A Personal Journey From White Nationalism to Antiracism

R. Derek Black shares 5 insights from The Klansman’s Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism.

Is it possible to escape from hate? This is the question R. Derek Black had to face when charting a path out of a community built on racism and anti-semitism. Derek’s father Don Black is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi party and the cofounder of the neo-Nazi website Stormfront. Raised as his father’s heir apparent, Derek was a vocal supporter of white supremacy throughout childhood but now has a different perspective, as told in the new memoir The Klansman’s Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism. Here’s Derek with 5 key insights.

1. The role of ideology and a person’s foundational belief is to reaffirm their identity and community connections.

I recognized this fact only after leaving the movement I’d grown up in. What kept people in an ideological community, which brought them so much social stigma and criticism, was the feeling of being supported by the loyal community that reaffirmed their identity. New followers often showed up with common, and therefore less extreme, racist views. What reaffirmed them was the bonds they formed. It was a movement that defined membership through demonstrations of ideological commitment and familiarity with the movement’s history and symbolism. Learning the arguments that White nationalists used to describe their all-encompassing view of the world became the measure of inclusion in the community.