Chuck Shute: 19:33

Okay, so you're hanging out with these punks. So then it's just kind of like you gradually start meeting more people who are more into the deep into this like white nationalist movement, and then you start like living with them, right?

Unknown: 19:46

Yeah, I actually had a friend named Jane who was kinda like OG, punk queen or the Milwaukee scene. And she started driving a tour bus for the cheetah crow motherfuckers she and she drove this bus like all from the Midwest to the it was the big van and she gets off to the east coast and by the time she's out there like cheetah chrome were like real live filthy, stinking punk rockers it just like she couldn't stand and being in a van with these guys who've never bathed and like we're just really living the whole disgusting crusty punk ideal. It's a she bailed from the tour in New York, she met some like Kedah. So a lot of things a lot of people that are standard like the whole skinhead thing from the get go, wasn't necessarily racist. Like the original skin ads were came about in the late 60s, early 70s In the UK, and it was more of like a reaction to the kind of mod scene. So if you see old like videos of the who or the Rolling Stones, and they have this flashy hair and clothes and they're kind of posh and pretty boy, like skinhead counterculture was was a reaction to that they were like working class kids who had nothing. They were all football hooligans, they shaved their heads, he couldn't pull their hair in a fight and they listen to reggae. And like they they included, like Pakistani immigrants and immigrants from the West Indies among them. And it wasn't until the late 70s that actual fascist party in Britain called the National Front started seeing the potential for like a brown shirt among the skinheads. So they started telling these skinheads like yeah, the reason why you don't have a job is because of that Pakistani immigrant he's not your friend. He's a problem he's gonna go, enough of them bought into it, that this whole offshoot of the skinhead color culture came about that was like, blatantly racist. And as I was kind of progressing to the punk scene, Jane meets some of these kind of nationalist but not racist skinheads in New York. She adopts the kind of look in the boots and braces and whatnot starts making her way back come through Chicago, connects with the Chicago area skinheads which To my knowledge, were the first racist skinhead crew in the United States. They play screwdriver for her which is like one of the seminal skinhead bands and the it just like that that kind of took her by storm and she brought the tape off to Milwaukee played it for me and for her then boyfriend later husband, Pat O'Malley, and we were just right away like this is awesome man like whereas has been all our lives. This is what we got to get into it. And at the time, there was already kind of a, like a political skinhead, kind of mass growing in the Milwaukee scene and when you added screwdriver to the mix, it caused like a bunch of us that okay, we're white power skinhead were the real skinheads, everybody else or baldies? The other guys were like yeah, we're not Nazis. You guys are the fake skinheads. There was a bunch of flooding and whatnot. But that's basically how it all started splinter.

Chuck Shute: 23:07

So was there somebody that kind of, for lack of a better word was kind of like your mentor as a white supremacist that like indoctrinated you because I know that you would later indoctrinate people with books and things and like, what kind of literature Did they give you? Mine cough are like what? I don't know what what do they? How do they like what did they teach you? It's just

Unknown: 23:27

Yeah, it's well, there definitely was like entry points like that. It's funny because I I've been a voracious reader my entire life. And I had already read a ton of books that time it was 14. And so what I get in the do nots, you know, I got to read mine comp. And we stole English translation of it from the library and I couldn't even get through half of it because it was poorly written. This isn't like doing a whole lot to like, make me radiology I

Chuck Shute: 24:01

wasn't like you read that book. And it was like, Oh, this is so inspiring.

Unknown: 24:05

Got it all it was the book was like a miserable failure. Like get me to buy into the ideology. But what did happen was we are first effort at like, outreach was like we're gonna have a hotline. And we arranged some kind of voicemail thing where people did call and we put a message on there some racist rant and then they they will leave a message for us and most of the veterans that was a really hostile and we're actually using our own the address to our dwelling as our like, mailing address, like for more information, right to the address where we lived, it's always very good to break through the windows. Really, oh, and again, this is like kind of old they work so you go out and you offend all these People you say all this horrible shit you do things mainly to repulse people. And then when they react as you are trying to provoke, then you turn it around and go, Oh, we're persecuted. We can't even like, talk about how much we love our race without or windows being broken. And so now we're oppressed because we're basically seeing the the effects of our actions really. But as as all this is happening, there was one particular guy in Milwaukee, who it was like this old Polish guy from the sell side. We later met him in person, but he got a hold of us right away. And he's like, Yeah, I think you guys are doing a great thing there. But you gotta get a post office box. You can't. You can't use your home address. Really? Okay. Well, that's, that's good advice. So that was one of the first things we did there. And then it was through people like him, that we were turned on the literature like by George Lincoln Rockwell, who was the founder of the American Nazi Party in the 60s. And Rockwall, who was later assassinated by one of his own guys, in a which is a very common thing amongst organizations that revolve around hate and violence Go figure. But Rockwell was was really smart. And he had like a really wicked biting sense of humor. And he was satire and a lot of his writing. And his books, I thought, were great. I was just like, wow, you're Yeah, that you can like like in Rockwell till, like one of today's pundits, you know, who has a show and just shoot zingers at the other side all day and makes us look stupid. And he was kind of along that vein, although, you know, very blatantly racist, anti semitic way. So it was kind of these old guard, not Nazis and Klansmen who would see us you know, make a noise after decades of relative quiet in the white nationalist scene, here's all of a sudden are these young skinheads we're, you know, burly street fighting guys, they want to shake things up. And so a lot of these guys are really excited to see us emerge. But the ones who like there were some who tried to like waltz in and just assumed command of us. And they, they got their asses beat with every along with everybody else. The smart ones would just kind of like, kind of connect with us for arm's length, and provide us with literature, things like that. They're the ones who we had on you in relationships are the ones who were smart enough not to try to boss us around.

Chuck Shute: 27:53

Are these books, a lot of these books and things that you guys read? Are these books banned now? Or are they still out there somehow for because there's still these organizations out there? Right?

Unknown: 28:03

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know that the books are banned. I hope they're not I am not one for banning books. And I do hold the First Amendment, very high regard. But I would imagine it'd be harder to get them well, I don't know, because they probably get copies online or why but yeah, there's a whole you know, reading list of, of, beyond the reading of the rock wall, there was stuff by like William Pierce and other like more contemporary neo Nazi type guys who had done a lot of writing and those were the things that we kind of gobbled up.

Chuck Shute: 28:45

It's just so weird, because you think like, I mean, so many things are being banned, that are even like fringe racist, or things like that. And then also, like, I remember, like reading your book, you go to this one of these organizations, a party and the guy's wearing a full Nazi uniform. I'm like, Where does he even get that? I mean, it's just so bizarre to me.

Unknown: 29:04

Yeah, it was. It there's a lot is certainly changed between the late 80s. And now, a lot hasn't changed. The core belief of White Nationalism is fear and separatism. It is saying like, well, that because we have less melanin in our skin, we're better and at war with everyone else. And in the United States. I'm threatened by everyone else. The anti semitism is a really strong, common thread. I recently worked with a brilliant woman, ally for Vegas, Ocean City College who runs the Holocaust education effort there. It she had called anti semitism, the oldest hatred, and I that really resulted with me I think, for 1000s of years, Jews have been blamed for everything going wrong with the world from and droughts to to the Black Plague up to COVID. And it's it's nothing new to blame Jewish people for whatever's going wrong in a person's life or in the world in general. Those things are all the same, but Well, what is different to a degree is just the the look and the actual, like, you know, what is white nationalists look like nowadays, versus what it would look like in the late 80s. And then versus what it would look like in the 60s and early 30s in Germany or whatnot. But yeah, we did meet some guys in Michigan who fashion themselves as like a new school SS unit. And I don't know if they got it from Army surplus stores or whatever, but they all has our Yeah, they had the straps in the arm bands and the hats and all that the bold thing kind of struck me is kind of the homoerotic. I don't know how much going back like back to Hitler's days, there was a Hitler's early brown shirt guys was a guy named Earth's room, who basically led the brown shirts to put Hitler in power. And then it was revealed that Ernst was a closeted homosexual. And that he was executed because of it. And that that's also a repeating theme. You see, part

Chuck Shute: 31:32

of your the group that you were in, were they anti homosexual, as well?

