Extreme Violence: Inside the Minds of People Who Hate

largest and most active neo Nazi group. That's a lot of years viewing hate until he met her. I have spent most of my life being afraid of men like that. What was the moment where you realize, wait a minute, why did I stay so long? Why did I do this? And you feel really stupid? By three years, our kids have an adult like concept of race inside the minds of mass shooters. The killers that you've interviewed all had one thing in common. What is it? And the NFL

player who took a stand against hate? There was a point in my life where I wouldn't have been able to set at the table. You know what I'm saying. Unless we understand the root of hatred, this will keep happening. So today is going to be um intense. Yeah, to say the least, I'm already suttressed in America right now. We're dealing with so much hate that's being expressed in so many different ways. You know, White supremacy was deemed like the number one problem, Yeah, the number one threat

to to America. But I've always been so interested in how the human mind even gets to a point where these things are acceptable. When someone shoots up a church, or when someone shoots up a grocery store, grocery store, school, or when someone calls you a nigger to your face, that feels like another It is another level. And that's why we wanted to do the show today, to understand

the psychology of hate. So, an award winning Pakistani filmmaker was so fed up with racist attacks against her she made the bold decision to turn her camera on behatersd a Con is no stranger to hate. Growing up Muslim in Norway, she was targeted by Muslim extremists who didn't want her speaking out about women's rights. By age seventeen, she was in so much danger she fled the country. Dia later received a barrage of very serious death threats

from white supremacists when she made comments promoting diversity. She was tired of living her life in fear and made the courageous choice to reach out to the leaders of several hate groups, not to confront them, but to understand them. She bravely sat face to face with America's most vocal white supremacists, who are taught to hurt and hate people who look like her. That's the clan, Yes, this is the cliant head to you. Yes, I'm a racist, and

I absolutely despised Jews, Jews and homosexuals. They I think they should be exterminated, every single one of them. He's been a member of the white power movement for many years and previously was a grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan Ken is exactly the kind of person I've always been afraid of. I've thrown out flyers denouncing Syrian refugees coming over here in the Muslim neighborhoods at the mosque. So as you know, I am a woman of color, and what I want to ask here is am I

your enemy? You're not subjectively mine enemy, but what you are promoting will lead to the disappearance of my people in my culture. I gotta say here and now, that's my type of girl. Yes, wow, I just can't image keep you cool, man, when you're sitting with somebody like that. You know, I have spent most of my life feeling abused, persecuted, targeted, victimized, being afraid of men likely, But I knew what they

wanted from me. They need me to be emotional or to lose it, and I did not want to give them that. To me, that was crucial. When I started getting all these death threats, the police were like, you need to take this very seriously because the threats ended up on very violent racist websites. So I had to

make a decision. Do I be afraid or do I make a choice that I've never made before, which is to go and confront them, but not meet them, to argue and to fight and to push back like that, but to sit with them and see can they recognize my humanity and can I recognize this? But when someone says that they think that a group of people should be exterminated, I just can't see a world where you're like, oh, all right. The thing is you are thinking of this

very rationally and very logically. Fear and hate is not rational. The way a lot of people process the fear is that they have to defend themselves, so they don't perceive people of color as victims. They perceived themselves as the victims. So they need to tell themselves that they're doing the right thing. And the only way you can justify violence and justify hatred is by putting yourself in the place

of I am under attack. My survival is on the line, so I have to defend myself, my people, my family against all these invaders. A lot of my friends are like, why do you keep, you know, filming with these crazy people. I mean, they're just forget them. I mean they're just beyond any kind of approach. Forget it. I have to say, it does feel like they're beyond help. I used to be like that. I've gone to anti racist protests most

of my life. I have flipped them off, I have shouted at them, I have thrown stuff with them, and it felt great. But he didn't do anything. I've done that my whole life, and I have accomplished more by sitting face to face with these guys than any of that. Hate is not something that you can confront with. My facts against your facts because it's emotional. You have to be able to reach somebody's heart, and even the heart of somebody who feels very very dark and very very lost.

