[139] From hate to hope: Neelley Hicks

Let's set the scene. You're on your way to a unity rally. This is gonna be an event celebrating the diversity of our human existence. You're gonna hear positive messages talking about how we are each different and come from different backgrounds, and yet this diversity makes us more beautiful in the whole and strengthens all of us. Your presence at the rally should be an important witness towards unity.

It's surprising then that the entrance to the rally is flanked by swastikas and scores of angry white men. What do you do in the moment? Do you run through? Turn around? Or do you confront them? This is Compass Finding Spirituality in the Everyday. And in this episode, we're talking with Reverend Neelley Hicks, who chose to confront the Nazis heckling Nashville, Tennessee's unity rally in 2024. Neelley ended up on the front

page of the local paper in a photo. They're talking with men wearing nazi paraphernalia and carrying swastika flags. The picture was actually picked up by several global news organizations. Now Neelley and I volunteer at the same church. It's a church known for taking stands on issues of equality and justice. So we could assume that though Neelley looks calm in the picture, she was there to confront hate. And

that was the truth truth of it. But remaining calm and exuding a warmth of compassion is part of who Neelley is and is part of what makes this such a remarkable story. So let's get the full story. I'm Ryan Dunn, and we're talking about addressing trauma and fostering love over hate on compass.

Well, Neelley, of all the things that we could be having a podcast conversation about, I'm a little surprised that it's Nazis, but, here we are in this day and age and, having to, rehash what begin many of us would hope would be a dead topic. But, as the, you know, the newspaper taught us a few weeks ago, it is not a dev topic. You were in the paper. Congratulations. Thanks. It's not something that I I seek after to have my Right. My photograph on the front page

of a paper, but, you know, there it was. Yeah. And especially in the context that that it was. I I understand that you've had to do some rereporting or sharing about the context around the the paper that appear or around the photo that appeared in the Tennesseean? Can you explain

what you were doing? Yeah. Yeah. So, a couple of weeks ago, there was a unity rally in Nashville, and it was focused on bringing support around, basically unity so that people could get out and show that love is stronger than hate here in Nashville. And the reason why that happened was because Neo Nazis showed up, and they had been around for, I guess, a couple of weeks. And it wasn't their first time here either. But people decided we're gonna come

out together and show unity and love. And I was invited by a friend of mine to go, and I knew that she had individually received hate mail, anti Semitic hate mail in her driveway. And, you know, that's what they've been doing for the last few years, actually, throwing anti Semitic flyers and pamphlets out in the night, you know, where it's safe for them, to drive down the street and throw these bags out with anti Semitic literature into driveways. And so I knew she had

received that. She is Jewish, and I wanted to show up for her. And so I was waiting for her, and it was while I was waiting that the the Neo Nazis showed up. What they say is that they do not wanna be called Neo Nazis. They wanna be called Nazis. They are actual Nazis. That's what their branding is. But, when I saw them walk up, I Ryan, honestly, it was not something I had planned. I my feet took me to

them. And I walked up, and the first person whose eyes met mine, I asked the question, how does it feel to have so much anger in your heart? And that started a conversation, and it was an insightful conversation. So you didn't really have a plan of what you were doing when you approached? No. I did not. I mean, you know, I always kinda create these mind scripts of if I come face to face with so and so, I'm gonna say this, and I'm gonna say that. And I had run through with with some of that in

my mind. But I think probably at the heart of the question that I asked was this concept, which is a trauma informed concept around not saying, what's wrong with you, but saying, what happened to you? And that when we ask that question, we understand, like, okay. How did this happen? And so that was probably really influencing the way that I handled that conversation. So with that question then, what response did

you get? Yeah. It was it was interesting because the person I was talking with, the guy with the mohawk and swastika on his t shirt said, I'm not like this always or I'm not like this all of the time. So, you know, that was a greater answer than I expected. And so I started asking him more about, well okay. So when did this start for you? And he said about 5 years ago. And then he corrected himself and said it was during the pandemic. And then it led to him talking about how his

neighborhood had changed. He lives in Colorado. He

told me that. And Mexicans, which I don't know if they're Mexican or not, but, essentially, Hispanic immigrants had moved into his neighborhood. And he said, and why do you think they come here? And I said, well, I know my ancestors came from Ireland because they wanted a better life. And he said, yeah. Well, why don't they why can't they stay in their own country and make things better there? And so

