“Ready to talk about racism?”

This was “The New Yorker” writer Andrew Marantz’s first question for Eli Saslow, a Pulitzer Prizewinning “Washington Post” reporter and author, at the November 6 Chicago Humanities Festival event. In Parker’s Heller Auditorium, Saslow discussed his latest book, “Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of A Former White Nationalist” in conversation with Marantz. 

“Rising Out of Hatred” tells the story of Derek Black, the son of white nationalist leader Don Black and godson of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. As a kid, Derek was homeschooled because his parents wanted to isolate him from racial and ideological diversity in public schools. He spent his youth attending white nationalist conferences. By the time he was 11-years-old, Derek had created a “white pride” website for other children. “Derek existed within the bubble of this racist world,” Saslow said. 

As he grew older, Derek worked to redefine the “branding” of the white nationalist movement on the internet. “He convinced his father and David Duke to scrub Stormfront, the massive white nationalist online community that they’d built, of racist slurs and to take down some of the Nazi insignia,” Saslow said. “Instead he tried to talk about this issue in a way that would market to white people who still hold on to the false idea of white grievance, promoting a terrifyingly mainstream and insidious racism.”

Derek used his “mainstream racism” tactic to appeal to voters while campaigning for a seat on the Republican Council of West Palm Beach at only 19-years-old. “He’d say things like ‘Isn’t it too bad that there are so many signs around in Spanish now in our neighborhood?’” Saslow said.  “He would spread these false, racist ideas and stereotypes without announcing himself as a racist. In that manner, he got elected.”

Seeing that he would need to continue his education to advance the white nationalist movement, Derek enrolled at the New College of Florida in his early twenties. However, according to Saslow, the college was “the ideological opposite to white supremacy” due to its values of diversity and inclusion. To fit in, Derek concealed from his identity as a white nationalist from his peers. Still, he’d routinely sneak out to the quad, call into the radio show he hosted with his dad, and voice his racist ideas to thousands. 

After about a year, though, another student discovered Derek’s role as a white nationalist, and the campus erupted into conflict. A number of students vehemently protested against Derek’s place on campus, resulting in the school closing for a day. “The campaign of exclusion was really successful,” Saslow said. “They made Derek, for the first time in his life, feel a little bit vulnerable. He also thought, ‘can this many smart people all be wrong?’ He started to feel a little bit more shaky about his ideology.” 

Other students, though, took an approach of inclusion. Initially, two Jewish students invited Derek to their Shabbat dinners, and as time passed, more and more students attended to convince Derek to redefine his beliefs. Among these students were immigrants who spoke of the discrimination they faced and a girl who debated Derek on the merits of his “data” that led him to his conclusion that white people are superior to people of color. 

The efforts made by the New College community were effective. “Because Derek trusted and liked the other students, he opened his ears,” Saslow said. “Little by little, over the course of three years of really active, hard work by the students on this campus, both by civil resistance and discourse, the scaffolding of Derek’s ideology fell away.” 

 Now, as a “former white nationalist,” Derek is committed to anti-racist initiatives — He’s collaborating with Ibram Kendi at American University’s Antiracist Research & Policy Center, with Facebook to curb extremist content, and with Life After Hate, an organization which focused on deradicalization in online spaces. Saslow said: “He eventually decided, ‘I have to speak up, not because it’s the courageous thing to do, but because it’s the only fundamentally decent thing to do.’”

However, Saslow emphasized that Derek’s impact cannot be undone. “This is not as a redemption story, but as a transformation story,” Saslow said. “Much of the damage that he did cannot be redeemed. Derek doesn’t know how many people went marching in Charlottesville because they visited his white pride site for kids. He does know that when some of these white nationalist shooters commit atrocious acts, they come out spreading his talking points that he said 10 years ago on the radio.” 

For Saslow, reporting the story was difficult — both because he strongly disagreed with the racist sentiments of many interviewees, like Don Black, and because he’s Jewish, and most white nationalists believe Jews are conspiring to weaken their power. “The ways we build trust, not just as journalists but as people, is by being empathetic and by listening actively,” Saslow said. “That is not something you want to do when somebody is saying, “by the way, the Holocaust didn’t happen.” I tried very hard to not allow myself to let them feel like I was confirming what they were saying or on their side. When asked, I would say ‘no, this is not what I believe. Let’s get back to what you were talking about.’”

After the conversation, one audience member, who preferred not to disclose his name, felt discouraged. “What they’re saying is that smart people can deny things in a very dumb way,” He said. “What we’re working against is people who are denying climate change, who are denying differences. You can’t change them. They have to decide not to deny themselves.”

Upper School History teacher Dan Greenstone, who teaches the sophomore “Nations, States, and Terror” Modern World History course, believes it is critical to study and understand white nationalism. “It’s a major threat to the safety of the country,” Greenstone said. “White nationalists have killed more Americans after 9/11 than any other type of terrorist has. It’s also important because it reflects the divisions over identity that are sadly growing in the United States. 

Saslow intends for his book to spread awareness about white nationalism to the entire country. “I hope it would be the sounding of an alarm in terms of how massive this ideology is, particularly right now in the extremist fringe and in our political spaces,” Saslow said. “But also in some ways, it points the way out if the future of the movement can move so far to the anti-racist side.”