You have to look for the light. So while filming this is really interesting, hard. It's sitting here like im now, But we're gonna keep going so maybe we can get you guys kids, Why why am We're We're on two opposite spectrums and they're like they're like are on the same body. It just feels like they are not deserving now. While filming, DM Met Scoop, leader of the largest and

most active neo Nazi group in the United States. Where a white civil rights organization here in America were white nationalists, just as Martin Luther King did for the blacks, our mission is pretty much the same. We feel that the white race in general is under a full assault. We feel that the whites are going to be a minority here in this country. We must secure the existence of our race in the future for white children. We like a homeland of our own for white people. Why did

you move to Detroit? Perfect recruitment grounds. Anytime you're in an area where the economy is suffering, it's somewhere that our message resonates with the people. I joined Jeff at the next event. The biggest fall right riley in recent is in Charlottesville. We are the forces of white and civilization, and we are fighting against the poor. A darkness a mile away from us. This happens, anti racist protester Heather Hair is killed by a car driven by a far

right protester. Jeff says many of his followers think jobs are being taken by immigrants. He thinks it's part of a plot against the white race. I decided to show him the photo of me with my father, taken at an antique stremism rally when I was six years old. So that's my dad. People who representatively represent made a six year old child for your hated The movement that you are a part of has real life effect on people like me. How does it make you feel uncomfortable?

I don't like it. We are still a whites only organization. You're not gonna convince me different. Jeff has come a long way since then, which is why we allowed him into our home. What made you decide at first to have a conversation with Dia, who well, typically in my role at that time when I involved in the movement, being involved in media stuff was a way to get out the message. So for me, it was propaganda. There was an opportunity to spread the word. What was the

moment where you realized, wait a minute. There was a lot of things that she said, but specifically, what really really got to me was when you're involved in these kind of movements, a lot of the people think that they're doing something good, something noble, something honorable. They're fighting for their p so they think they think that way. I'm not saying it's right, it's certainly not, but that's

how they think. That's the psychology of it. And when she was talking to me about how she felt as a child, how racism, how hatred made her feel diminished or less than, something inside of me snapped. It felt like getting kicked in the chest by a horse. I could literally sense her paint and that didn't sit well with me. Here's this wonderful person sitting across from me telling a very humanistic story, very personal story, and I think back to my own children and the reasons why

I was involved in the movement. If it's affecting her in that manner, she's just one person, how many millions of people? Is it affecting in that way? How can I reconcile that? So in my mind, I'm trying to justify it. Maybe it's not about hate. I kept telling myself that. But is it truly is? Was that the first time you had had contact with a person of color in that way, in that way the very human aspect. Yes, so you've got an opportunity to feel the humanity. Is

that it? Yes? That is absolutely it. When when you go into these type of movements and you get involved in say far right extremism, you start dehumanizing other people. Once you start to humanizing others, you lose your humanity in the process, and none of them see that. But that's what it is. This moment when talking to Dia. In your mind, you had never had a thought process of the people that I'm dehumanizing, you know, like also our children in this day and age. That never really

crossed your mind until that moment. You compartmentalize that stuff, And that's a really good question. You look back and you go, wow, why didn't I figure this out? Where was that disconnect? And you're in this echo chamber or it's like a bubble as the way I explained it, and everybody you know is in there, and they reinforce those belief systems. So a lot of times when people on the outside are pushing back at that and saying this is wrong, and it says, hey, we all know that.

Everybody at the table knows that, but to the extremest they're like, nope, I'm right, because you're all pushing back. Idea's approach was trying to understand that total and posing questions to get the person to start questioning themselves what about this or why why don't you look at it this?

And then starts the gears turning. And that was very conscious on my part, as well as not trying to condemn him or fight him or try to out argue him, because if I was to do that, then that they would close, he would become hardened, and he would double down. And I'm looking for a crack. I know it's there. I have to somehow locate it. And as soon as you find it, then you try to keep chipping and chipping and chipping. Was there anything in your own childhood?

