a ship that was harbored in brooklyn during the revolution, the american revolution. it was a prison ship, terrible, terrible conditions, he has made a career robert watson of researching ships that play a role in war. he did nazi titanic not too long ago. >> senior director of publicity, thanks for your time. >> good evening, my name is abraham foxman, from time to time i have an opportunity to welcome some of our guests particularly in the area of antisemitism and bigotry and engage with them in conversation.

we would like to do today. i will begin with some questions and then make the floor available to you to ask and ponder, argue with them, whatever makes you happy. okay. so tonight -- >> microphone. >> i will. [laughter] >> we are delighted to welcome two memoirs of reform to american skinheads christian picciolini. christian is here to set light on likely path as the son of two hard working italian immigrants to becoming the leader of the chicago skinheads when he was still a teenager.

after leaving the violent far-right hate movement that he was part of during his youth, he began painstaking process of renewing his youth n. the year 2009 he cofounded an organization of life after hate a nonprofit organization helping people to disengage from hate and violent extremism. in 2015, christian styeded to -- decide today and had book romantic violence. members of an american skinhead. following his talk, i will ask him a few questions and you'll have an opportunity to engage with him.

>> thank you, abe. as abe said my name is christian picciolini and my journey actually started not in 1973 but 22 years ago in 1995 when i left finally the organization, the american neo nazi skin-head movement. i was 22 year's old at the time but i had spent eight years, every single time of teen years as part of american neo-nazi skinhead gang. before that i was a relatively normal teenager. i had a thing for chachi.

my parents were italian immigrants who came in the 1960'sia they were often the victims of prejudice themselves. racism wasn't something that i grew up with. it was quite the opposite. we had people of different cultures and religions visited. i became very comfortable with that. but because my parents were immigrants they also had to work very hard in this country. they opened a small beauty shop in the south side of chicago and that kept them busy seven days a week and sometimes 14 hours a day so i didn't really see my parents very much. i had lived in a very italian part of chicago but when i was born, my parents moved me to a very, let's say, a place that lacked diversity, it was very white suburban area.

growing up i never really knew where exactly i fit in. i didn't know if i was and an italian, i didn't quite understand if i was an american because of the traditional culture that they kept me in very close bubble. so i had a lot of struggles growing up. i had low self-esteem, i was bullied pretty severely because of my name and because i was different and i was also very short and i started to really be very american. i got tired of being this person who stuck out as a child of immigrants. i start today resent my parents for being immigrants and i felt abandoned. one day when i was going through the search for an identity and a community in -- and a sense of

purpose i had this grievance underneath, this kind of self-hatred and at 14 i was standing in an ally and i was smoking a joint and this man drove up in a 1968 firebird and he screeched to a halt a few

so now because there was a void in leadership everybody who had been recruited after me suddenly looked to me to find out what to do and two years prior to this powerless kid who had no idea how to lead, who had no idea had a relationship in life because i was shy was suddenly propelled into a leadership position of america's first neo-nazis skinhead gang. infamous organization in the united states because by this time groups start today pop up all over the country. one thing i realized that music

was a powerful recruitment tool. it was a good vehicle for propaganda. so i started in 1990 one of america's first white power skinhead bands. in those songs i would essentially use propaganda to teach people to hate, to commit acts of violence and to be proud of something that was manufactured because what we said was that diversity was contributing to a white genocide, that the more we allowed diversity and multiculturalism to take place that white people would bare the brunt of that and be pushed out of this world. now, of course, i look back at that and i think how ridiculous that must have sounded but it resinated with people. it was the use of fear rhetoric to make them afraid that really

kicked them into action. so this picture is from 1991 at a concert in germany, that's me on stage singing to about 4,000 skinheads from all over europe. and i sang the lyrics that encouraged people to go out and commit acts of violence based on color of skin, the god that they prayed to or who they love. this is where i recognized the consequences of my words really were. after this concert, these 4,000 skinheads went out into bymar, beautiful historic town that produced artists, philosophers and musicians and they essentially destroyed this town. they walked into shops and lewded and broke into pubs and stole beer and they beat up the