Unknown: 31:37

Oh, absolutely. We saw. So I gotta understand the context for this. I was this happens to be as like old at a meal in New York with a real diverse bunch of friends. And someone asked me a question like this and I just like said the answer and a server was like, if you ask if we were opposed to homosexuality, I'd say yeah, we were we believe that homosexuality was like a tool of the Jews to destroy the white race by keeping us from breeding and keeping us bacon us into sissies and taken away or will the fight and it again, it's you blame like kind of a natural fact of human life, which is various expressions of gender and sexual identity. And you twist it and you make it part of this big conspiracy to kill you and everybody who looks like you. So that that was how we, we viewed homosexuality and what the result is you get people. I'm hopelessly like in vaginas, and whatnot, but I have a lot of gay friends. You know, talking with them, I understand what it's a really difficult experience to be closeted to like, not being able to express who you're attracted to. And I'm, that's one thing that I'm really inspired by nowadays, in that that's not a big deal. Whereas when I was in high school, it was as unthinkable for two guys to be walking down, all hands are going to prom together. And nowadays, I've done I've talked at schools where the principal's like brag about, yes, we have openly gay couples walking down the hall holding hands. But going back to being closeted, we had a guy in our group who joined who was like really hateful and angry, wanted to beat the shit out of people. He's, he's constantly going off about faggots. And all of a sudden, it's revealed that it I forget what the reveal was, but it was somehow, you know, somebody talked to someone who made out with them or something. And when we find out that this guy was gay, like he got the shit kicked out of him. That and then he was kicked out of the group. And so that, that that theme was also repeated in our group with a guy who was Jewish, who like join the group, like vehemently hated Jews, and then all of a sudden, it turns all the while he was actually Jewish, and that's why it he has this sense of self loathing, that he doesn't know how to process and how to deal with it. So he just like jumps into the self loathing, like 500% and actually joins a group that hates who he is, right? It

Chuck Shute: 34:31

didn't, because Didn't you find out like midway through this organization that you're in, you're 1/16 Native American. Yeah, that

Unknown: 34:40

was how

Chuck Shute: 34:41

do you do you don't get kicked out for that or anybody or

Unknown: 34:45

this? Yeah, first of all, I only pulled like a couple people. And what happened was, is that it was a it was Thanksgiving of 89. And I was at Thanksgiving dinner with the skinhead girl girlfriend and you I think I was 18. And she was like 19 or so. And we were both reporting drunk when we show up. Thanksgiving was always a pretty dysfunctional event that my family typically would just be my mom and my grandma, who were the only ones sober. And then, you know, my dad, my hands, my uncle like they're always did. And in this context, I'm at the Thanksgiving dinner table going on about the weight race, and now we're all threatened and everybody's got to mobilize. And my mom kind of stops me and she's like, Well, Mr. Nazi, did you know that your great grandpa Bordeaux was you know, Arcadian, and he was French, Canadian, Native American. So like, you have Indian blood in you. And I was like, that's not true. You're a liar. And I would stop and out of Thanksgiving dinner, went back to this hovel that we lived in. And I locked myself in the bedroom with a case of really cheap beer and glass bottles. And I worked my way through the case until I got drunk enough to break one of the bottles carved my wrist up with it. My girlfriend later like kicked down the door after I was passed out. And she had the presence of mind to bind my wound and stop me from bleeding out. And then the next day, I wrote a letter to like a big honcho in the white nationalist movement back then. And I basically said, like, I, I want to die, like my race is all I have. I can't believe that I'm not a pure blooded area and white man and all this. And he wrote me back right away saying that I was a good pure blooded Aryan white man, and that if I had a nosebleed, I'd lose my Indian blood and that he shouldn't concern me. And that I should keep going fighting for the white race. And I kind of like kept that letter as like my, my past, like, if God in my face about it. But I did keep it pretty quiet. There was a couple older guys in the group that I was tighter with and than anyone else. And I did kind of let them know about it after I had the letter. Okay, of course. And so I could be like, well, you know, this happened. And but and then I had this letter from Tom Metzger. And he says that I'm good. I'm cool. So you know, full speed ahead. The irony, the funny part of all that is that a couple of years ago, I got a 23andme done. And I have absolutely zero indigenous people.

Chuck Shute: 37:35

Do you ever get the DNA test because now you can get things. But either way, there's so so many fallacies with this organ with this, with these theories, and one at one of the things that would really like this is where like, I'm out, because like, it's you said that you could not watch football. You could watch Packer games, you couldn't listen to the Beastie Boys. You couldn't watch Seinfeld. Like, are you kidding me? Like, because I wonder that I was like, how extreme are these organizations? Like, do they just think like, Okay, well, white people are better than this stuff. But we can still, you know, enjoy this culture. But we're better than that. But it's like, No, you weren't even allowed to enjoy the culture at all?

Unknown: 38:12

Well, it's again, it's like, what we say and what we do are two different things. But it was basically like, the way nowadays, you hear a lot of people use the phrase virtue signaling, which I'm not a big fan of. And it's ironic because most of the people who bitch about virtual signaling, are virtue signaling themselves by saying I don't virtue signaling. But but you are virtue signaling by saying that, but it's an apt phrase when talking about this, because it's basically like, if I'm with a bunch of skinheads, the way that I show them how down I am, is to like, oh, the Packers you know, that's that's part of the plot to destroy the white man. They want to dumb us all down so they can more easily oppress us by nobody our mind with these stupid sports teams that have black men and white men on the same team, like being friends with each other. It's all a plot to kill the white people. And the more like, pissed off I am about it, the more I bitched about it amongst this group, that's all that's all I'm signaling how down for the cars

Chuck Shute: 39:18

virtue signaling, and white supremacy. That's an

Unknown: 39:21

idea. But then, of course on Sundays, like every chance I got, I'd sneak away from my guys that I like, watch the packer game real low and

Chuck Shute: 39:31

funny that you did that you had to sneak to watch the Packers. That is

Unknown: 39:35

ridiculous. It doesn't happen over and over again. I there was a saying amongst, in the white nationalist ideology, where they'd say if you look at the credits to a TV show or a Hollywood movie, it reads like a television phonebook. And this kind of like plays into the conspiracy theory of like, oh, we know that Jews are on Hollywood and Jews are on TV and everything that you see on TV and everything you see coming out of Hollywood. And this, of course, will extend to professional sports and music and whatever else is all part of this Jewish plot to kill all the white people by diminishing our racial consciousness, and not like stopping us from organizing as a race to work in for our common interests. Like this is all part of how they do that. I recall we were I was at all your paramilitary training thing in the Carolinas when I was 18. And we had a night off and we were at a gas station where they had some movies for rent. Back in the day when you'd rent a VHS tape and things like that. One of my all time favorite movies I've ever seen is Blade Runner, and they had it there and I'm like, oh, we gotta get this movie. You guys. Let's get this movie and watch it. And I really just learned to get lost in the movie that night. And as soon as we pop it in the guise of weather like, you know, Harrison, Ford's a Jew, right? Israel named Shlomo Rabinowitz, and he changed it and he's a Jew, and they're a Jew and everybody in his movies a Jew, and I'm like, could you just shut up and watch the movie? Like, right? Yeah, like the whole time we watched his movie, I heard about it, we ended up having to turn it off. And then I got shipped for that for like years later. Like, Oh, Arno loves the loves Jews, because he loves blade, runner it up just like at the time I get around it. But

Chuck Shute: 41:31

that's got to be so hard to avoid movies and sports and culture, the music. I mean, there's so much great stuff out there. That's eclectic of so many different things. So besides that fallacy, then there's the other fallacy of like, the real people that you interact with, you're walking in this T Shirt Company, with minorities and stuff, and they're like, really nice to you. And but you're you're supposed to try to hate these people like, because they're a minority, but like, you know, like, they're really nice, too, even though they know you're white supremacist.