I didn't have a bad childhood growing up, so I don't think it was that I'm trying to figure out what led you down that path in the first place. So for me, my grandfather fought in Hitler's army in World War Two. Now, my family was not for this stuff. They are actually against it and tried desperately for years to get me out. But it was that fascination with his history, my grandfather and my great uncle's fought that was the opening to the rabbit hole. That was the

entry point. I don't blame anybody for it. It's my own fault. I take a full responsibility for it, and my involvement in that life caused my family great irreparable harm. My mother's career was destroyed, and it really really damaged my family a lot. Wow. So when you decided to remove yourself as you had this new awakening, you had a lot of amends to make. Yeah, how did that go?

Most of the damage that I did my rhetoric and that the hateful stuff that I spewed for so long was to minority communities, and especially my hatred was directed at Jewish community in particular. So since I've been out, I went to the Jewish community. I met with the Simon Weison Fall Center, who I'm now a consultant for Today.

Named after a survivor of four different concentration camps during the Holocaust who then became a prominent Nazi hunter, The Simon Weisenthall Center is a global organization that confronts anti Semitism, hate and terrorism. The Center uses Jeff to educate students, teachers, and law enforcement about how people become radicalized in what modern anti semitism looks like. There's a lot of guilt, there's a lot of shame and embarrassment um having lived that life. So I try to help wherever I can.

I run a nonprofit organization called Beyond Barriers that deals with extremist disengagements. We're bringing people out those organizations all the time. My passion is with the schools. If we can get young people to confront biases. Really what a lot of hate is based on, this fear. To get past those fears, that's where we can make a difference. So where do you feel as though those fears come from, specifically, like dealing with young people, is it's something that's taught

in the home. It can be if if it's taught in the home, it's more difficult for them to overcome because they're hearing that garbage from their parents as their family members very you know, old anti Semitic tropes and things like that. You know you're talking about going into the schools. But what did you do to change your own thinking? You were in this life for how long? Twenty seven years total a lifetime, A lifetime. Yeah, that's a lot of years spewing hate. How did you reform yourself?

So there was people that helped me. I've met a man that works with me today by the name of Darryl Davis, and he's a black musician played with Chuck Berry. If he talked about how racism and hate affected him as a child and it didn't sit right, Daryld was a really important figure in working through those things. Darryl Davis is an internationally known R and B artists and activists who stands up to hate by engaging with members of the KKK and other extremist groups. He has helped

hundreds of people confront their deeply rooted racism. When I first left, I call it my decompression period, where you feel like your brain and everything is going. You're just like a sponge almost because you're going. Why did I stay so long, why did I do this? And you feel really stupid and ignorant, and then you want to

figure out how can I fix this? But that first six months especially was so difficult because you you there was so much to process, and then going to work trying to repair some of that damage, Donna learning more about different people. It was almost like re educating yourself, having that first experience going to a synagogue and talking to everybody there, the outpouring of love and compassion and forgiveness. I didn't have any right to ask for forgiveness, which

I didn't. I still don't feel I have that right to ask. But people came up and hugged me. It just blew me away. It was really, I'm sure part of the healing process, the transforcation and being able to deprogram the idea that these people are not human exactly. I'm still learning every single day to be a better person. Yeah, and I'll be doing that for the rest of my life.

I can't imagine. Must be rough, right. So, according to the FBI, Jewish people in America, who are only two percent of the population or the target of more than half of all religious hate crimes. Every year we document anti Semitic incidents. In two thousand twenty one, we tallied twenty seven hundred plus anti Semitic incidents, the highest number ever. This includes harassment, vandalism, and assault. And we've been doing

this for forty something years. So we are in a moment now where the data is telling us that something is not normal. It's trending in the wrong direction. Social media and the ability for the normalization of hatred, including anti Semitism, to spread is key. When you look at FBI hate crime data, we are at very high levels. The truth is the FBI hate crime data doesn't even you know, scratch the surface. FBI data under counts it.

We have also seen a series of mass shootings in this country, some targeting the Jewish community, others targeting African American community, the Hispanic community. And when you're looking at you know, the deadliest year against the trans community, the highest number of anti Semitic incidents report it to a d L. We need to ask ourselves what is happening? Why is hate becoming so common and normalist white supremacy

and hatred knows no borders. So Dr Ibram x Kendy is the director of Boston University Center for Anti Racist Research and author of the new book How to Raise an Anti Racist. Welcome to the table, Dr Kendy, how did you feel about what Jeff was sharing at the table? What you shared shows both the power of the human being to change, but then also courage to begin this process. Can you give us some insight about where hate comes from?