townspeople who happened to be german. i didn't understand why we could say one thing and do another and i start today realize not only the consequences that were words would have to commit acts of violence but i started to question the ideology and if it was something that i was really in tune with. i was have the internal struggle on whether it was right and whether i believed it or whether i was capable of things that i was telling people to do. i hated other people because i hated myself. i hated my situation so much that i was willing to project my

own pain onto other people so that i didn't have to deal with it myself. when i came back in 1991 from the trip in germany, things changed again for me. i met a girl, i fell in love and 1 t year's old we were married and had our first child and i can tell you if you're a parent and maybe you understand this, when i held my child for the first time in my arms, there was a bit of magic, i suddenly reconnected with that innocent 14-year-old who was lost and i regained my innocence and i start today catch a glimpse of what it meant to be innocent. my sense of purpose were no

longer as skinhead or leader, it was as a father, as a husband. all i wanted to do was support my family and provide for them so i began to question aggressively the ideology that i believed and that i had passed along to hundreds and maybe thousands and maybe tens of thousands of other people both through meetings and my music and i knew that that's not what i wanted for my own family. i never asked my wife who was not a part of this movement to become involved. i never thought that i wanted my child to be a part of the movement. i started to really question what i was doing. but i got a little confused again and i said, okay, well, i need to support my family. not much else i know but music and i decided to open a record store and the purpose of the

record store for me was not only to support my family but stay part of the movement because it was so difficult despite abanonning -- abandoning the ideology day by day. it was difficult to leave the identity and community because i had a family around me that i had never experienced before. i sold white-power music. that's all i knew what to do. very quickly the white power music became 75% of my gross revenue. people were driving from new york and california to buy this music, but trying to be a good business person and being greedy, maybe a little selfish i decided well, i wasn't just going to sell white power music i was going to sell other music. i started to stock heavy metal and punk rock and hip-hop. and what happened next i never

would have imagined. the customers who came in to buy that other music even though they knew who i was, showed me compassion, in fact, they showed me compassion when i least deserved it and they were the people that i least deserved it from and at first i was very stand offish, i was happy to accept their must be and sell their music and if they start today start a conversation i was very short, i didn't really want to engage and they kept coming back. and every time they kept coming back the conversations became personal and i engaged a little bit more and within day when a black teenager came in and he was clearly upset, i asked him what was wrong, and he told me that his mother had been diagnosed with cancer and suddenly i was able to connect with him and understand how he felt because my grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer just before that. and when i saw the gay couple holding and loving their son, i

recognized that that was the same love that i felt for my own son. the conversations got to be more personal and i started to realize that we had more similarities than differences and that the differences we had were superficial, we all have the need for love and for acceptance and for success and to be be able to support our families, those are the fundamentals needs that we all shared and that all of the superficial differences that i had magnified and amplified to separate myself from them were just that, they were superficial inconsequential differences that didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. we were human beings and we shared these experiences and i'm thankful for those people because that was the first time that i was allowed -- that i allowed myself to humanize

somebody else because before that they were monsters or garbage or cockroaches. i kept as much as humanization as possible so it was easy to hate the other because that's what the movement was always about. it was about blaming somebody else for the problems that existed rather than reflecting internally to see if maybe you were the contribution to that problem. it was about blaming that invisible person for everything that was going wrong or all the perceived wrong that was happening in the world without actually knowing those people and when i began to meet these people i started to realize that there was nothing to hate, that they didn't match what was in my head and now i was starting to think emotionally i was connected, i had lost the ego and the fear and then everything crashed, my life fell apart. when i left the movement, i closed the door, i pulled the

music from the shelves and so much revenue, of course, i couldn't sustain the store anymore so i lost my livelihood and i also lost my family, my community that i had built for eight years. my wife and my children left me because i didn't leave the movement quickly enough or pay them enough attention and they just had to leave. i didn't have a great relationship with my parents even though they tried and essentially when i left, i lost everything. and i went through a period of five years until 1999 where almost every morning i woke up and contemplating taking my own life because i didn't feel -- i didn't understand exactly why i wasn't feeling better. i was treating other people with respect and i was showing compassion but i was still dying inside. at the end of the five years, a friend of mine, one of the few