Unknown: 42:01

Exactly. And that was really as difficult as it was to like, bear my my own glaring hypocrisy of enjoying Hollywood movies and sports and things like that. What really drove it home more than anything else is when I had actual interactions with other human beings who were people that I claimed to hate, who refuse to play by my rules. And that's something that I think is, is really poignant. And I'm afraid it's getting lost way too often, in today's discourse, and we talk about racism in that. In more irony, when I was a white nationalists and years into it, some like really hardcore guy who was like a terrorist, basically insane, you know, we all need to just disconnect ourselves from our loved ones and start robbing banks and blowing things up. This guy told me that I had to read Sun Tzu's Art of War. And right away, I'm like, why would I read a book by about, you know, racial slur against Asian people. And he's like, just read it. There's a lot of like, really good tactical information in there about how just how to fight, and you need to understand that. And so I did read it back, then I didn't really get the value of the book. I reread it recently, in the past few years. And in the book, there's all kinds of really smart tactical things, but one of them is basically like knowing yourself, if you know yourself, and you know your enemy, you need not fear the result of 1000 battles. If you know one or the other, you'll win half. If you don't know either, you won't win a single battle. And what I get from that is basically like controlling the rules of engagement. So I guess because I'm a big guy, I make this point of I'm talking to someone like Chuck, if you and I were to go into a steel cage and fight in an octagon when he went, well, first of all, I have post concussion syndrome. So I'd probably get a concussion. If you look at me funny. But just going into this scenario, would you rather make the rules of that fight? Or would you rather let me make the rules? Right, I'd rather make the rules for sure probably have a better chance of winning, you can say well, Arno has to have his hands dive on his back or he can't You can't do this. We can't do that. When you interact with someone, their attitude that they bring is like their attempt to set the rules of engagement. And when I was a white power skinhead, everything I did was meant to provoke hostility. I wanted people to hate me. I wanted people to swing at me. If I got my ass kicked, that was fine as long as it devolved to violence, yet, people like Afro American coworkers, Latino coworkers, a lesbian supervisor, a Jewish boss, all of these people refused to let me make the rules of engagement. And instead they said, Hey, I'm gonna dictate our rules of engagement. And that is this is how a human being treats another human being. You're hungry. I'm gonna give you Have my sandwich. I don't care if you like me or hate me or what I'm not gonna sit here and watch a hungry person starve. And that's that happened when Afro American coworker gave me half his lunch because these lobbies hung over starved and collapsed in a heap in the corner of the break room. Again, there's no mistake in what I was about, like I had a shaved head and swastikas tattooed all over me. I was an outspoken racist, there was, anybody is going to know what I'm about. So that kind of kindness, like blew all my bullshit out of the water. It basically like indicated how wrong I was. And it was a big factor leading up to me leaving

Chuck Shute: 45:38

Yeah, well then tell the story. I know you've told the story a million times. But the black, the elderly black woman at the McDonald's and this is like three months into you being in the white nationalism. And so you kind of had to keep this in the back of your mind for the seven years. You're in that organization. But yeah, tell my audience that story real quick.

Unknown: 45:55

It's funny, I have actually done talks where you know, there's lighters, all goofy Donald story. Requests for it requests. So I sorry, it is a good story. So I have a couple of months into this. And because of my gifted genius, I figured I get a swastika tattooed on this middle finger. The one that currently currently is the the turnouts is love Yeah, now it says love and I had this done by a guy who

Chuck Shute: 46:28

wins it says for the audience on audio only he's got wins on his on his fingers, like his fists

Unknown: 46:34

that was tattooed by a guy that I helped to get on the Ku Klux Klan in 2016. But underneath that V on my right hand, I had a swastika tattooed and I was 16 and that was specifically so when people would get my face about me being a racist. I could show him that swastika and be like, yeah, what are you gonna do about it? Like that was so I can repulse people to the point of violence. And at this time, I all I ate was ramen noodles like the 10 for $1 BrickCon. And I did that so I could have more drinking money. And the only because I'm a gift a genius. The only day of the week I needed anything different was on payday, which was Wednesday when I go get a Big Mac from McDonald's. And I buy first payday at this place. I go get my Big Mac and I walk into this McDonald's there's an elderly black woman by the corner, and she's got this beautiful smile that is just like shining like the sun for anybody who walks through that door. The sun shines on everybody doesn't care what color your skin is on what money you got don't got skinhead, gangbanger, you know, Saint, whatever it shows it shines and everybody and her smile was very much like that. And it was it made me very uncomfortable, because I'm trying to hate black people. And here's the sweet old woman with this beautiful smile that just makes it very difficult to hate her. So I go order my food. I scurry out of there. A week goes by, I come in again. She remembers me this time, she remembers what I ordered. She's asked me about my day talking about the weather. And all the more uncomfortable. I get my food. I scurry out after that, that between that payday and the next one at Saturday night, I got that swastika tattooed. And so the next week when I walk in, I just freeze in the doorway. And I have this like involuntary sense of like, I don't want her to see this tattoo. You're ashamed? I was ashamed of it. Absolutely. Even though I got it to offend everybody who looks like her. When I walked in and saw her there. I froze in the doorway. I didn't want to offend her. I was ashamed of it. Absolutely. And I actually sat there for a minute, like, doesn't any bills work here like nobody else had come to the corner? Nobody did I for a minute. I'm thinking like, where's the next closest McDonald's. But it was December in Wisconsin and freezing and ultimately, the siren song of the Big Mac prevailed and I went up to the corner and I'm thinking I'll just like keep my hand in my pocket, you won't see it, not thinking that I gotta get my money out of my right hand pocket. So as I'm doing that, she sees the swastika. And she just goes she says to me the same way my grandma used to talk to me when I'd beat up my little brother. She goes, What is that on your finger? And I you know if I would have said that's the symbol of my people because I'm an Aryan white man fighting against the barber blah. But instead of saying that I just like look, I couldn't even look her in the eye. I looked down at my steel toed boots, and I was like a foot taller than her but I felt like six inches high when she asked me and I just said it's nothing. And when she when I look back up at her eyes met she said I she was like, you're a better person than that. I don't think that's who you are. And I was like, Can I sell my paper please? I got it. I scurried out of there. I wolf, the dawn I went home I got drunk as best as I could. I went on the streets and I tak the first person I can find, like just trying to put some distance between me and this singularity of humanity, I just experience. And it didn't work ultimately, because even though this happened in the first couple of months of my seven year involvement, white nationalism, it what a human being experiences something, it's part of their being from that day forward, you can't like erase it, you can't, if you could there be no, no use for therapy. And so as hard as I tried to suppress this experience I had, it was still like it, I wasn't able to do so. And it took more and more energy. And that was a big factor in the exhaustion that built up ultimately, to lead me out.

