Front Burner - A former neo-Nazi on El Paso shooting and rise of white supremacy

Episode Date: August 13, 2019

Joining the neo-Nazi movement was a choice that Christian Piccolini says cost him his livelihood, his wife, and his sense of self. Following the mass shooting in El Paso, he speaks out about his former community, to warn people about the wide reach of white supremacist extremism around the world.

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Like, yep, I'm disabled, Google it, bitch. You can find Chosen Family wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the family. It's been just over a week since a gunman opened fire in a Texas Walmart, killing 22 people in El Paso. It became very clear early on in the investigation that the killer targeted Latinos. The Texas Attorney's Office is calling this an act of domestic terrorism. The shooter reportedly posted an anti-immigrant manifesto online less than 20 minutes before the shooting. The most remarkable thing about this mass shooting in the United States

is that after years of mass shootings, thousands of deaths, and constant demands for improvements to gun legislation, this time it seems politicians might actually be hearing those calls. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has a long history of opposing gun legislation in the wake of tragedies, appeared to have made a 180-degree turn this week. What we can't do is fail to pass something. But our guest on the show today says that just won't be good enough.

Hateful groups are growing too quickly, and the world is not prepared to combat them. For years, Christian Piccolini was a member of a violent, racist, neo-Nazi organization in Illinois. After years of pushing their hateful agenda, Christian did finally find his way out, and now his life's work is making amends. I'm Jamie Poisson. This is Frontburner. Christian, I wonder if I can ask you if you remember what went through your mind when you heard the El Paso shooting was linked to white supremacy. Well, I think I was horrified like the rest of the world was upon learning it. But I have to say I also wasn't shocked or surprised by it.

This is something I've been warning about for 20 years. Let's talk about your experience because it does go back even more than 20 years. You were just 14 when you were first recruited into the white supremacy movement. Can you tell me about the day that you were first approached? grown up kind of alienated and feeling marginalized. My parents are Italian immigrants who came to the U.S. in the mid-60s, and racism wasn't a foundation of my upbringing. In fact, it was the opposite. My parents were often, you know, the objects of other people's prejudice. So it wasn't something that I learned at home. And I was standing in an alley at 14 years old one day feeling, you know, very vulnerable, and I was smoking a joint. And a man with a shaved head and tall boots walked up to me.

The year was 1987. And he pulled that joint from my mouth. And he told me that the communists and the Jews wanted to keep me docile by feeding me drugs. And I got to say, at 14 years old, I didn't know what a communist was. I didn't know if I'd met a Jewish person. and I didn't know what the word docile was. But I did know I was looking for somewhere to belong because I felt like I didn't have an identity, a community or a purpose. And so what happened after that, after that meeting in that alley? Well, you know, he asked me what my name was, and I was afraid to tell him because Picciolini, you know, growing up was often maligned and made fun of, you know, unfortunately rhymes with just about anything weenie. So it was a, you know, pretty easy name to make fun of.

But when I told him my name, he recognized it was Italian. And then he started to tell me that I had a lot to be proud of. Things, you know, like great warriors had come from my heritage and thinkers and philosophers and artists. And having grown up in an Italian-American bubble, I knew that stuff. So he was speaking to me. But then he told me that there were people who wanted to take that pride away, that wanted to destroy that. And he blamed Jews and blacks and gay people and anybody who wasn't white European. And did you believe him? You know, I did. I didn't know what else to believe. I was, you know, 14 years old. This man was 26 at the time. I didn't know it at the time, but he was America's first neo-Nazi skinhead leader. And the movement that I had

started to subscribe to would ultimately be that youth movement that we saw in Charlottesville in 2017. Same roots. The same roots, but a different look. Breaking news from Charlottesville, Virginia. That is the scene over the last 24 hours of violent clashes between white nationalists and counter-protesters in the streets of Charlottesville. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides.