friends that i had came up to me and she said, you have to change something, i don't want you to die. i said, okay, what do you suggest. i just got a job from a company called ibm, maybe you've heard of them, you can go apply there. i said, you're crazy. i said i've got full tattoos all over my body, i'm an exnazi, i went to six high schools, i don't own a computer, by the way and there's no way that they would hire me. she said just try, it's an entry-level position and i will vouch for you and tell them you're good with people. and i was like, i guess i can say that. [laughter] >> i lied on my first resume and i got the job. and on my first day, ibm has millions of customers, on my first day, where did they put me? my old high school, the same one

i got kicked out of twice to install computers, i was terrified. here i was this grown man at the time and i was nervous like it was my first day of school, i didn't know like how could i change my appearance to people wouldn't recognize me because i knew the minute that i walked into the hallways that they would say get out and, of course, i walk in and the first five minutes who do i see, the old black security guard i got in a fist-fight with. you can call it faith, karma, whatever, god's will, but i was so scared, i had never been so scared in my life. i didn't know what to do. i was shaking but i decided i was going to chase him to the parking lot, probably not the best move but when i found him as he was getting into his car i tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around hand when he recognized me he took a step

back back in fear and i knew i had to do something and all i could think to say is i'm sorry. and he stuck out his hand and i shook it and we embraced, pretty probable we cried. i'm not quite sure. it was a long time but i'm pretty certain we did and we talked. he made me promise one thing, he made me promise that i would tell my story to other people, not because of, you know, being an exnazi and suddenly, you know, doing better but because he recognized that what i had gone through, the same struggle that i had wasn't something that was unique to me, it was something that every young vulnerable marginalized person goes through and the lessons that i learned could also be lessons that other people could learn and maybe he had some intuition about why young people may join isis, this is way before then because there are

parallel reasons why people join gangs, why they join movements of hate, and why they might travel to syria to fight for a cause that they don't really understand or that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. parallels are that we are searching when we are the most vulnerable for identity, community and a sense of purpose. i've got a lot disenfranchised marginalized people, middle-aged people, older people in this world right now. a lot of people searching for answers, a lot of confusion. it's very easy for a savvy marketer or a savvy recruiter to walk in front of your path or place something in your view that tries to solve those problems for you by blaming somebody else. so i decided that because it was so hard for me that i was going to write a book, i couldn't talk to people, i was going to just

write a book and take this man's advice and tell the people my story, it took me ten years to do it but i finally did it. and it really is cautionary tale for young people who might be searching for something and in 2010i cofounded an organization life after hate with the purpose of helping people go through that transition where they're scare today leave these movements because of identity, because of that community and because of that purpose they may not have something that they see as another special purpose in their lives and we help them transition out of that and to disengage from hateful ideologies and hate and hate groups, not by battling our ideologically with them, that just polarizes people further, we see that happening today.

just in our political climate, what we do is we listen and we listen for what i call potholes. before i talk about that, i want to talk a little about what the state of the movement is today. when we think about the far right or hate groups, we tend to think of skin heads and kkk and malacia people and they still exist but they are not what they used to be. this movement has gone from what we call boots to suits and this was a concerted effort 30 years ago, this is no surprise. 30 years ago we had a concept called leaderless resistance where our goal was because we reck sighed we were scaring the average american racist that we were not going to do that anymore. we were going to grow our hair out and not get tattoos and go to universities and that we were going to get jobs in law enforcement and that we were

going to run for office. here we are 30 years later and what i was skeptical 30 years ago we are starting to see that happening. they've gotten very smart, they've learned how to massage the message, but the ideology is the same. it's based on fear. what's gone from this because of the internet, because it's a place where people who are marginalized can find their communities, who can build an identity if they don't have one in real life, because of this platform, which i believe in, by the way, because of this platform what used to look like this, now looks like this. maybe like some of your daughters, grandkids, neighbors.

it looks like this. now if they weren't given the salute you probably wouldn't know that they were involved and it's getting younger and younger. and if we look at this and say, well, we really don't do worry about these young kids who are doing this stuff, yeah, we should because what happens is the products of this internet radicalization, the result of that is somebody like a dylan roof who walks in a church and murderers nine people based on the color of their skin or alexander who walked into a mosque in quebec city and murdered six innocent people. or looks like james jackson who came here to new york and marched and murder --ed an african american with a sword because he was trying to discourage people from interracial relationships, these are all products of the internet

propaganda. the game has changed. when i was younger, when i was recruited, you got a book, you got invited to a meeting and you hung out with people, it was a very social movement. nowadays it's a very virtual movement. and the scary thing about that is that is where marginalized young people live and they're looking for answers and they are served these answers by people with very selfish mission. so what we decided to do at life after hate is to live online as well and to be reachable from the internet. so we launched a program and initiative called exit usa and the whole purpose of exist usa is to help people disengage from hate groups and hateful ideologies and when i said earlier we don't do that by battling ideologically with them, we do it by listening, this is what i meant by that.