Chuck Shute: 50:47

Right. And also, I think some of your friends died. I mean, that's, that's the ultimate, we, you saw kind of the future of where this was gonna go, you are either going to end up in jail, or death, pretty much right, you get shot or killed in the fight or something.

Unknown: 51:02

Yeah, I had in 1990, there was, you know, obviously, a dear friend of mine. And at same time, like, you can't really have a true friendship when you're immersed in all this hate and violence, but the nature of friendship and the nature of the love between human beings it really like it can actual actually take root and happen even in those kinds of circumstances. And so I had a really close friend, as close as he could be under the circumstances, that was exactly one year younger than me. And in 1990, he was out, provoking hate and violence as I had taught him to do when he got in a bar fight. And one of the guys in the fight came back with a pistol and shot at him from half a block away with it was a 25 caliber pistol that would probably cost him 50 bucks. And on the best day, you wouldn't be able to hit the broadside of a barn with it from that far. But on this day, this that one shot, went through my friends back, in between in went right through his heart, and He died on the spot. Every year, my birthday now I think about him, and I think about who he would be today. But at the time, it just drove me further like deeper into what we call the movement, it just it absolutely inflamed. All of my hatred, all my violence, and kind of drove me to even up the level of activism that I was doing at the time. But in 1994, after my girlfriend and I had broke up and become a single parent to my 18 month old daughter, a second friend of mine was shot and killed in a similar scenario. And this is after a concert my band had played. And my friend who got killed 94 was also lead vocals of another white power band, he had a couple little kids who grew up without their dad because he was out looking for hate and violence, and he found it. And at that point, I had lost count how many friends who have been incarcerated. So it was really like that kind of perfect storm that led me to finally walk away from it in I think it was around April of 94.

Chuck Shute: 53:29

Okay, and the daughter obviously was a big piece of that too. But so going back to that, like, would you? Like, I don't understand what is the ultimate goal of these organizations because it's just to convert as many people as they are because I think I heard you say in the second book, something about we're gonna like sending back people to where they came from. But like, if we think like Native Americans, like what was the plan with that? Because they're, they're from America as well. I mean, was there other kinds of goals or like, I'm just trying to think like, what's the big picture? I mean, they're scary organizations.

Unknown: 54:01

Right? It's it's vocalized a little different from organization to organization but basically what what all violent extremism revolves around or first of all oppression narratives, like our in group is oppressed by this evil out group. So we're going to fight back with everything we got to stop this oppression. And then for what you're talking about, now, the it their dream driven by return narratives so in the in the case of white nationalism, and again, this is all like completely erroneous from a historical point of view, but you'll you know, we're gonna make Europe white again. Okay, well, Europe was overrun by Hans overrun by Mongols and overrun by Boers throughout the history of that continent, and they don't know how many times the 10s of 1000s is years before then. So this idea of like, when Europe ever was white, like Did that ever exist? That's debatable in the first place. The second point is, is if you could put your finger on a time when Europe was white, it was a, it was the Dark Ages. Like we're all burning each other as witches and fighting everybody to be away from us and enslave each other, you know, it wasn't some Shangri La, we're like, oh, we all look the same. So we're all gonna live with this awesome, whiter and brighter world. And that was actually the language that one of the groups I was involved with us, they call it the, the whiter and brighter world. And the idea was, was at some point, the white race, again, whatever that is, it's also another thing that no one's ever been able to put their finger on to this day as to what the White Race is, or is not. But for the sake of argument was the white race as the movement defined, it would control the entire planet Earth, and simply by stopping supporting anyone who wasn't white, they would wither on the vine, so to speak, like this idea that like without the white man, feeding everyone and providing food and shelter and technology that no one else could survive. And that was one take on, you know, a utopian white future that one particular group I was involved with had. But if you look at all of them, they're all going to be pretty similar, like they want. There's a lot in the 80s, there's a lot of thing about a white homeland in the Pacific Northwest, where, you know, you're gonna give us our white homeland, and if you don't give it to us, we'll take it. And that's what's going to happen. And you see, separatists and nationalists have been doing that throughout history, and if not, like along racial lines, but along some national or ethnic or religious lines. So it's not a new thing. But it's, it's never, you know, it's a false return narrative. As I pointed out, there was never a point when you're a visible white, even if you could say there was a pretty miserable time. And then second of all, it really just flies in the face of, of biology and zoology, which, which is really plain as day if you look at a rainforest or a coral reef for, you know, the mountains or whatever, any kind of ecosystem, the diversity is always the hallmark of the of the health of an ecosystem. So anytime you have an ecosystem where there is no diversity, you you have an ecosystem that's in crisis, that's, that's gonna, like miserable, it's gonna have a catastrophic failure and have to rebuild itself. And I believe human society is plainly included in that kind of dynamic.

Chuck Shute: 58:02

Right? Well, I think that's what makes like our country so great, is we do have all these people from different places and different backgrounds, different religions, different different schools of thought, I think that's something that's still like is lost right now. And we want everyone to think a certain way. Like I like hearing different people's perspectives, politically, or musically or like what sports or what, like everything, I'm just like, Oh, you're so you're like a diehard lions fan? Okay. Like, yeah. So I don't know, I like I liked that diversity of that of all of it.

Unknown: 58:36

i Well, I'm really glad you mentioned that, Chuck, because I, you're right, like everybody is talking about diversity nowadays, but they're talking about it like, just in in a very, like base level of our complexions. And you know, how our hair is and whatnot, it which I think is really does not do justice to the complexity of human life. So I actually do a lot of diversity, equity and inclusion training. But it's not, not the conventional type that is, unfortunately come to be prominent of where everybody is kind of like branded with racial identities, and then saddled with the consequences of those racial identities, whether you're an oppressor or you're, you're oppressed or things like that. To me, the most important diversity of all is diversity of thought. Because that diversity of thought is what proves the value of diversity. First of all, in that if you're making a case in a corporate setting, like why does my company need to be diverse? Well, if you got 10 People from all the same background all grew up in the same town and they're all looking at a problem, you're going to have a lot more varied perspectives on how to solve a problem if you had 10 People from each corner of the earth looking at the same problem because you're now you have a much wider pool to draw from of experience to apply to this problem to solve would be to innovate. So just from a business sense, it makes a lot of sense to have that diversity. But again, even when you're talking about that you're not talking about, well, you have 10 people who don't look the same. You're you're just when you're fixated on that physical aspect, you're losing the importance of the thought aspect. And the thought aspect is what proves the fallacy of race. Like you, you and I don't, don't think and act alike, because we have a similar complexion. And that goes for whether your complexion is light, dark, or whatever. And I spent a lot of time with people who don't look like me, and I listen to them all. And I, when I listen to them all, I find that there are all sorts of different perspectives on every single issue that our society is concerned about. And I think it's really important that we humble ourselves and maybe step outside of our own ideological boxes a little bit to understand that someone else's lived experience can lead them to a place where what they think makes a lot of sense doesn't make sense to us. And that's okay, like that. That's what diversity is, that's literally going back to the example of 10 people. And that's why you want a diverse organization. So when we're talking about diversity, let's talk about diversity of thought. And let's encourage that, at the same time making sure that, you know, there's there's a fair degree of representation and inclusion in what we're doing.

Chuck Shute: 1:01:30

Sure, I love that. That's great. Well, so like with prevention now, because I know, like a lot of what your organization does is you try to like kind of rescue people from the white supremacy and white nationalist groups and things like that. But like, What about just preventing it from happening in the first place, and you say, like, hurt people hurt people? So it doesn't necessarily have to be it was interesting. In the beginning, you brought up jihad, I was like, that's a really good point. Because that's like a similar kind. It's hate, it's hate. And so how can you just help kids go like what would have helped you to think go down a different path? And that would have nothing to do with hurting people? What is there something that you think can help kids and teenagers?