Certainly, we were much more visible in the 80s and 90s. I was a skinhead. We wore what we believed literally and figuratively on our sleeves. That was the intention, was to terrify people with the way we looked. But there was also this understanding that we were too extreme for the average American white racist, that we needed to tone down our language, that we needed to look different in order to attract them. So in the early 90s, there was a concerted effort within the, to not really belong to a group, and also to blend in by getting jobs in the military and in law enforcement and as doctors and, you know, whatever else they could to take that ideology, make it more palatable and insert it into the mainstream. It's interesting to hear that this was happening some 30 years ago because we heard a lot about this idea of mainstreaming after Charlottesville, this idea that these neo-Nazis were wearing polo shirts, right? And they looked really clean cut at this rally. But this was something that you were thinking about long before.

Yeah, this was something that really started with David Duke in the early 90s when he got rid of the Klan robe and adopted the three-piece suit of a politician, and in fact, ran for office in the United States and won a seat in the House of Representatives for Louisiana and served for three years. I guess I'll first talk a little bit about my background. I see the look on your face. In fact, I really appreciate not being introduced as an ex-Scoot Club Klansman. You know, I've been hearing that.

So that was really the first, you know, effective instance of mainstreaming the ideology. And it kind of went from this boots to suits visibility. And the purpose was to really go into areas where it was more effective to recruit people with uncertainty, places like college campuses and in neighborhoods and in, you know, certainly law enforcement departments and in the military as well. You know, it strikes me that back then the internet didn't exist. So, you know, recruiting people to these groups would have been different. Oh, it would have been very high touch. It would have been face-to-face. I was recruited standing in an alley and it had to be very, you know, one-to-face. I was recruited standing in an alley, and it had to be

very, you know, one-on-one. There were pamphlets. There were meetings. There were books that were handed along to other people. And nowadays, the internet has really changed all that because it's made it so it's a 24-hour all-you-can-eat hate buffet if you know where to look. And oftentimes, you don't even need to know where to look. And oftentimes, you don't even need to know where to look. The algorithms online are pushing us in that direction. You know, the time that you're spending as a neo-Nazi with this group, what's your life like? What's happening? Well, you know, the purity spiral, what I call it, it really starts out pretty benign.

It's a lot of talk about pride and instilling you with a sense of who you are and belonging to a community. But it really goes dark very, very fast. You learn that it isn't a movement about pride. It's a movement about hate, and it isn't about saving something. It's about destroying everything. But once you're deep in this movement, it's very difficult to leave, not just for safety reasons, but also because it's so difficult to envision another identity, community or purpose outside of that, especially if you've never had one before, which is often what leads people to these movements. And you mentioned that about yourself as well. You felt like you didn't fit in. Yeah. You know, I really chalk it up to what I call potholes, those things that appear in our

journey in life, those obstacles like trauma, abuse, poverty, joblessness, even privilege and mental illness, which is something that we're hearing about. But it's not the mental illness or any of those other conditions that are pushing people that way. It's the circumstances around it. It's the alienation, marginalization, and the shame that is pushing people to find that sense of empowerment in very toxic communities. And they take the self-hatred that they feel, and they project it onto other people to kind of soothe themselves. What would you say to people who might be thinking to themselves that this is giving people who adopt these incredibly hateful ideologies and are a part of these incredibly hateful groups too much credit, too many excuses?

ideologies and are a part of these incredibly hateful groups too much credit, too many excuses? Well, I think we need to hold people accountable. Certainly people should be responsible for the actions they take. I don't give anybody a free pass that I work with. I expect them to do the work to repair the harm that they caused. But oftentimes the biggest obstacle for me in helping people disengage from extremism is that the outside world doesn't want them back. And one of the ways that I have conditioned myself to do this work is I train myself to see the child and not the monster, understanding that hate was learned, that extremism wasn't something that they were born with. And I never know, I never debate these folks that I work with. I never tell them that they're wrong either, even though maybe more than most, the words that