we get contacted from three different types of people, we talk about people who wants help getting out, we get contacted by bystanders, parents, friends, coworkers, girlfriends and we get contacted by formers, people who were engaged in this movement but found their way out but for years thought that they were the only person on earth that did that and never been able to talk about their experiences and because they've never been able to talk about it they've never been able to heal fully and be fully productive. so what we do is we instead of arguing with them ideologically even though i sit at the table and i want to shake them and say, stupid, i don't do that. [laughter] >> but what we do is bill resilience in these people. we introduce them to mental health professionals. job training, education, sometimes tattoo removal and we

give them a support network of people that are just like them that they can talk to. we currently have a private network online that has close to 100 formers in it who on some days will tuck about cat memes and post your latest joke on the internet but some days they come in and for the first time in their lives they will admit at three year's old they were sexually abuse or that their son committed suicide that morning and we rally as we understand each other, we understand where they came from and we help each other through this thing called life and we've been very successful with that. you happened to be in new york, but we've helped people

disengage and we have people going onto get their ph.d's, we have people who are teachers, we have people who for the first time because they've been able to talk about this and been able to work through some of the issues that have broken them for many years, very proud of that. i just want to talk a little bit about some of the types of things that we see. so this young girl, we call her jane, 17 year's old from florida. her parents contacted us because they were concerned that she was making neo-nazis propaganda videos on youtube and dating a 23-year-old boy from idaho and had become her virtual boyfriend. well, after speaking to the parents and getting a little of information, i did my homework before i went to speak with this girl and i realized that this guy was not a 23-year-old boy

from idaho, in fact, he was a 37-year-old boy from moscow. he would become their virtual boyfriends, they would fall in love with him, even though they had never seen him, he would send videos and he would strip off the audio and would convince them to send compromising photos and videos of themselves and when they decided they didn't want to make videos anymore or they we wanted to leave the movement, he would blackmail them. that's happening quite a bit online. i also want to talk -- john, a man 31-year-old man from buffalo, wounded military vet who was islamophobe like i've never seen before. i talked to him, he reached out to me after reading my book, listen, i have some questions, there's some things i don't agree that you're talking about. i would love to talk to you. i said, of course, let's talk.

we talked for several weeks and then one day it was clear to me he didn't like muslims, one day he said, you know, i was walking my daughter and my dog in the park and i saw a muslim man praying and it took everything in my to not go up to him and kick him while he was on the ground and i said, okay, john, i'm coming to buffalo and i flew out the next day. we sat and we talked and one of the first questions i asked him was, have you ever met a muslim person before and he said, no, why would i want to do that, they're evil, i don't want anything to do with them, i hate them. they're the devil. i said, okay. i excuse myself and i went to the bathroom and got my phone and googled a local mosque and called and i spoke to the imam and i said, imam, i have a gentleman hire who is a christian who would love to learn more about your religion. [laughter] >> would you mind if we stop by

and he said, yeah, of course, please stop by but know that i only have 15 minutes because i'm preparing for my prayer service and i said, we are on the way. we get on the car and i say let's go get lunch, well, we have to stop somewhere before we get to lunch and when i told him all he wanted to do was stop, turn around, throw up and i said, i don't care, it's a rental car, go ahead and throw up but we are going. i flew to buffalo and the at least you can do is try. we went to the mosque and the imam answered. i have ten minutes, please come in. we can talk very briefly. three hours later, after talking and hugging and crying and realizing all of the similarities that we had we left. i'm happy to say that after a lot of work with john and the imam are very good friends and

go out to falafel every friday. we are so afraid of what we think we don't understand that we want to push it away and often times we push it away so far that it actually turns into violence. we have two realities in this world and there are not enough bridges crossing those two realities. we have to do a better job of letting go of iration real fear and unconscious bias that we have. letting go of our ego and being vulnerable and building those bridges for the people that we claim we hate because the truth is most people that are part of this movement have never ever had a meaningful interaction with the people they claim they hate, i certainly didn't. most of the people that reworked with have not.