we continued talking about that. I also asked him if he was Christian, if he considered himself Christian because the rise of Christian nationalism is so abhorrent to the Christian faith. Like, Christian nationalism is the same as Islamic terrorism. It's like they're both, can I say, bastardizing the religion from which they represent? It's like, it's not really the religion either time. But I wanted to ask that question. Are you Christian or consider yourself to be? And he he wavered in

his response. And I said, well, you know, Jesus is Jewish. Right? Or Jesus was Jewish. And, oh my gosh, Ryan. It was crazy because I didn't even know that the other guys were totally listening to this conversation. But all of just all of them just, you know, jumped on me to say, no. He wasn't, and neither was Abraham or Isaac or any of them. So I asked them, where do you get your biblical

history or knowledge from? And, one of the guys in the back said there was a bible that came out during the civil war or around that time. So I looked that up, and it's true that slaveholders redacted the bible for their purpose to keep slaves in check and in line. And so while I've not read that bible, I am looking more into it because I think that, you know, we just never know when one thing is done for one purpose.

Like, at that point, those slaveholders wanted to have justification for oppressing people. And then here we are 2024, people are still referencing that version of the bible to justify their oppression of other people. So I learned a lot, Ryan. Over the course of your conversation, did you ever get an impression as to why they were targeting this area? Like, we we've had these conversations in Nashville before. I'm not sure if this stuff is happening across the

country as much as it's happening here. Maybe I'm just heightened aware height I have a heightened awareness because we are here in Nashville, but the guy you talked to is from Colorado. Why was he here? Yeah. You know, one question

that I would have liked to have asked is who funded your trip? Because so many times, people who are, you know, out there with perhaps without enough income or, you know, maybe they don't have a job, maybe they're kind of a misfit in community, Those are the people who are vulnerable and might be sought after to go and do something like this. So I did not get to ask that question. So I don't have a,

a definite answer on why they came here. But one thing that I think of are the things that Nashville has become more known for. And it's not the tourism. It's not the, you know, the fun times and the beautiful sights here, but we think about some of the people who are so rampantly racist and just just oppressive people. And their voices have become amplified, unfortunately, in ways that I think gives permission to others to come here.

There has also been a gas station, out on Ashland City Highway that was cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center as offering hand to hand combat, in their secret room upstairs, preparing for maybe a race war or some kind of war in this nation. So these things create an atmosphere where people do feel invited here and, you know, as if they are going to find more similar

mindsets here. I think, you know, I'm really proud that we that the unity rally happened because there were more people there than them who stood outside the gate. And, actually, in one of the photographs, the the lead guy was just kind of a carnival barker. You know, he was just out there. Nazi organizer. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The lead Nazi. And he was in the news quite a bit. But, what I saw in him was somebody who he's living in

the ego level of being. All that matters to him is the attention that he gets, and he's getting it. But in one photograph, he was actually climbing the fence or standing with his face pushed into the fence, and he looked like an animal. And it's it's really tragic that somebody would let their life be diminished in that way because none of us start out hating like this. And it's just I think that's a really pathetic way to

live. So you had mentioned that the the person you were speaking with said that he is not like that all the time. And did he give an indication on, you know, what has changed for him? So we don't start out hating like this. We heard a little bit about his his neighborhood having changed, but did he say that there was something more to that? Was there a reason why he was so resentful that there were different looking people in his neighborhood?

He did not, and I really regret that I did not get his full name and contact information because I would love to do a follow-up interview with him. And I've actually searched for him online, and I can't find anything. But because those are the questions that need to be asked. And we know that this it to me, it's like this gang mentality. You know, gangs thrive because people who don't have what they need to live happy, healthy lives, they get taken in. They become vulnerable, and they get

taken in by somebody else. And we see this in places where I work in Africa that simply by giving young boys bread that, you know, some kind of, leader, ringleader will then take them in, care for them, and then have them do horrendous things on their behalf. So the same mentality that's there in Africa, it's it's within all humanity. Right? People look for those who are vulnerable. And then when people find a group where they feel like they do fit in, they find that sense of belonging,

then they go with the group. It's the peer pressure at maybe at first, and then it becomes just a way of life. What's kinda striking to me in looking

through the photos that the man who you had a conversation with did not have his face covered. He's very recognizable just as he described. If you look at these photos, you're gonna see who who it is that you're talking about. Mhmm. Everybody else though, just about everybody else seems to have some sort of of face covering, which is strange to me that you would show up in this public place to make this public declaration and yet hide

a a bit of yourself like that. Did you get an impression at all that there was a bit of, like to me, it suggests that maybe they feel a little bit ashamed about what they're doing. Did did that come across in your conversation at all? It did not. But, I mean, there was one man who was an older man. I mean, maybe, like, my age. And he had on Okay. So 32. Skeleton mask or something. Mhmm. And he was one who put me down for being, you know, a