Unknown: 1:02:10

Yeah, in a broad sense, it's essentially helping people deal with trauma that they've incurred in their life and process it in a healthy way. So I'm a Buddhist nowadays, and like Buddhism One on One is if you live you suffer, like that not a whole lot of getting around that. But understanding where the suffering comes from, in Buddhism, what we believe a lot of our suffering comes from our attachments. Like if I didn't have an attachment to being warm, and comfortable in my house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in April, I wouldn't suffer. If I get hit by a deal. I can elevate myself above this need to be physically comfortable. But it's if we can help people find healthy ways to process their trauma, the likelihood of that trauma being transferred to someone else, I hurt people hurt people is diminished. So in my case, it ended a really important point is that as amazing as humanity is one of the most amazing things is that although we have all this commonality, and we have way more in common than different at the same time, we are every single one of us all 8 billion some odd people on this planet are unique individuals, that not no two are alike. We even identical twins raised in the identical environment don't aren't identical when it comes down to their thoughts and their preferences and things like that. So respecting that individuality, we need to understand that what works for me as a kid might not work for another kid. So we need to have a broad offering of ways for people to process trauma in a healthy way. So the arts are a go to means that all forms of art. Music is another way that people can process trauma. In my case, I think sports is another way. I think martial arts would have been a saving grace for me, had my parents, I again, I lived in this rich suburb or we were the poor kids. And all my rich friends all took taekwondo and karate and I was like really jealous, like obsessed with all things remotely martial arts related, and my parents couldn't afford that. So if had I been able to like really get into a good martial arts program and stay in it. I think that would have been the right outlet for my aggressions while building like a real, genuine sense of self worth and value. The other element in preventing violent extremism beyond hurt people hurt people peace is that there are basic human needs. that violent extremist groups will prey upon to bring people into their groups. Depending where you are in the world, those may be higher or lower on Maslow's hierarchy. Okay. In in places in Africa and the Middle East, there's some places where people don't have food and water and shelter. And so ISIS or Al Shabaab will compensate, yeah, we'll give you those things, but you're gonna come fight for us. So that's, that's an example of exploiting a very low level, basic need of a human being in the so called Western world in North America, in Europe, we the circumstances of people who don't have those basic needs taken care of are much fewer, you're not going to find as many situation,

Chuck Shute: 1:05:47

can you find kids who are bullied or something? Isn't that a big part of it, actually. So

Unknown: 1:05:51

we're looking at like those higher level needs that are exploited in that hierarchy. And those are a need for identity, a need for purpose and a need for belonging? Those are three basic human needs that all human beings have. Most human beings find a healthy way to answer those needs. Again, it might be art, music, sports, activism, academics, whatever. But if you don't have a healthy answer those needs, violent extremist ideology can swoop in and be like, here's your identity, here's your purpose, here's your belonging. And so a way to prevent violent extremism is to institute programs in schools that cultivate healthy answers to those needs. One of the programs I'm involved with is called serve to unite. And it basically does that through arts driven service learning and global engagement. So we would ask kids in high school, middle school, like hey, what what do you? What do we need to fix in this society? And there's no shortage answers for that. And there's, over the years our students have addressed like every issue in society you can imagine. And what we do is we like, facilitate a solution based approach to that problem. So for instance, after Mike Brown was killed by a police officer in St. Louis, a lot of our students, really we want to address this issue between community and police. Well, the way we did that was we brought uniform cops into the classrooms and developed a way that the kids can anonymously ask these cops, whatever the questions they wanted to ask, and they were difficult questions like, Why is it always brown and black people getting shot? Why are more cops in my neighborhood than this other neighborhood, you know, everything you ever wanted to ask the cop, but we're afraid to, and the police would would very frankly, answer these things from their own perspective, and also from the perspective of the police department in a broader sense. And what ended up happening was, we had a dialogue between cops and kids. So they could really both see the humanity in each other and kind of understand where each other were coming from. We had a live drawer, like do a mural of the whole thing as the discussion was going on. And then that mural became part of an exhibit that went around the city, basically saying, like this kind of dialogue is possible. This is the benefits of having it let's do it more often.

Chuck Shute: 1:08:24

Wow, I love that because I feel like right now the problem is, it's either blamed on the police 100% Or it's blamed on black people. 100% It's either, you know, blue lives matter, black lives matter. And it's like, I don't think it's I mean, forgive the term. I don't think it's black and white, right? I mean, there could be better training for police, for sure. And there could be better training for citizens and not just black people. I mean, all citizens, like kids like being taught how to, like, get arrested how to what happens when you get pulled over. Like, I don't think I knew this until maybe my 20s or 30s. But when you get pulled over, you're supposed to put your hands on the wheel. Most people try to go into their glove box, because they're trying to get their registration and stuff that makes the cop nervous, because they don't know if you're reaching for a gun or something. So they want you to have your hands on the steering wheel. So when they walk up, they know where your hands are. And then they'll tell you, you know, get your registration or whatever, like they'll tell you what to do so they can see what you're doing. So like little things like that. I feel like we could teach our citizens. I love the idea of the dialog. That's like, why isn't that something that? And what are your thoughts on just the how the media handle these handles these kinds of situations? Because what you're seeing a dialog, I don't hear that. I don't hear that on either side about the media talking about that.

Unknown: 1:09:38

Yeah, I don't either as much as I'd like. The So regarding media, and I'm very like, I want to be very intentional and mindful about how I talk about media because yeah, as a white nationalist 30 years ago, yeah, we you we would never say the word media. It was to always be the Jewish media like that, that was how you had to say that and you had to, like cast it as this Jewish propaganda machine. And it's funny because nowadays, if you're talking to someone on the far right, they're gonna they're they won't say media either they'll say, the liberal media, and they do it in the exact same kind of dynamic that we would say in Jewish media. If you talk someone to the far left, they'll say the corporate media, Fox News, the white supremacist, capitalist, oppressor media or whatever, you know, it always has to be qualified in that way. What's really interesting is like they both according to either poll, The New York Times is the devil. The righties Oh, it's so liberal blah, blah, blah to lefties like it's corporate capitalist, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, okay, well, that's a good sign for me that I'm gonna be more you know, that this this media, all it has is a little more objectivity that pissed off everybody. But

Chuck Shute: 1:11:00

that is kind of a goal of media in general. I think this is what people forget that I think the goal of media used to be to report the news, but I think what that happened to there's so many media outlets has gotten more competitive. And I feel like now their goal is to make money and they don't make money if people aren't watching and fearful. And so I feel like both sides I mean, you could tell me I'm wrong, but I feel like both sides try to pump in fear. It's just what's your brand of fear? Are you scared of COVID? Are you scared of you know, white supremacy? Are you scared of jihad? Terrorists? I mean, you know, they're gonna try to pump something to scare you. So you keep watching.