when you ask why did you join them, i wanted to belong and it's hard to go back. life after hate hopes to be the new family, the positive gang that's important at work and after we make people more resilient it's pretty amazing, without arguing ideologically with them, the hate kind of falls away because now they are more resilient and more self-sufficient and more self-competent, they have the tools, they have the training that they need to compete and there's no reason to blame somebody else. there's no reason to be afraid of that other and if you pair that with the emerging that i do. i introduce a holocaust denier to a holocaust survivor or islamophobe to an imam, that's the connection that we need. all across the world there are people like me, formers, people who have dedicated their lives to helping dismantle what they once built, to helping build

those bridges. i'm very happy to be here to tell you about the story, it's a real honor to be here, it's a pleasure to be here with you and this wonderful museum that tells a great story. thank you for listening to my story and i just want to give you one challenge before i leave today. i would like for you to leave today, tomorrow and hopefully every day, find somebody that you think doesn't deserve your compassion and give it to them because chances are they are the ones who need it the most. thank you very much. [applause] >> okay, i think we are going to talk for a little bit. are we okay?

christian, thank you. >> thank you. >> it's very hard for us to really understand the journey that you've taken and at the same time it's going to be difficult for you to try to explain it to us and so we thank you because every time you tell it, you live it again, you experience it again, but it's for a purpose. so great admiration and respect for the courage. i'm a little bit confused, what is the problem, is it ignorance is id -- it ideology or is it

dysfunction and if we as society need to address it, where do we start? the last sentence sort of answered my question but i'm not sure, but is it a simple as being wanted -- social dysfunction and therefore everybody who is in a situation of social dysfunction situation, however you define it, are they also susceptible to be by -- bigots, boy, the audience is huge, huge. >> did you say huge? >> huge. [laughter] >> or is it ignorance and thereto, my god, or is it where -- i spent the lifetime dealing

with these issues and i'm not sure we are right listening to you now, maybe -- maybe we targeted the wrong thing, yeah, we need to educate, we need to sensitize and we need to love and all that, but we were preoccupied with the by -- bigots, to expose them. whereas i listen to you, christian, our efforts should be at -- as potential victims? where do we have priorities? >> yeah, it's hard to give a black and white answer but i will do my best. fear is a father and isolation and mother, what we fear what we don't understand and we never

have the opportunity to connect with it, that sometimes turns into hate but i think really what is underneath that is a lack of opportunity and this is not -- you know, i'm not playing like identity politics or anything like that. there is a lack of opportunity for young people in this country whether they are in the inner cities or rural america and i can tell you that standing in that ally at 14 year's old, hey, you're a good artist, you know, would you like to play a guitar or you want to play baseball i know semiprobaseball players, would have done that in a heart beat. i was angry and i attached myself to people that were angrier than me. it was a vehicle. i firmly believe that ideology is not a driver in violient extremism.

it's the vehicle. it's the sense of purpose of sense that drives people to those things and then the ideology and the grievance and the trauma, whatever they're experiencing is the catalyst and the ideology is the vehicle for that. i found the angriest people that i could find so i could be angry too. i think if we are going to solve this problem, people ask me all of the time, how do we solve racism and i say i don't know. if i knew i would win a nobel peace prize, we have the ability to affect the people closest to us, our family, our friends, our loved ones to really just show them come -- compassion and be the message. to people we don't know that compassion is also very important, empathy, being able to put yourself in their shoes

and listen to them when they say really ugly things but to listen underneath as to why they are saying those ugly things and finding common ground and starting from that point, instead of starting from complete opposites. everybody in here has something in common with a neo nazi, we all need to be loved, we all need money to survive and support our family, there are lots of things we have in common and if we can maybe just start there and build out from there, then maybe we will be able to build those bridges. ..

that they had in common, that it would reduce the level of animosity. i remember how howard worked out but on that premise and what you're talking about is compassion. your last three which was so simple which basically said to all of us you want to begin to fight. be compassionate to somebody you don't know or even somebody that you may have an antipathy to. so we are talking about people to people. now we live in a world where if you don't talk to people, how do you exercise compassion?