Scholars have consistently shown that no one is born right, no one is born holding sexist or racist or anti Semitic ideas. But kids are born into an unequal world, and they're born into a world in which they've taught that certain people have more because they are more, and other people have less because there are less. And then as they sort of come of age and people start telling them that the source of their struggles are those other people who don't look like them, that causes them

to then hate them. So in a way, kids in our society, we almost provide them with this unfortunate foundation to hate, the idea of just needing someone to blame exactly. And I think it's important for us to just get

at the root. The roots of bigotry are very powerful people who are instituting policies and rules that lead to inequities and inequality between groups, and then those powerful people produce hate to then justify those inequities, and then people consume the cycle those ideas and that causes them to

become ignorant and hateful. So probably one of the most obvious examples during the enslavement era, right, you had people who were enslaving black people to make money, and then they produced racist ideas that said these people were fit for enslavement. People then consume those ideas and believe them and became hateful. That's happened with sexism, that's happening with Oh, poor people are poor because they don't want to work hard as opposed to the policies that people put in

play exactly, Like that's the route. Yeah, it's all steeped in feory. We all have our fears, right, and I think, like when when we've been talking about the psychology of hate, there's something that can always be addressed in us all and understanding how not to add to the energy of hate. It's a really deep subject and it's something we all have to participate in. If you don't have the resources, I think it's very hard. I've filmed with this other

neo Nazi. He's armed as well now. And one of the things he said, he said, as a child, he was beaten by his stepfather like he would beat a grown man. And he said, this group finally recruited him and said, you know, we have your back. And one night, he said, they went out looking for somebody to to beat, and he said, I started beating this guy said. I looked in his eyes and he said I saw something that I'd never seen before. And he said I loved it,

and I'm going, what was it? He said, fear? He said, you know, for me, somebody who was afraid my entire life, now somebody else was afraid of me. The I hate to say this, I really hate to say this. Some people feel powerless just like he did, and don't do that. Yes, So that's also the part that my mind just malfunction, like it just I don't understand. So I have grappled

with this very same thing. I filmed with mostly extremists, and they're talking about the racism that they feel, the alienation that they felt when I'm sitting there going me too, me too, me too, me too? And then I was left with that question too, and I was going, why do I pick up a camera and you pick up a gun? What is the difference? Because on top of all the stuff, I'm a woman, so I've also had to deal with all of that. You don't see me

strapping a bomb to me? What? And finally I came to the realization it matters who shows up in your life when you're at your most broken, at your most vulnerable. Who do you have that will set the path for for the gun or the camera. What I think is really important also to say is this is trying to understand extremist mindset and violent people's mindset. Is not to justify it, excuse it, or diminish it. And we cannot

underestimate the devastation that it causes. And I also think it's really important to say I don't think that it is the burden and responsibility of people of color to have to reform white supremacists. Why should it be the responsibility of oppressed people of abused women to have, for example, to reform the guy who beats her. I agree that it shouldn't be the responsibility of absolutely people, particularly in in white supremacist spaces. The people who can be the

most powerful are the white people. If a white person stands up and says no, that's wrong, there's going to be a certain level of respect shown to that. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, Dr Kendy. You have ways to raise an anti racist child. What are they? We have to teach empathy, but it's important for us to be clear that there are people who are only empathetic to people who look like and so we also have to teach kids how to be critical thinkers. You know, we have to teach kids how

to ask questions. We also have to make sure our kids are being raised in a diverse environment, so not just the na borhood in schools, but the toy box, the library, even your friends. So one study found that the racial attitudes of white children are more correlated to the number of friends of color that a white mother has than the white mother's racial attitudes. I have a six year old daughter, money, and of course I want her to to see her brown skin is beautiful. I

want her to understand her kinky here is beautiful. But I also want her to understand that people would differently shape eyes are just as beautiful as she. And so even if you're raising a black child, it's still important. Part of the challenge is we don't really know just how early kids are learning these ideas. One scholar found that by three years our kids have an adult like concept of race. Another scholar found that most white preschoolers