are coming out of their mouth I recognize as wrong right away. Instead, I listen to them and I try and fill those potholes that may have motivated them to want to adopt some sort of an extremist ideology. But, you know, I do challenge their ideology somewhat when I introduce them to the people that they think that they hate when they're ready, because oftentimes they've never had those meaningful interactions with the people they've kept outside of their circles. Is that something that happened to you? Had you not had meaningful interactions with people who are outside of your circle? No, prior to 14, I really didn't have many interactions with anybody, let alone, you know,

people that I would end up hating or thinking that I hated. But it did happen to me. I opened a record store in 1995 to sell the racist music that I was writing and recording and also to sell the racist music that I was writing and recording, and also to sell the music I was importing from Europe. But it also forced me to interact with the people that I thought I hated. I was selling other music as well, punk rock and hip hop and heavy metal, and I started to meet black people and Jewish people and gay people for the first time. And they started conversations with me, not about my ideology, but about life. I met a young black teenager one day who had always come into my store happy. And one day he came in very, very sad. And he shared with me that his mother had been diagnosed

with breast cancer. And it was a moment where I remember connecting because my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. And it just was this very unexpected connection to somebody that I never thought I had anything in common with. And it was moments like that that built up eventually enough to where I found the courage to be able to walk away and denounce what I believed in. I'm just trying to picture this time in your life, the idea that these two parallel things could be going on at once. Is it fair for me to say that, you know, one day you're speaking with a young black man about his mother in your record store, and another day

you're at a meeting with other neo-Nazis discussing what? Yeah, I mean, it was really kind of a snowball effect. There was a lot of those moments of meeting people, but at the same time still, you know, being very deep in this ideology and being very active. And that was a lot of those moments of meeting people, but at the same time still being very deep in this ideology and being very active. And that was my fear of disengaging and my fear of starting over and trying to establish a new identity, community, and purpose because I didn't think that there was a place for me in the outside world even though I was having these doubts and this transformation. What kind of things are you leading during the time that you're having all these doubts and this transformation. What kind of things are you leading during the time that you're having all these doubts? So I was a leader of two bands. I was the singer that recorded music that went out into the world. I was a propagandist who marketed to vulnerable young people to recruit them. I was very much a recruiter. I looked for vulnerable young people and I promised them paradise.

You mentioned leaving this group, right? Is there like one moment where you decide I'm out? racist music from my inventory once I started to have these very deep feelings of regret and shame about it. And I couldn't sustain the store anymore because it was 75% of my revenue. So I had to close the store. And that also caused my divorce at the time. The fact that I was still in this movement and I wouldn't leave. I wish I could say I was brave in that when I decided to walk away, I told everybody off and denounced it publicly, but I didn't for three years. I really kept it inside. I tried to run from my past. I disengaged from the movement, but by telling them that I had retired, that I was trying to work on my family when in reality I was really trying to run away. But during that period, I tried to make new friends.

I tried to run from my past and not tell people who I was, but I was miserable. Even though I was treating other people with respect, I still had no idea who I was or what I was supposed to do with my life. Until finally I had several people who recognized I was in a really, really bad place and encouraged me to speak out about it. And I started to do that. And that really was kind of a way to create a foundation under me to move forward and continue to self-reflect, to continue to seek forgiveness from other people, and to understand how and why I was led to where I was led. Have there been any people who haven't forgiven you who can't forgive you? You know, I get that question quite a bit, and I certainly don't know all the people that I affected when I was a part of that hate movement. I don't know of all the people I hurt, including the people I recruited at a young age who maybe, had they not met me, could have gone on to a better life and because of me didn't.

But certainly the victims of the words that I put out and even the violence that I contributed to. And while I do still meet people, very rarely, I should say, that say once a Nazi, always a Nazi, overwhelmingly, I am so humbled by the support that I get. Can you tell me more about the work that you're doing, trying to get people out of this? Like, how are you doing this? How are you finding people? How are you speaking to them? Are you successful? Well, through the work of the Free Radicals Project, my organization, I have been able to help over 300 people disengage from extremism, mostly the far right, but also I've worked with supporters of the Islamic State. I've worked all over the world to help people disengage.