how do you, we've seen in our lifetime despite privacy, we are on the way to destroying civility. how do you fight this with such unintended consequences of undermining the values and the ability for people to talk to each other. you can't talk to each other. this becomes the substitute. for engaging that you're talking about >> every person in this room probably walked past 1000 people coming here today. those thousand people also live online, maybe something some of them are fortunate enough to do that. but the truth is we do come in contact with people all the time and we do spend a lot of our time online we also interact with people at work.

and at the grocery store and walking from the train station. and those are the opportunities i think to make up or that lack of connection in a place that's supposed to connect us more, maybe it's doing the opposite . creating more of a polarization. >> despite that you're saying there's still enough opportunities at the end of the day to make a difference. >> i plan to go back to my hotel room to read my email but i'm going to pass 1000 people that hopefully i will be fortunate enough to give. >> you may never get to the hotel room. i have two more questions. one is a more delicate question . but you talked about moving away from the skinheads to swastikas to the suits. and if you put everything together that you talked about, this frustration, this anger, this alienation , we just experienced an election

which on all sides pushed all of these buttons. is that democracy in danger? >> i believe so. i believe that our understanding of democracy is shifting. it's changing because of things that happened. we've experienced something that nobody in our lifetime has ever seen and i think we have to now really understand whatdemocracy is. i'll . >> is it fragile? >> it is very fragile. we are a baby compared to the world. >> looking degrees, it's not such a great model. >> no but we are still trying

to figure things out. we've never done it right, never. we've done a lot of things right but we've never done it completely right. for people to look back and say we stand for what we were founded on, i don't fully agree with that because part of that was slavery and part of that wasthis class system but i do believe in american ideals. i do believe that we are built , let me go back. i think it was ronald reagan who said you can go to japan, you'll never be japanese. you can go to england and you will never be english but you can come to america and you will be american, no matter who you are. that's true and to me that is the democratic ideal is that everybody have a voice, an equal voice. oh yeah. i think it's always been in question. >> we've never admitted that. >> know, we were happy and we had a conversation earlier and you made a great analogy. racism always existed in our country, donald trump didn'tinvent it. >> he's not a bigot, he's not a racist . >> well ... i've never met the man so i'm not going to judge him from what i've seen

but what he did do was he legitimized it in our country. what were these smoldering little fires that always existed, on election day that bottle of gasoline he kicked it over and it ignited all of them. >> the rules that protected our civil society, we always had a contract with each other. you want to be a bigot? you can be a bigot, the constitution guarantees it. in your heart and in your head but don't act it out. if you act it out, you pay the price. he came and broke all the taboos. what you're saying is we were in your way and my way and in the lessons we tried to teach tried to explain to people that our society is based on certain understandings, political correctness is not a crime. it's not a panacea. but you need to keep the hate

that you experience i would say in the sewers. through our laws and education and through sensitivity, through your experience we put the cover on this sort. this past election we removed that cover and now we have to find ways to put the cover back on but he didn't create it, it was there. >> i don't want to put the cover back on. i want to invite them out and i want to have coffee with them and i want to talk to them and i want to listen and understand why they are living in the sewersbecause there's a reason . everybody, i could never speak for the person in rural america who locked the factory and is willing to forgive many of the awful things that he said because they have to feed their

family. i'm not saying that's right . i'm not saying it's the ideal situation but we need to listen. >> so it's not your fault but maybe i can fix it. >> i think we all probably contribute to it. we all to some degree still have unconscious bias and it's as simple as crossing the street if you see anybody walkingdown that looks threatening. and it's something that we deal with and we have to accept . listen, when you have the far left in the far right who are at odds with each other. the more extreme they become, eventually they will meet and become the same thing. >> they have historically. >> they have in the last thing we want to do it is opposition to those hateful ideals is become hateful ourselves. that's the last thing we want to do.

