The Washington Post chronicles how the son of the founder of Stormfront entered college as a passionate white nationalist and is now not racist and haunted with regret at how the election has taken the movement mainstream. It’s a good article, but my favorite part is how the students at his liberal arts college reacted when they learned that their classmate was a famous white nationalist who spoke on radio shows about white genocide and called for the deportation of all non-white Americans.
“Maybe he’s trying to get away from a life he didn’t choose.”
“He chooses to be a racist public figure. We choose to call him a racist in public.”
“I just want this guy to die a painful death along with his entire family. Is that too much to ask?”
“I’d like to see Derek Black respond to all of this. …”
“Ostracizing Derek won’t accomplish anything,” one student wrote.
“We have a chance to be real activists and actually affect one of the leaders of white supremacy in America. This is not an exaggeration. It would be a victory for civil rights.”
“Who’s clever enough to think of something we can do to change this guy’s mind?”
An Orthodox Jewish classmate of Derek’s started inviting him to Shabbat dinners. After a few weeks, other students started coming. They didn’t try to ‘agree to disagree’, to be clear. They argued with him. They told him they felt betrayed. They told him they felt unsafe. They told him that he should renounce white nationalism. They asked why he believed the things he believed, and they got into debates about the minutia of how much of racial IQ differences are a consequence of prenatal nutrition.
In other words, they didn’t overlook it, they didn’t pretend to be okay with it, they constantly challenged him on it, but they did all of that compassionately, and they listened to where he was coming from, and he changed his mind.
Obviously, people are not obliged to go out and befriend white nationalists. But some people found they did have the energy and emotional resources and personal safety needed to do that, and they did, and they converted someone who’d previously been a major leader in the movement.
I hear a lot of people say “I’m terrified of anyone at my liberal arts college learning I’m conservative.” But the people at this liberal arts college learned that one of their classmates was David Duke’s godson and leading weekly radio shows about how to cleanse America, and what they did was either 1) avoid him or 2) compassionately challenge him and debate him and suggest new sources of information to him, until he changed his mind.
I think they were right to feel betrayed, right to feel unsafe. I think it must have taken tremendous courage to look through that fear and anger and betrayal and go ‘We believe in social justice. It will be a victory for social justice for Derek Black to change his mind about white nationalism. Let’s talk with him. Let’s exchange evidence with him. Let’s convince him that our beliefs are true and his beliefs are wrong.’ But that is what they did. And it worked.
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