choose a black person as looking bad. Then we think like, how could kids so young? I think these ideas well, racist ideas are extremely simple. Dark is bad, it's light is good. At this moment, when you're seeing all of the white supremacists who are engaging in mass shootings, government officials are documenting the number of white supremacists who are targeting children online, particularly through multiplayer video games, on memes,

targeting through the BRECT messages. Parents and teachers are trying to decide whether they're going to talk to their kids about race. They don't understand it's already been talk So the question is who do you want to talk to you? Right? Right, that's the real question. Right. That's a good point. That's a really good point. We're gonna listen to this mom. It's really important for New York Times op ed racists

are recruiting. Watch your white sons went viral. Here's her message as a mom with two teen boys, I was watching over my son's shoulder, as he was rolling through social media, and what I didn't expect was that I would see racist, anti Semitic, homophobic, anti trans, very anti woman content not from them, but in their timelines. And it was disturbing in a way that was super subtle, things that they may not have noticed. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

go back. And I was so alarmed because it was so low key, and by hitting it, he had favorited it. All of a sudden, their pages were just full of this stuff that was really problematic. It was terrifying. That's why I wrote that New York Times op ed. I just wanted other parents to know there's somebody out there that might be wanting to indoctrinate your kid into hateful ideology. That just blew my mind. Oh my god, that's terrible.

You know, white parents think, well, I don't want to like talk to them about race because I don't want to make them racist. When they're being talked to by white supremacists. You have to understand that also in the past, like four or five years, a lot of the shootings have been done by younger white men. Yes, we have doctor Gillian Peterson, the forensic psychologist who conducted the largest

study of mass shooters in the United States. Dr Gillian, can you tell us the killers that you've interviewed all had one thing in common. Yeah, The similar goal is always to cause as much destruction and death and pain and fear as possible, because that's what gets your anger

and your grievance into the headlines of perpetrators. If you go back in their background to figure out, how does an eighteen year old kid get to the point where he's so angry that he's going to go out and murder as many people as possible, how do we find that prior to kind of that hate, there is this self hate that you see these perpetrators who are lonely, who are depressed, who are actively suicidal, many of them have attempted suicide before, and then they hit this point.

One perpetrators sister described it to us. She said, it stopped being what's wrong with me and started being what's wrong with everybody else? And whose fault is this? Right? And it's that flip that now they're going on these dark internet sites, they're falling down the rabbit hole. They're studying other mass shooters, and mass shootings are meant to be watched. They're meant to be witnessed. It's a way to have this notoriety that they don't have in their life.

It's a way to gain this sense of power where everyone is now talking about something. Dr Jillian said, it was just so powerful. People went from hating themselves to hating other people. So the totality of that is that people are the problem, and that's what we're taught. That people are the source of our pain, right as opposed to policies, as opposed to conditions. I'm glad you just pointed that out, because that's real. It's like we're always

targeting each other at some level. Dr Jillian, Why is it that the majority of mess shooters have been young, white males, specifically when it comes to going into schools. What is that about? So in schools, the most likely perpetrator is going to be fifteen to eighteen year old student of that school who is white, who's actively suicidal, and who's usually using their parents guns. A lot of

them study other shooters, in particular the Columbine shooting. On April twelfth, graders at Columbine High School went on a shooting rampage, murdering twelve of their classmates and one teacher. Millions watched in horror as it unfolded on live television. It became one of the most publicized tragedies in US history. We were getting shot all around me. There was a guy at a table right next to the next to

me and her, and they just shot him. Before Columbine school shootings were extremely rare, this horrific massacre inspired the so called Columbine Effect, a disturbing blueprint for future school shooters. Wow, they really kind of see themselves in those shooters. They identify with them. They in some cases become obsessed. They go visit the school, they spend their time on these

dark websites that really celebrate those shootings. And so I think that validation and seeing how those Columbine shooters ended up on the page of Time magazine, it's that quest for notoriety that they're looking for. Yeah, I think it's important not to name the shooters. The media can talk about it, give all the details, but just not mention the name. The far right and the extremism, that's one of the things they're looking for, to be martyrs, sent