in fact, we don't want to do it at all. that is not going to help us. what we need to do is find it within ourselves to say your thoughts are ugly. your viewis very ugly . how can we find a way to connect that i can share my experiences with you without debating you, without pushing my ideas on you, without prescribing the solution to you? how can we sit down and humanize each other because there's not a whole lot of work that needs to happen. once that humanization happens, there's already a connection there . and build from that. >> a final question before i open up the comments. we both come on at least now freedom of speech. venerating it, applauding it, embracing it, supporting it. i'm not sure where either one of us are 100 percent absolutists but we certainly accept the concept of yelling fire in a theater is not

protected. in your experience, has that changed your appreciation, or perception or value of freedom of speech? you saw that hate cause violence and death. you engaged in it. does society need to protect itself? from the christian divide? >> i believe in freedom of speech but i believe freedom of speech is not free of consequences so while you may have the right to say whatever you want, if what you say or what you do affects somebody else negatively, you must be held accountable. i believe that.>> thank you.

the floor is yours, yes ma'am. i think you need a microphone. >> there recording it. >> i wanted to know how the other people that you butted heads with reacted when he left. did they treat you badly or were you able to humanize them in some way and bring some of them along? >> there were some who did come along later once i was able to work through myself and was ableto reach back out to them . otherwise i couldn't have been more of a race traitor, a turncoat, somebody that they wanted to hurt. and it still continues. i still receive 22 years later death threats or

threats against my family. but i can tell you this, there was one point in my life from the time i was 14 until 22 that i very blindly was willing to give my life for something that i didn't really understand or know anything about. you bet your. [bleep] i'm going to do that now that i know what i'm doing. i planted a lot of seats. 22 years later i am still pulling up the weeds that are sprouting from those seeds. not only am i filling potholes that people from their original path but i'm also a gardener. yes, i mean it's part of the business. i could be hit by a bus, by the one train falling on the tracks but i know i'm letting my passion. >> go to penn station, it's safe . >> this is what i meant to do because i am one of the few people in the world who had this experience and the knowledge and the will to be able to put myself into sometimes a very

uncomfortable situation. i also know that it's because i have that information. >>. >>. >>. >> i read your book and found it infuriating. i grew up in north georgia, in marietta. >> a new model down and we were not friends. >> you know, we're seeing, we always call this the bad old days. there would be 1000 people there and 100 skinheads intimidating the entire crowd. there were dozens of nazi gangs and clans. and you know, we're seeing a big resurgence in white nationalists organizing, we're seeing in new york, there's communism gangs in new york attacking people in the bars. >> and you know, i really appreciate getting people out, i think those programs are important but don't you

think that people should intervene with far right movements? it's in full gear and in some ways you're waiting for people to thin out their personal issues or the movements to sort of exhaust itself and people are looking for the next thing. how do you suggest that people intervene with far right movements when they are in full swing? >> the last part of your statement is partly true. we do retroactively wait for people to come to us but the bystanders are also pointing out people that don't necessarily want to leave these movements and we also engage with them so it's not just those who have an excuse to leave. and i would say that as part of my answer is one understand that this is in full swing. this issomething that is completely, to the top again. it has momentum . it is effectively recruiting hundreds of thousands of young people in this country and abroad.

it's probably just as dangerous if not more dangerous in europe. cause there is a sense of historical nationalism there. >> and we need to speak up when we see it. we need to be notbe afraid to speak up but also know where to draw the line where that becomes an ideological battle because i can tell you when 18 if you told me i was wrong , if you would've punched me inthe face at a rally in the middle of an interview or cancel my gym membership , to some of the people in the alright today, i would have come back with a gun. it wouldn't have occurred to me. it wouldn't have changed to i was so we have to find it just a way to connect with the people that are sometimes the ugliest people around. and i know it's not for everybody. i know it's not something, there are groups that are on the left that are very antiracist that tried to solve it with violence and what i see happening is the

right coming more violent and growing because now they're feeling more marginalized and people who are much marginalized are joining these groups and they're using that as ammunition to grow. so you know, when i see a nazi walking down the street, my first instinct is i would want to punch them too but i know that's not effective. it wouldn't of been effective for me or the thousands of people we work with so we have to find a way, this is not a popular idea.we have to find a way to still steal bmv for them and find a way to show compassion because every person we work with will tell you that they changed because somebody that didn't expect it from where didn't deserve it from show them compassion when they least deserve it. >> then you've got crisis. >> one of the things that fitsthat category , what level of compassion is there? >>. >> i would say that would work for isis supporters but