Unknown: 1:11:35

I totally agree with it's that's what it boils down to nowadays. It's all clickbait. Like, that's all they get paid. I had years ago, I forget what the whole context was. But some reporter reached out to me asking about like, white nationalists and guns. And we did a big I was on the phone for an hour. I told them everything about back in the day, and we're all armed to the teeth and blah, blah, blah. And then a week later this, this guy produces a headline that says, like, former White Nationalist says white nationalist groups are arming themselves to execute gay people. That's not what I told you. By any stretch, like I did not indicate that but they like, kind of twisted everything I had is an hour long talk. Yeah, I have all this context. They just like, strip it all to get this really sensational click Beatty head headline. And that's not helping anybody. It's not certainly not helping gay people to tell them that there's white supremacists around every corner and under every rock waiting to shoot them. And yet, this is and you're right. All all media does this, whether it's right wing or left wing, they all do this late bullshit clickbait practice. That's all they make money. It's it's sad. It's, it's intimidating. But I my take on the media as my same as the take on government, and that I believe both the media and the government are manifestations of our collective social consciousness. And if our collective social consciousness is one of fear and loathing, and distrust and separatism, like, that's what we're gonna get for both of these things. They're essentially mirrors that in media, like, more so now than ever before CNN, Fox News, whatever, they pull their stories from what's trending on Twitter, or what's trending on whatever social media platform, so we're literally telling them what we want to see. And they're just showing it to us. So in order to sort this out, and it's unfortunately, not an easy answer, but we I think we all and again, this is my Buddhism, speaking, but I think we all need to start inward, and like look at our relationship with ourselves and make peace with ourselves and generate a sense of inner peace. And only from there, can you work to build outer peace. If you have this constant turmoil within yourself where you don't trust yourself, you won't forgive yourself, you hate yourself, at times, you're greedy, or jealous, you're scared? Like, how are you supposed to go function with other people without addressing those issues? First, right. And

Chuck Shute: 1:14:19

then I think the next step would be to go out into the world and talk to people because that's what I love to travel. I don't know about you, but like, I love to travel. And one of my favorite things about traveling is like going to a restaurant or a bar, or somewhere, just anywhere store and just talking to people that live there, or people that are visiting there and just talking to different people from different backgrounds and just hearing all sorts of things. And then you're like, oh, okay, like I thought, you know, like, I remember going down to the south, and I was really interested because I was like, you know, I just I hear all these things. The South is so racist. So I'm thinking I'm gonna go on the south. I'm seeing all these, I'm gonna see all these Confederate flags and like, you know, terrible, racist things. And I mean, I saw a couple things that were really made me cringe. But oh, by and large, it was like not a lot of racist stuff. Most of the people I talked to didn't appear racist. I mean, maybe they go into their homes and to say different things. But, I mean, they, they seem like really good people. It was very interesting. I had the stereotype in my mind of southern people. And it was the real south that I visited did not fit that at

Unknown: 1:15:21

all. I saw with you chuck it totally with the I love to travel. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, he had a great quote, saying that some of the effects of travel is the cure for prejudice. And and I truly believe that and to emphasize further what you said that that aspect of interacting with people face to face is absolutely irreplaceable. And it's so it's so vital. I think that our salvation lies in that personal interaction. I had actually, I shut down my Facebook account a couple of years ago, in the summer of 20, actually, because things are just getting so ridiculous. I'm like, I can't I have a life to live. I can't be on Facebook all the time, like ping pong and back and forth between the angry lefties and angry righties. And I find that the more I get away from social media, I still do Instagram and it's, you know, octopus pictures and cat pictures and food pictures and surfing and maybe some girly pictures here and there. But it's not ended up politics, that about it, and all the fighting and whatnot. But I find that social media tends to distort our lens that we see other people through. Whereas on social media, it's like, Oh, that guy's profile. Yep, he's a Trumper. Yeah, he's got either as a bullshit to say, or this person's a big monster, they're gonna have some bullshit to say. And when you just meet someone face to face, yeah. And you're you don't know where they're coming from. You just have a conversation with them. Then if you later find out like, Oh, my God, they vote for that guy who I think is the devil incarnate. But but they're nice. They're they're really good people, they would know now you're starting to see the complexity of life. And you have some buy in you got some skin in the game in your actual interaction with this person to try to understand them. And I think if we once we stop trying to understand people, like we're gonna be pretty screwed.

Chuck Shute: 1:17:27

No, that's That's exactly right. So I think one of the reasons I reached out to you because I was just like, I keep hearing like white supremacy, white nationalists. Like I keep hearing a lot of that those words being thrown around. And I was like, I want to talk to someone who was actually in this organization, like what actually was a white supremacist. So you, you have a different perspective. I mean, again, we're two white people talking. So we don't know what it's like to be a minority, or experienced racism, but your perspective is coming from like being in the white supremacist organizations to like the world now, like you how race is, things gotten worse, or better? Or the same in terms of racist racism? Because I feel like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what to think sometimes. I think like, we've come so far. And then other times, I feel like we're going backwards.

Unknown: 1:18:17

I. So first off, and you made a good point, like it's, it's high time that race and racism wasn't just like, strictly defined by a bunch of white people deciding what No,

Chuck Shute: 1:18:32

yeah, and I don't mean at all that but I would love I would love to have somebody from, you know, a minority that is in an organization or something that come on my show. I mean, anybody's welcome on my show. I don't I'm not going to discriminate, but I did. I did want to get your perspective on it, just because you've seen the full on like, these are people that you know, they want to, you know, white power for everything. And then now you're seeing like the real world right now with the news is is, is white supremacy. Is it just more underground is like, I mean, a lot of things get labeled white supremacy, and I'm just I want to know, like, what you're like, do you feel like that is white supremacy? Like what some people think like anybody that voted for Trump is a white supremacist. And I don't know what like, I want to hear your thoughts on that.