to make copycats and things like that, and Buffalo. That was a specific target, right, But it seems like it's not always like a racial target that I just want to get as many people as I can. Yeah, perpetrators choose a target that represents their grievance with the world. So school shooters are typically upset with their classmates in their peers. Workplace shooters have typically just been fired and

are angry at the workplace. And then there's people who decide that the source of everything wrong in their lives is a racial group, or a religious group, or it's women, and so they choose sites that represent those things. But I think we had this idea that people who do us are these monsters and they're on the outside, but really they're kids in our kids schools, there in our workplaces. There are neighbors, and so we need to all be

thinking about this. There are people we know. My thought is, I've heard and seen a lot of terrible things that happened to black kids in school in general, but I've never seen a black kid trying to shoot up with school. You're basically saying the pressures that you see that young black people go Black people face, specifically in the education education explode that way. We don't. We don't express our frustrations in that way. It's very interesting to me. That's

a really good point. There's kind of this white male entitlement to what I've owed in this world. I expect to have a girlfriend and be wealthy and be respected or have resources, and so when I don't get those things, my anger and rage is very intense. Call it an entitled grievance, right, it's I'm angry because I have a different expectation. The world owes me this and I haven't gotten it, so it must be somebody's fault. And we as black people definitely don't have it. But that's a

very deep thing entitled grievance. I mean, can you imagine if you're in a white child, that's just the constant, consistent message you're special because you're white, and then you enter into the world in the world is like you ain't special, right, and so that that collies. Yeah, that's very interesting. There's an other elephant in the room. We're focusing on the white part of it, but there's another consistent thing here. What about the male nous of this.

Why are so many of the men Because to me, there's also a crisis of masculinity and its relationship to violence. That has to be spoken about as well. So we have studied a hundred and eighty perpetrators of mass shootings. You killed four more people in a public space, and of those under an eight, we have two women in the sample. So it's mail, and to be honest, it's not that different than all homicides which are over mail.

There's good psychological research that shows when men feel shame or powerless or anger or sadness, they go out with it, right, Their harm goes out, and when women feel those same things, it goes in, so higher rates of self harm and anxiety and depression and eating disorders and all those. That's how it comes out sort of differently between the genders. Right, So the men tend to explode, women tend to implode. Yeah, exactly, Yes, that means to be discussed. Oh so, Dr Jillian, you

say that mass shootings are preventable. How so in our search, we came up with thirty three different potential solutions, things like holding social media companies accountable for the hateful rhetoric that happens on their platforms, teaching ourselves how to spot the warning signs of this and knowing where to report it. I would say, if only somebody had got involved at when he was doing this at ten, if only when this seventeen year old told his teacher like in Buffalo,

he was thinking about a murder suicide? Right? If only? If only? And none of those solutions we identified are perfect on their own, but when you start layering them on top of each other, that's when you start seeing progress. Who wow? All right? When NFL lineman Zach Banner saw that another player posted quotes attributed to Adolph Hitler, he knew he had to say something. He made this video

that went viral. There's a common misbelief amongst black and brown people that Jewish people are just like any other white race. They don't understand that Jewish people deal with the same amount of hate. And uh, I'm not trying to get emotional right now, but when we talk about the black lives matter, and we talk about elevating ourselves, we can't do that while stepping on the back of other people. Welcomesider PA, Thank you for having me so

what made you post that video? When a colleague messes up, you have to hold them accountable. Thank everyone in the workplace should have that type of mentality, especially when we talk about these difficult subjects. I saw tweeting about anti Semitic comments and I had to look up what anti Semitism was. And I think that's important to be able to tell the difference between different hates, Different hates that we deal with as black and brown people, different hates

that Muslims have to deal with. Jews. I didn't even think I could say Jew because every time we hear it, it's in a negative connotation. It's also important to understand not all Jews are white and fair skin. There's black Jews, and taking that time to do that men, the amount of research and speaking out and saying obviously this isn't correct, we can't do this. And I was Steeler for five years.