It's been very successful. And I can tell you that one of the reasons why I'm successful is because it's not about necessarily telling them they're wrong, but it is about showing them that they're better than that, that they're worth more and that they can contribute more if they were just to open their eyes. And I kind of lead them on that journey. Last week, Tucker Carlson of Fox News did a segment on his show, and he called white supremacist extremism a hoax. It's actually not a real problem in America. The combined membership of every white supremacist organization in this country, were they able to fit inside a college football stadium? I mean, seriously, this is a country where the average person is getting poorer, where the suicide rate is spiking. White supremacy, that's the problem. This is a hoax, just like the Russia

hoax. It's a conspiracy theory used to divide the country. What do you make of that? Well, it doesn't surprise me because it follows a long line of conspiracy theories and lies that feed this movement, including what Tucker Carlson said. I can assure Tucker Carlson that there years that white supremacist extremism is responsible for the death of many people and it's getting worse. And I've reached out to Tucker Carlson personally and I've invited him along to meet some of these white supremacists that I work with to show him that this is actually a problem. Oh, really? And what did he say? I suspect he's not going to respond. He hasn't responded yet. But, you know, they push this narrative. They push these lies that people, you know, who may be progressive or who may be worried about social issues are really trying to destroy democracy. And in fact, the opposite is true. We are trying to uphold it and make sure that America can live up to the ideals that we put forth. I'm just curious. You had mentioned that you pulled your music from your record store. Do you know if the music that you made back then is still circulating?

Yeah. I mean, I not only pulled my music, but I pulled all the racist music that I was selling. You know, there were probably dozens of bands that I was selling at the time. You know, there were probably dozens of bands that I was selling at the time. But, you know, unfortunately, even though I pulled that music and it meant I needed to close my store, which was ultimately a good thing for me because it helped me dis just two years ago that a song that I wrote landed into the hands of Dylann Roof four months before he walked into the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston. Friends say the 21-year-old high school dropout was a loner, an unabashed racist with a deep hatred for black people. He wanted to make something spark up the race war again. with a deep hatred for black people.

He wanted to make something spark up the race war again. So he picked Charleston, I guess. And then he targeted a black church. And he posted my lyrics to a white supremacist website asking the community for help finding the band. When a journalist showed that to me, it was something that I still can't shake. I still have that feeling of if maybe I contributed to that, if I contributed to that tragedy. And the ideas that I put out into the world are still spreading around, and we are responsible for the words that we use, which is why it's so important that our political leaders understand the responsibility and the power that they have

with the things that they say. What's going through your head when you're hearing some of the rhetoric that Donald Trump is using? When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people. Trump described Haitian immigrants as having AIDS and said that if the U.S. accepted Nigerian immigrants, they wouldn't, quote, go back to their huts. President Trump allegedly asking, why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here? It's so representative of the words that I used to use. of the words that I used to use. In certain cases, exact wording,

things like invasion or calling people animals. It was our MO to paint people with the ugliest brush possible, to demean people, to dehumanize them. And when I hear the words being used now, when I see the effect on the communities, it brings me back to that moment. And it just pushes me even harder to know that what I'm doing today is so important. Christian, thank you so much for this conversation today. I'm very appreciative for

your honesty and for coming on here and telling your story. Thank you. Thank you, Jamie. So while it does seem that for the moment, U.S. politicians are willing to consider discussing toughening gun legislation, mass shootings have not abated. Just after the killings in El Paso, a Florida man was arrested for threatening

to open fire at a Walmart there. In Norway, police say a man who attacked a mosque near Oslo posted on social media that he was inspired by both the deadly mosque attack in New Zealand and last week's shooting in El Paso. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and see you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back.

Gay Girl Gone. Available now.