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

At a 2008 meeting of Klansmen and neo-Nazis, the infamous white supremacist Duke states, “The future of our movement is to become fully mainstream” before introducing “the leading light” of such movement, 19-year-old Derek (6). After leading the Ku Klux Klan for more than a decade, Derek’s father Don founded the white supremacist website Stormfront. Derek’s mother Chloe was previously married to Duke, who is Derek’s godfather. Saslow states, “Duke acted as Derek’s mentor and godfather, sometimes referring to Derek as ‘the heir’” (7). Derek commands such reverence from the white nationalist community because, while his beliefs are the same as other white nationalists-that the United States is a country for those they deem white and all others should be forcibly removed-his rhetoric is more statesmanlike. Saslow explains that at the meeting “instead of basing his public arguments on emotion or explicit prejudice, he spoke mostly about what he believed to be the facts of racial science, immigration, and a declining white middle class” (7). Derek’s goal is to normalize white nationalist ideas to become more acceptable in mainstream society. The meeting’s attendees believe white nationalism will ignite a political revolution and that Derek will lead that revolution.

Don and Chloe remove Derek from public school after third grade because they believe the West Palm Beach public schools are “overwhelmed by an influx of Haitians and Hispanics” (10-11). They describe his subsequent schooling as “unschooled,” and focus more on ideology than curriculum. Saslow states, “He stayed home during the day and worked on a curriculum largely of his own creation while Don monitored Stormfront […] Derek taught himself basic coding and built the Stormfront children’s website” (11). As Derek matures, he joins Don in interviews on USA Today, Nickelodeon, and NBC.

In 2008 Derek successfully wins election as a Palm Beach County Republican committeeman by canvassing and discussing issues with voters. He seldom mentions race explicitly. Instead, he discusses issues such as urban crime and outsourced middle-class jobs while maintaining race as subtext. He lectures to other white nationalists that the ideology can achieve mainstream success only if it adopts a vocabulary that sanitizes the ideology and distances it from its violent history. Derek explains, “[W]hite nationalists [are] not fighting against minority rights but fighting for rights of their own” (13).

When the Palm Beach County Republican committee learns of Derek’s racial views, they vote to prevent him from holding his elected seat. Derek challenges this action and tries to claim his seat at a committee meeting. The fiasco draws the attention of national news and while Derek does not reclaim his elected position, his handling of it on national media catapults him and his ideology to the forefront of national politics. Don notices, “[W]hite nationalism was not just some fringe ideology held by a small number of extremists but in fact the ‘natural impulse’ for a majority of whites in America” (15).

In 2010 Derek continues his quest “to overturn our social order and replace it” by starting a white nationalist AM radio show titled the Derek Black Show (18). The show is successful and expands from two days per week to five. In the midst of the show’s success, Derek transfers from community college to New College of Florida, “the state’s honors college, ranked as both the most affordable and the top liberal arts school in the state” (22), with a majority white student-body, but also a reputation for being politically progressive, LGBTQ-friendly, and pot-friendly.

Derek is lost on his way to New College of Florida. He meets Juan Elias, also lost navigating to New College. Juan is a Peruvian immigrant from Miami. Derek ignores his white nationalist instincts and partners with Juan to find his way to campus. They share a dorm building and attend orientation together. Saslow says of Derek, “Even if he thought people who looked like Juan were ruining the country, he also believed that in one-on-one interactions it was always best to be polite and kind” (25). Derek and Juan would remain friends throughout their tenure at New College. At New College, Derek adopts a dual identity: reading social justice posts in the New College forum and befriending culturally diverse classmates, then sneaking away to record his white nationalist radio show with his father and complain of a “minority takeover.” When befriending Matthew Stevenson, an Orthodox Jew, Derek reasons that while he may be a usurper, he is also likeable. Saslow notes, “[G]radually he went from keeping his political convictions quiet on campus to actively disguising them” (30).

At orientation, Derek meets Rose. They are attracted to each other and discuss dating until she tells Derek she is Jewish. Derek had spent hours discussing “the Jewish Question” on Stormfront. The question is simple: “Should Jews be considered whites or outsiders?” (32). On Stormfront Derek said, “Jews are the cause of all the world’s strife and misery” (32). Derek’s relationships with Rose and Matthew are undercutting his beliefs on Jews, formulated over a lifetime of indoctrination divorced from meaningful interaction with actual Jews. Derek describes Rose as sweet and unassuming. One of very few Jews in Arkansas, her father joined a liberal and inclusive interfaith congregation. To Derek’s surprise, “[t]he mission of the congregation was not to plot some great, multicultural takeover of the white race but simply to ‘serve as a focal point of Jewish life in our small corner of the world’” (34). Being a Jew in Arkansas made Rose feel alien and weird, but around Derek she feels comfortable and accepted. Derek conceals his ideology from Rose and they continue their relationship, but it intensifies Derek’s internal ideological conflict. Saslow explains, “[D]ating a Jew felt to Derek like a double betrayal—first and foremost of his own beliefs, and then also of Rose, who had no idea about his history or his racial convictions” (35).

