Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist

by Eli Saslow

She needed a note from a rabbi to clarify for her principal that, yes, Yom Kippur was a real holiday.

They waited around a small kitchen table and made jokes about how their Friday night deserved its own reality show tease line: “Watch two Jews and an immigrant befriend a white supremacist!” But in truth they all felt comfortable spending time with Derek in part because of their minority status. There was less risk that classmates would accuse them of sympathizing with Derek’s beliefs or condoning his behavior.

If you have a problem with white nationalist ideology (which I certainly do and I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of people here do) then go fight oppressive structures. Or at the very least, educate yourself about privilege and racial issues and classism and discrimination and get informed. Educate others. Those are helpful, positive directions to go in.

This is such a pathetic comment, which Allison made in response to people advocating for social pressure against a white nationalist. How can you think that internal focus like “educating yourself” will effect change that direction action won’t?

“Intrinsically, white people in this country always expect that their interests should come first,” Derek told Allison that summer. “American history is so fundamentally based on white supremacy that it’s still the basis for most of our culture and our politics.”

Sometimes, when Spencer was recognized in public, he said he had started to pretend he was not Richard Spencer—that in fact he thought Richard Spencer was an idiot. “It’s something I do for self-defense,” he said.