Unknown: 1:19:20

You froze. Oh, there you go. All right. We're back. The discussion of this area that everything I have to say on the subject of white supremacy, of course it's informed by my past and my experience, but it's informed ever from listening to people who don't look like me. So it's so what I have to say is not like from my privilege bubble or my toxic fragile whiteness or whatever buzzword is being thrown around about it. It's bros are buzzwords, right, who don't look like me. And along those lines, there is a brilliant book called race craft. The subtitle is the soul of inequality in American life. It's written by two world renowned sociologists who are Afro American. Their names are Karen and Barbara Fields. And their position in race craft is they name it race craft to make a comparison between race in witchcraft in that it's they're both like concocted ideologies that somehow hold like way greater Sway on our society than they should. And their position basically is that racism is bullshit, there's no scientific basis for it. Any anthropologist will tell you that the whole thing of a lighter skin, darker skin, you know, the shape of your nose, your head, whatever, those are all phenotypes. It's just their genetic traits that determine how we look, they don't determine how we think they shouldn't determine our place in society, they shouldn't determine our worth or value. And in racecraft, they make the point that white supremacy has never been about simply white people being in charge, it has always been about which white people are in charge. So to that end, a good example of this is pre Civil War assault 8% of white people owned slaves, the other 92%, were certainly better off than enslaved Africans, but not by a whole lot. If you had a specter a hierarchy or a spectrum of all the populace of the white, or of the assault in a pre Civil War, you would have the enslaved Africans, the so called free whites, and then way up here are the 8%, who are plantation owners. So again, this is way more of a class thing, that it's a race thing. And that the the idea of white supremacy is, first of all, this is something gets lost way too often. Nowadays, when people talk about white supremacy. Now, it seems almost as if they believe it, that they believe that white people are different, and that white people are superior enough to dominate the entire planet. I don't believe that I believe white supremacy is bullshit. It's it's a lie from day one. And it's a lie today. And the real two foundational lies of it are, are first of all that like there is some kind of homogenous white hive mind and an all white people act in each other's interests, which is not true. It's never been true. Going back to police violence, there are slightly more unarmed white people killed every year by police, that actual unarmed black people, it's a much smaller percentage of the population. And that's that's a huge issue. But the point I want to make is, is asking, named me one white person who got killed by police in the past 10 years. Like, no one can, you can rattle off a big long list of like, Mike Brown, George Floyd breonna Taylor, you just go on and on and on. Every one of those incidents were atrocities. But the point is, is because there is no white solidarity because white people don't go, Oh, my God, a white person got shot. I'm gonna go march. I'm gonna go protest. There's, that doesn't happen. It's never happened. Even if you go back to the founding of this country, George Washington signed a naturalization law in 1790. That said, you could become a naturalized citizen of the United States. It only if you are a land owning white man. It wasn't a anyone White can come in here and be naturalized. It's like, No, you have to own land and be white. That's classically, that's how white supremacy has worked. The Lie of it is that hey, all white people are together. They're all going to look out for white people and working white people's interests, that those that that was the establishing lie of white supremacy. And it's still alive today, in that I worked with a guy in rural Georgia who I helped get out of the class to go to the stat to that guy can't go walk it into the board of Northwestern Mutual Life and like expect to get a job because he's white. He's, he's a poor read back. You know, he's just coming off a methamphetamine addiction. He doesn't have all these advantages, and everybody's like testing on him because of the color of the skin so that this presents a problem is for all sorts of problems, like across the board. But we're going back to white nationalism. The biggest problem it presents there is that there's essentially two steps to create a white nationalist. Step one is The potential recruit has to identify as white. And believe it or not, in the late 80s, most so called white people didn't, if I went up to Joe pissed off white kids, and hey, white man, he'd be like, well, you know, I'm American. My grandpa was from Germany, like, we're Lutheran, like, they're not going to essentially, they're not going to necessitate necessarily identify themselves as white by default. So I need to get them to do that before I can get them to step two, which is to make them feel persecuted, because of their way. So nowadays, tragically, a lot of very well meaning people are walking through those first two steps. We have people like lecturing the Congress, the United States going, you're white, and everything wrong with this country is your fault. Because you're oppressors, and you're privileged, and you're fragile, and you're benefiting from racism. So now they're doing the exact same process that I did to recruit white nationalists. And this is really an attitude that is becoming prevalent in our schools, to where everybody is being divided along racial lines. And everyone's being kind of taught to think in these racial terms, when the truth is, I understand it is, is the more racialized the society is, the more conducive it is to actual white nationalist groups. And the more the constructs that support actual white supremacy are supported. So I'm hearing white supremacy sucks. I think it's a lie. And I think race sucks, also. And so I'm very intentional about not doing anything to, to maintain those contract constructs. At the same time, we need to bear witness to the suffering that race has caused for 500 years, we can't just go, Hey, that's all over now and slip our fingers and be a racist, done. Like you can't, you have to, you have to look at history with openness and with honesty, and admit that it's been written by the victors. And there's a lot of people whose voices haven't been heard in a historical perspective. But I think that the impetus for doing that is because those voices are our fellow human beings. That's why we need to bear witness that suffering, not because those voices are a certain color, and maintaining the construct of race, that is the foundation of the problem in the first place.

Chuck Shute: 1:27:45

Now that that makes a lot of sense. I mean, because that's what I just see, like, it's both sides. It's like, it's like they're painting this picture. And I would rather just treat as if everyone could just treat people good, regardless of and I think that goes back to what I was saying, when, when you go out and you actually interact with people of different backgrounds, or races or religions or whatever, like, you'll see, like, it's kind of like what you realize when you were, I think that was a point in your book, when you were dropping your daughter off at school. And you saw people of other races with their kids. And you sound like, Oh, they're just like me, I love my daughter, my daughter loves me, just like this black guy with his son, love, you know, there's, I could have hurt these people. And why would I do that? Like, it doesn't make any sense?

Unknown: 1:28:30

Exactly. That's like connecting on that human level. And that's, that's how we bear witness to the suffering. Right now. We're kind of told, like, well, you have to bear witness to their suffering because they're black. We're like, well, they're, they're, you know, they're suffering because people call them black for 500 years, when really they're human beings like we are. And that's that's why all this this horror of slavery and genocide and colonialism and imperialism wrong is because we're all human beings, not because races is real. And race is valid. It race isn't valid. It's bullshit is what witchcraft is.

Chuck Shute: 1:29:11

I don't think anyone's going to deny the racist history of our country. I mean, but it seems it's just interesting to me, because everybody has a different opinion or perspective or a different life. You know, even with people, black people within black people, like black people that I hear that say they've never experienced racism, which I'm like, suspicious of. And then there's black people that say that see, the world is completely totally racist. And so you have to, like, take everyone's perspective differently. Right. And I mean, I think like, it goes back to what you're saying too, about the class. I mean, I think that's a bigger indicator than race, right? I mean, if you grew up is a rich black person or a poor white person that's going to be very different.

Unknown: 1:29:49

Absolutely. It's interesting because I, I'm very much a capitalist, I feel that capitalism is it's imperfect and It certainly has its warts. And there's there's all sorts of things that can improve. As far as capitalism goes, I'm a big fan of the idea of conscious capitalism. And I like seeing the private sector becoming a lot more mindful about the impacts of, you know what doing business is and looking to make sure that everybody gets a better piece of it, but I'm about creating wealth rather than then redistributing it. And at the same time, I do. I do acknowledge and I understand a lot of the people that I cite that I've listened to IE Karen and Barbara Fields are very left leaning. The field sisters are basically very close to straight up Marxist, but that's their point they're making is that class and not race has been the driving factor behind slavery and everything else for the past 500 years. So I got this is an example of me listening to someone who I don't politically jive with entirely, but I can we can both see like the same root causes of what's happening here. And that's how I think problems get solved. So like you said, you got to listen to people and understand that not everyone thinks the witness that way because of how they looked or and a lot of times, if you listen to people, you're going to be really surprised. I is easy read and gift her wounds. One of my closest friends is a Punjabi man named Pardeep Singh Khalifa party heaps of sick and lot of people would say seek, so it's gonna say, Isn't it seeker, it's actually sick in Punjabi, they pronounce it sick the same way we would say, you know, I got sick, whatever. But with party 11 I do a lot of talks together. And one of our things is we always will stop in at the local Sikh temple wherever we're speaking. And part of the Sikh faith is a communal meal calm longer. And I've always it's always like amazing vegetarian Indian food, which I'm not a vegetarian, but it's always great food. And I'm like, if there's longer up there, like let's go sit out and eat and talk. And the last one we did was that the Gurdwara in Orlando, and they're at the Guara there were a bunch of Sikhs there who are all like kind of biker get ups that like the vests and all the patches and whatnot. They told us that they're from the Sikh Writers of America. And I'm like, Oh, cool. You know, I personally hate early Davidsons because they don't like intentionally loud vehicles. Yeah, I'm not gonna hold that against these guys. They're awesome guys. They like they ride all over the country together. They have big rides of you know, hundreds, 1000s of people. And they do all kinds of charity stuff. They raise money for like women's shelters. And they do a lot of great work. And as I'm talking to one of these guys, I moved to tell the story about how much my father loves his sick dentist and in Astoria, or his sick doctor in Astoria, Oregon. And I very used to being in like social justice, the left leaning circles. So anytime I'm going to talk about my dad, I'm just kind of conditioned to be like, well, you know, he's a big Trumper. But but let me explain like, what how he's still a nice guy, you know that. That's kind of where I'm always coming from. And as I'm talking to this guy about this, he's like, Well, I'm a big Trumper. And I'm like, Oh, shit. He's like, Yeah, I think Donald Trump's great. And he goes on to tell me that. And I again, I don't want to, like get into the whole thing with him. I did want to explain like, why I think Donald Trump's not great. But I did want to hear this guy's thoughts and his exact words were that he never felt as, as included and as part of the United States society as when Donald Trump was president. And this is a brown dude with a big beard and a turban. Hi, that's, and I tell the story to like, bye, bye, progressive friends who are many of whom are white. They're like, what? No. It's true. This is exactly.