clergy woman. So but I think, if I look to to the other pictures of what's happened here in Nashville, there was a bigger march with more people walking down the street with mask on. And it you know, when I was 3 years old, my dad was transferred from the from to Greenville, Mississippi. The family moved there because of the Klan. My dad was with the FBI. And so one of the things that, they practiced at that time was outing the people who were Klansmen at their business

luncheons. The FBI would go and flash their badge and say something about where they were. So it was the outing them and then that peer pressure, at least in part, from other businessmen, which it was businessmen at the time, that would have at least, you know, taken them out for a while. Hate is hate, and it lives on. It, it a gross comparison. But to think about hate as if it were a cockroach is an apt description because a cockroach can get in through any tiny crevice.

Its tentacles peep through. And before you know it, not only do you have 1, you have 2 and 10 and a 100. And with hate, I think we let ourselves we let those crevices grow in our lives when we entertain hateful things. We laugh at someone. We put down someone. We then get with other people who put down the same individual. Then we feel better about ourselves temporarily. And so hate is something that Christians really need to guard our hearts against. And we think about, you know,

we are to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. That's what we're called to do. Because I was getting I would be talking with Joey, the guy with the mohawk, and then the lead guy, who I call the carnival barker, he would come up and start throwing literature in my face and saying things, horrendous things to me. So I turn around and talk to

him. Some of that, I can't repeat, what he said nor what I said. I didn't say anything in hate, but I did say things I would not wanna repeat here. But I told him, do you feel like you can only be all that you are if you are putting down somebody else? And he would not he his armor was all the way up. Whereas with Joey, I could actually look in his eyes and talk with him. Yeah. It's the mask thing,

maybe it does protect them against losing their jobs. We know January 6 people, when their faces were uncovered, many of them lost their jobs. So here we are today, and we've got we've got Nazis in Nashville. Well, I think about carnival Barker there. If I'm it's pretty easy to pick him out as well, you know, even though I wasn't there, but he didn't have a mask on when he was wearing big sunglasses. Although it's still not all that tough, you know, if you knew this person in real life to

say that's him for sure. So I don't know. Still that is is curious to me, like, why he felt like he needed to cover up with with sunglasses. Something's going on there. But Something's going on. And when I tried to look into his eyes, the glasses were dark enough where I couldn't really see them. Mhmm. And I almost asked him to take them off. It wasn't that right, but I didn't. Well, there's other pictures of him indoors, and he's

still wearing the sunglasses. So Yeah. They're on for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you didn't set out that day to confront Nazis. You sent out to go to a a a unity rally. What was the mood inside the unity rally like? Oh, it was beautiful. There was singing. There was live music. There was dancing, people hugging each other. I think it really did show that Nashville is so much better than this.

And the mayor of Nashville, Freddie O'Connell, spoke and then also reverend Steven Handy, who's United Methodist pastor among others. And it was it was powerful. I think also, you know, when I look at the unity that is needed to overcome something like this, it was present that day, and it doesn't need to just be a 1 hour thing once in a while in Nashville. If we cannot work together against Nazis, oh my

gosh. We seriously have problems. We need to be working across faith lines, across, racial, socioeconomic, because when we come together and put our voices together for good, we far outweigh those voices of hate. So we're stronger together. And I think that that rally was just a glimpse into what how we could be living together here. Do you feel like the presence outside impacted anything that went on inside the rally? It didn't, because, I mean, the music and

everything drowned out their voices. So, they were yelling obscene things. And, well, the carnival barker was. And but it didn't it didn't disrupt anything. I think there is that ongoing tension in among Jewish people that something could happen anytime because it's so ingrained in their history Mhmm. With the holocaust, before the holocaust, like all of the different ways that Jewish people have been oppressed. And, yet they are our faith ancestors. And so there

is an obligation to care for them. There's faith

obligation to care for anyone who is, yeah, the human family because we're all one. But I don't think that we can just forsake our our past, our his our faith ancestors. And I think that that's what we've done. I think, also, some people might be concerned because they fear since the war in Gaza that showing support for Jewish people looks like you support the war in Gaza. And I'm more of a nuanced

kind of thinker. I don't just have that binary switch where it's like, I'm not gonna be with Jewish people because I don't agree with the war. Because people in other parts of the world could be totally against America for certain things it does. Well and they are. But I don't think that way. And so, yes, I could show up at that rally and be there and support my friends who many of them also are against that war. But, you know, it did make me