In eighteen, in Pittsburgh, somebody walked in the Tree of Life Synagogue and said all Jews must die and gunned down ten plus people. Those little Jewish boys and girls cried the same tears that the I did in second grade when I read about the clan bombing that church in Birmingham and killing those four little black girls. You talked about empathy earlier. It's surprising to me is when people aren't empathetic and how hard it is to create empathy in people, especially as an adult. But it's also

important to understand that I educated myself. Jews welcomed me in their homes for the just about dinners and into their temple. Jeff, can I ask you a question, just in the life that you've lived in the past, what was it about your organization that felt as though Jews had to be targeted most? The belief in that type of environment is that they control all the banks, they

control all the media. It's not based in reality, but these are the old stereo stereotypes, and it's easier to place the blame on someone else rather than take take account for and go, you know what, I need to work harder, I need to try more. It's easier to just say it's it's there for black people's fault, it's Jewish people's fault, it's Hispanic people's. It's not accurate, it's not true, but it's easier for them. We do that.

In our interpersonal relationships and our friendships and our romantic relationships. Things go hey wire, and then we don't sit back to say, wait, I said that thing, or I did that thing anyway. It's just like, no, you made it go, hey wire, you said you love me, and now what's gone. It's like, yeah, we do that when people we say we love that, trying to say that we all have

seeds and that some are more extreme than others. On the same continuous Zack, what you did by go going to meet someone different from you is something anyone can do today. Everyone can. One of the best ways we can do it is break bread black people, Jews, Muslims. Urge you to keep welcoming those people that you disagree with naturally. Yeah, there was a point in my life where I wouldn't have been able to set at the

table with you. Same here. I'm not gonna lie. I had a little bit of a thing earlier that old him made me cringe as well, because I can't see how you would want to exterminate somebody and also try to keep a culture when you didn't have culture before we came in the first place. And you know what I'm saying, And I don't say that in in terms of conflict. I just say that in understanding my defects

and your defects exactly. And it's it was a beautiful learning moment because even as a mother sitting here, I was like, should I switch season? I said no. If two years for somebody would have said to me, you're gonna be sitting next to Jeff, the Nazi guy, he's going to be your friend, You're going to consider him to be your brother, I would not only laugh at you, I will feel insulted that you would think I could

do that with a guy like that. Right, And just like you were saying, when we take that time to have the courage to step outside of our comfort zone and just to get to know the spirit and the humanity of people, even when they might not even see their own humanity. You know. So this has been a beautiful I'm telling you, this was a gangster table. You two, the two of you, Yeah, you having these conversations are uplifting and like closing it and what you said was

absolutely beautiful. That's what can make people change. Absolutely absolutely, thank you, Thank you. We really appreciate it. It's powerful to actually witness it and see someone who has made the change. And before we go, we'd like to leave everyone with some hope. Meet these special young people trying to break the cycle of hate. I'm fighting to protect women of color and our bodily autonomy. I'm fighting for

the mental health of black men. I'm fighting to uproot any and all systems of white supremacy and encourage other young black and brown people to have the nerve to do the same. I love to be able to advocate for immigrant communities and migrant communities. I've lived undocumentedly for the majority of my life. My entire life struggle has showed me that I need to stand boldly and be able to create change that I want to see my kids grow up in. The changes I'm fighting for are

important because our rights are continuously coming under attack. If I do not do this work, my rights and the rights of the people that are closest to me will be stripped away, and I cannot allow that to happen. I care about making change because I care about my community and my system one getting a hurt. I know that need to do something. You might know me as a little as Flint, even though I'm nels a little anymore.

The change I'm fighting for is clean water, because no can in Americas have to do with having talked to drinking water. When people think that it's just fantastastic drinking water. They're wrong America as a water crisis, not just Flint. As an Afro Cuban, trans and queer woman, I use my art a liberation of queer and trans black people by creating meaningful, impactful, and authentic representations of my community in the media. We have social media, one post and

a movement is going vibral. We can literally text our friends about where the next process is yachta, that is hello in my dinner language. I am from the Dinna Nation. The change I am creating is important because it is rooted in Indigenous worldview that we are relatives to Mother Earth and we must fight to protect her. To join the Red Table Talk family and become a part of the converse station, follow us at Facebook dot com slash

red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook, Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.