Chuck Shute: 1:34:25

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Everybody's got a different perspective. And we got to respond to the place. It's like you people assume, okay, this person is, you know, this race or this religion. They must think this way, they must have this political party, and it doesn't always match up that way. I think that's just as dangerous as as making as being a racist. I mean, that is racist in a way, isn't it? I mean, somebody's background is a certain way or

Unknown: 1:34:51

it totally is and that's, that's what we need to move beyond. And one of the points I like to make to my liberal friends and I, if I needed to be pigeonholed politically, I'd call myself a left leaning moderate. Like you said,

Chuck Shute: 1:35:07

at one point, I thought I heard you say on a podcast or in your book or somewhere he said far left. So I was like, maybe you've come more to the middle.

Unknown: 1:35:16

I went, I did my college stint from 2007 to 2010. And I was Community Education major. And so I came out of college all like, Yeah, fuck white privilege and all your job as an anti racist. And then I like get out in the real world start listening to people start working in the real world and seeing like, oh, you know, that approach doesn't not only doesn't not help a lot, that doesn't make things worse,

Chuck Shute: 1:35:44

right? Or extreme on any side is bad. Like, Oh, interesting that you went from white supremacist, to campaigning for Obama. I'm like reading your book. And I'm just like, wow, this is so fascinating. And then No, but then you kind of realize you're like, well, actually, I don't know that Obama. You know, he didn't really live up to my expectation, like, you thought he was gonna, like, save things and just change a lot of things. And it wasn't as great as you thought.

Unknown: 1:36:08

Right? Yeah, it's it. I don't think to this day, I don't think a lot of that is Obama's fault. I think it's just the it's the it's the political condition. It's by politicians

Chuck Shute: 1:36:21

in general are not what nobody should worship any politician.

Unknown: 1:36:24

Exactly. And there's no politician who's going to come in and just be like, whoo, everything is fixed. Like it Obama got me thinking that that was possible. And I, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Because I think like aspiration is very, very important. But at the same time, when we get tunnel vision and be like, okay, Obama is the answer. And everybody who doesn't like him is the devil. Like, now, who do we solve? Like,

Chuck Shute: 1:36:51

yeah, now, the Trump people exactly is the answer. And anyone who doesn't like him is terrible. But actually,

Unknown: 1:36:58

yeah, going back to like, that's the kind of the point I want to make to people in that I've had Trumpers told me that I have Trump derangement syndrome, which apparently means that I'm mentally ill, because I don't like their boy. And that that's basically it's gaslighting insanely Oh, you're crazy. If you think this way, you're mentally ill. You're crazy. And I when I talk about people, this the people on the left, they're like, Yeah, you know, all those horrible Trump errs. And I'm like, You know what, let me tell you a story about the Punjabi guys who think Trump's awesome. And then they go, Oh, well, they must have internalized oppression. And now they have their own version of gaslighting people who don't fit their ideological box. And I was just having this discussion in San Diego at the film screening and they're like, Well, yeah, no, but there's there's valid science behind internalized oppression. And we know there's not every bit as much.

Chuck Shute: 1:38:03

Right? Well, see, I always try to learn from people I tried to make you, you know, because on the right, you've got like the queue and on people, which is, that is a little that's like, almost Yeah, that's like not even just the philosophy that's like, you're reading false information a lot of times, and then the left, you've got like the Marxist and stuff, and, but I try to listen to people. I mean, I have friends who I don't know that they would fall into either one of those categories, but I have conservative friends and I have, you know, people who voted for Bernie Sanders and stuff, and I try to understand where they're coming from. And I think it helps me to go to come really right back to more to the middle. I just keep coming back to the middle.

Unknown: 1:38:39

Absolutely. I'm willing to that's going back to my spiritual foundation, like Buddhism is known as the middle path. In many ways, and And ironically, amongst Buddhists, there's a lot of them were like, No, we need to be woken liberate people of color brothers and sisters, but really, okay, well, that's not all I interpreted, but that's all right. And then I there's, there's very right wing leading Buddhists, also by dad being one of them. So it's, no one has all the answers. We just got to listen to each other, learn from each other. And if not occupy the middle, like create some more space in the middle where people can be and stop this whole like, you're with us. You're against us.

Chuck Shute: 1:39:25

Right? Instead of trying to convince somebody to believe what you believe, try to understand what they believe and why they believe it exactly. I think that's cuz you'll learn to me, that's why I do the podcast partly because I like hearing people's different perspectives, people's different life stories. I mean, I was telling my girlfriend yesterday, I was like, I hope people don't think like, you know, I have too many white people on my show. I don't really think because like i It's probably because a lot of musicians and I feel you know, I'd love to have more people of different backgrounds and more women to have a lot of white men, but but I love hearing people's different stories and this was been a A lot of fun listening to your stories and your background and your perspectives on things. I think it's really eye opening. And it sounds like you're doing a lot of great work.

Unknown: 1:40:09

Thanks, Doug. I appreciate it. Yeah, I do a number of directions nowadays. But the main one is I work with a group called parents for peace. People can find out more about them at parents for peace.org with a number for parents copies is a resource for anyone who's concerned about a loved one getting mixed up in any kind of violent extremism. We have the lead, white nationalist interventionist for parents or pieces, a man named Chris Buckley, the guy who did this tattoo for me who I helped to get out of the Klan in 2016. So now his main job 20 is full time job is assisting people to get out of hate groups, and assisting their loved ones also. And Chris moves works very closely with another dear friend of mine named Mubin Shaikh, who's a former jihadi and moving as the lead for people getting mixed up in violent Islamist groups. And it's amazing to see how Chris is moving like work as a team to show the similarities between behind those ideologies.

Chuck Shute: 1:41:12

I never thought of that. But But you're right, those are very two very similar things, which is like, you don't hear that because like, watch. Yeah, it's like, it's like, they're gonna paint one group as the other. They're both bad groups. I think we all agree on that. So you're doing some great work. I will put that website in the show notes. Can people donate to that it isn't a charity or? Yeah,

Unknown: 1:41:36

so parents refuses a federally recognized 501 C three type relations to parents for peace are fully tax deductible, and it helps to pay the salary and people like Chris and moving. So if people are in a position to financially support, that's huge. Again, parents for peace.org with the number four, there's also a toll free national helpline there that people can call to get help if they're worried about a loved one, or if they need to help themselves.

Chuck Shute: 1:42:02

Okay, that's awesome. Well, I think again, you're doing great work. I appreciate you taking the time to come on my show, and I'll get this episode out soon. Sounds great.

Unknown: 1:42:10

Chuck. Thanks again for having me on.

Chuck Shute: 1:42:11

All right. Thanks. I'll talk to you later. Bye. Well, Wow, just wow. You know, I want to I wanted to keep it going. But I didn't want to take any any more of Arno's time. He was extremely generous with his time, and I hope to have him back on the show. Because again, for as long as we talk and as much as we covered, I feel like there's a lot more to discuss. But what are your thoughts? Let me know I'd love to hear your opinions. Write me a comment on social media or on YouTube. Or send me a private message if you feel more comfortable with that. Or you can reach out to Arno if you have a question for him. But check out his books. He has two books, My Life After Hate and the gift of our runes. And the last one is also on Audible. And you can listen to that just like you listen this podcast. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. Check out some of my other episodes I've had on some other authors. And I hope to have on more authors and people like this to discuss social issues because I find it fascinating. So make sure to subscribe so you can catch future episodes. Thank you so much for listening and have a great rest of your day and remember to shoot for the moon