wonder. There was a great crowd there, but it did make me wonder if there would have been more people had the war not gone this way after the initial, terrorist attack. You've helped well, you've developed the the triumph over trauma program and somebody who's showing up to a unity rally and is all of a sudden confronted with signs of hate, swastikas, that can be a traumatizing event. How do we, who maybe aren't quite as directly affected, how do we help others kind of process

that trauma from harassment? Or, you know, if you got one of these bags in your driveway, like, how can we express a a sense of care and togetherness with people? Yeah. That's a great question. And the triumph over trauma work really equips volunteers to be to understand how trauma affects the body and how to recognize signs of it, how to recognize triggers in ourselves and others, and then how to deescalate or self regulate so that

we become, more mindful. And, you know, we when we get triggered, we go into an emotional mindset. And that's not always the best place to to do to think straight. And so that work really focuses on when we lean into emotions and lean into reason, those 2 intersect emotions and the rational mind into a wise mind. And that state of being is the place where we can be our best from because we're honoring our emotions. We also have the ability to think straight and

plan productively. But for those who are simply wanting to know, like, how do you support someone, I think showing up for them, being there When they ask you to be at a unity rally or something, go. Make that your priority. Just physically be there. You don't have to go talk to Nazis like I did. Just go and sit with them. Be with them. You know, go to different events that include different people from your community. I've also been to an event recently at the mosque here in

Nashville that was on the war in Gaza. And so

also being with people there who were losing family members and friends who live in that part of world. So showing up physically is the best thing. If we can't do that, then being able to call them and listen, to be able to say, how is it how are you feeling today? How's it with your soul right now? And not trying to solve their problems, but to simply be there and listen. I think also, when we do go into these darker spaces with people, we have to care for ourselves more deeply afterwards.

And so, like, for myself, there's been a lot of things that I've gone through throughout my life where afterwards, I just felt so awful. And the Nazi conversation wasn't actually one of those times, but, but we do have to be sensitive to how we are feeling. Because sometimes when a person starts talking about their trauma, what it does is it hits a bruise within us as something that's not healed. It's not just that I can't listen to this person. It's that person is touching

something within me that is not well. And when that happens, being able to sit with ourselves and provide loving touch to ourselves. If sometimes we feel pain in our chest, we have certain bad thoughts. Sometimes we have it in our gut. That's where I feel my pain, emotional pain most of the time. Being able to simply place a hand over that space and breathe deeply. Oxygen to the brain is

what we need. And often when we get triggered, we breathe more and more shallow when that's the time that we need to stop and just breathe deeply because we need the oxygen to flow to our brain so that we can think straight and think with a wise mind. Thank you so much for for sharing the insight with

us. Do you have one more question for you, Neelley? As you think about the events of the Unity Rally Day, as you reflect back upon them, do you feel like you're carrying a lesson away, or is there something that you're going to remember going forward based upon the events of that day? Yeah. It has oh, there's so many things, Ryan. There's so many things. I think, all of the different things that they said to me are things that I'm I'm making note of.

I'm also researching hate because hate you know, trauma let me get back to trauma for a second because mental illness is something that has been so stigmatized in this country. The science behind trauma shows that when we go through a bad experience, our bodies record that physically. It's in our central nervous systems. And so to me, that is helping to destigmatize mental illness into more of a physical, emotional, and spiritual, holistic way of looking at people and the needs that they have.

With hate, it also has felt so abstract, and it continues to feel abstract that there are people who are doing research on the neuroscience of hate. And so that's something else that I'm looking into because there are shifted patterns in the brain that happen when people hate, that sometimes come out of this us versus them mentality. And so I think that the up close conversation that I had with them is something that will be in my mind as I study these

other things. And then I'm going to be producing a 3, 3 episode or 3, not episode, but, series. 3 articles. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. For United Methodist News Service, and we'll dive more deeply into these things there. Well, Neelley, thanks for sharing

this story once again. You shared it very well on your on your own podcast, Women Rise. And I encourage people who want to hear a little bit more of this story and some of the specific things that were said to check out that episode as well. And we'll definitely link up the articles that you're sharing with the News once we, have those on our web page. So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Ryan. Thanks again

for joining us on Compass. A couple other episodes to explore include episode 133 called cultivating empathy in polarized times. That was with John Pavlovitz. And episode 110, linking love and justice with Otis Moss the third. Compass is a production of United Methodist communications. More episodes and show notes are available at umc.org/compass. New episodes come out every other Wednesday. So we'll talk again in 2 weeks.