Derek’s dual identities increasingly conflict as the semester continues and he continues to gain prominence within white nationalism. Eventually, “it felt to him as if both identities were eating up ever more space—his fame expanding within the movement, his private relationships deepening—and a conflict between them seemed inevitable” (38). His white nationalist foundations remain firm because his background convinces him that “[w]hite nationalism wasn’t just a fringe racist movement but something much more forceful and dangerous: a foundational concept embedded in the American DNA” (40).

Abraham Lincoln believed slaves should be freed, but also that “the white race” was superior; Thomas Jefferson, another abolitionist, also believed “the two races” could not exist under the same government. Derek maintains his white nationalist ideology amidst continual rebukes, both internal and external, because of his belief that white nationalism is a foundational element of white American society. Derek reasons that it is easy for white Americans to embrace racial diversity when it doesn’t cost them anything, but when white Americans’ prosperity begins to falter, they will again recede to racial identity politics to protect their dwindling resources and privilege. Derek ends his first semester at New College hoping someone discovers his public personality. A classmate grants his wish during winter break. An email on the New College forum states, “Derek Black […] White supremacist, radio host… New College Student???” (45).

Tom McKay finds Derek on a Southern Poverty Law Center (“SPLC”) website about far-right extremists while completing his senior thesis and exposes him via the New College forum. Within minutes, the forum thread amasses hundreds of responses and becomes the most active forum thread in the college’s history. The principal issue on the forum thread discusses the appropriate response to hate speech and figures like Derek. This issue would engulf the political left and the nation in ensuing years. The forum is debating whether to exclude Derek from social and academic life or to try to alter his ideology by including him in their diverse community. Derek reads every forum post. He doesn’t experience the relief he expected. He instead feels sadness over his lost friendships.

Several days later, Duke visits Derek in Munich. Most European countries have banned Duke because of his prominence as a white supremacist, so he lives in Austria. He risks arrest in Germany but wants to see Derek. Duke explains to Derek that he endured a comparable situation in college when he began speaking publicly about white supremacy. Most of Duke’s classmates hated him, but his public speeches developed a following and made him a public figure. Duke reasons that Derek may follow a similar path. After their conversation, Derek reads the forum thread and “instead of feeling just hurt and vulnerable, he began to feel angry, even inspired” (60). Derek decides to return to New College and redouble his commitment to white nationalism, recruit classmates, and invite white nationalists to speak. He also decides to host “an international conference for Stormfront members on verbal tactics to out-argue ‘anti-whites’” (60).

The New College administration debates removing Derek from the college, but concludes that if Derek doesn’t threaten anyone’s safety, his situation is a “student-life matter” and they cannot end his enrollment. No longer welcome living on campus, Derek rents an apartment off-campus. Some students advocate reaching out to Derek, but most practice total rejection. Some students argue, “Ignore Derek. Heckle him. Make him feel uncomfortable. ‘Do not make eye contact or make him feel acknowledged at all. Make him as irrelevant as his ideology’” (66). Some students physically attack Derek. Derek spends the semester isolated, lonely, and fearful.

In the Summer of 2011, Derek hosts his first Stormfront conference in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Hundreds of white nationalists welcome Derek with rousing applause. They believe the political moment is right for the spread of their ideology and Derek is their leader. The country is months from a presidential election in which they hope the nation’s first black president will be unseated, and Donald Trump is rousing racial sentiments by insinuating that President Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim rather than an American citizen. Saslow explains, “Don and Derek didn’t much care about the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate, but they were buoyed by the fact that by mimicking white nationalist rhetoric, Trump had amassed a massive following on the far right” (70-71). Derek tells the crowd at his conference, “It’s time to adopt an attack strategy and take the moral high ground” and to stick to the message of white genocide because it “demoralizes/embarrasses anti-whites” (71). Days after returning to college from his conference, Derek receives an invitation from his Orthodox Jewish friend Matthew to attend Shabbat dinner that Friday night.