this really is a battle for good and evil, not in a religious sense but the truth is 99 percent of us and also from the religious but 99 percent of us live in the middle there. >> they are differently evil people in this room. there are definitely, very good people, most of us, we go back and forth depending on the day, depending on the situation, depending on the mood and what we need to do is know that people can change. they can come over to the good side. >> lady in the blue jacket. >> okay, of course this is the eternal jewish mother being romantic ofhistory . and what's doing in your personal life. >>. >> your next. >> my little boys are now 24

and 22. and their amazing human beings who i have a wonderful relationship with as well as my parents. my mother does call me too much but she hasn't figured out how to text message yet so i think i'm okay for a little while. he called a half hour before i was going to be here and i said not now mom. i have a wonderful relationship. once i was able to forgive myself and eventually, i became a better father and a better husband and a better friend and a better employee and human being. and i'm not going to rule out chicago mayor. you never know. >>. [inaudible] >> what was their reaction when you were involved? >> it took my parents about a year to figure out what i was

involved in . doing kid stuff, i was fighting a lot the first year. once they figured it out, they were terrified. they were concerned about my safety. they didn't understand. there was even one point where my mom, bless her heart said this guy, why do you like him? go for somebody italian, alcohol and at least. she would have tried anything possible to get me away from what i was involved in and i have to tell you that thanks to my parents i'm here today because they never gave up on me. and that's the white house calling. >> not this white house. >> i'm very grateful for the fact that my parents didn't give up on me. even when i didn't have a good relationship, when i wanted nothing to do with them because i thought why can't you understand what i'm telling you, i'm trying to save you.

yeah. they would have given up on me. >> how do you propose that we as a nation get rid of hate because of somebody like trump who encourages and thinks that it's okay to want to punch that person in the face and how does that make it right? because that's huge when we have a president who is such an idiot that he can't figure out that he's still in the middle of the middle east, he's in israel? >> is way off the subject. >> we vote. we vote and we didn't enough. we didn't mobilize enough. >> let's talk outside in the hall because we could talk for hours on that subject but i think we need to understand we live in a broken society.

we have a lot of things to fix and there's things that we step in the sewer and put a on. we need to recognize that exist and not keep them in the sewer because if they're in the sewer they will grow, they will fester and will eventually come out of the sewer and start to infect other people area and so we need to not be afraid to deal with theawkward, very tough conversations . >> this potentially could be a big reset for us. to realize that this still exists. believe it or not people thought we were living in a post- racial society. you can probably ask bluff color in this room if that exists and they would tell you know. we've never lived in a post-racial society. >> that's the truth. >>. >> i'm just thinking it sounds so wonderful. take them out of the sewers, embrace them. if you had embraced, not one

morning out of this revelation, came into your group of followers and then embraced them, they would have punched you. they could have even kill you. because they would have effected something horrific etc. which they couldn't deal with. so i'm not sure. i think we should all, it's one thing to reach out to a bus driver, but it's quite another, we're talking about people who are bigoted by belief, by profession. >> they may have gone the route that you went through. so to spend time going into the sewers, i'd rather we spend time in changing our society which removes which bullying, removes unemployment. which teaches respect because

if we better, everything on top of the sewers, the sewers , even if they come out will have nobody to recruit. >> what we do in life after hate is very much doctor jones treated polio. we treat those who are sick through intervention. but we also know that in order to keep other people from being sick we have to inoculate the population from that disease.there's prevention so what you're talking about is revenge and. i absolutelywholeheartedly believe in that but if we don't start to bring it. >> . >> take away the dickens. >> i think if we don't bring out to the people who need it the most we are going to continue to have this problem. >> because really going down to those depths where i was, it was not an ideological thing. it was a self-hatred thing. it was how can i ever other

people more than i feel hurt myself?we have to deal with the trauma with the tony taught me this, the toxic shame that people have and equip them at a young age to be more inclusive, to be more understanding, to be more accepting of diversey and adjust other people in general. it's interesting, i was in montana a couple weeks ago, i spoke in fish which had a terrible situation there. >>. >> i didn't see one person of color the whole time i was in the states. i was there for six days. and i said who do you guys hate here. ? >> all. native americans, their number one. because that's what they have, there's always somebody to hate. if we are marginalized and disconnected, it doesn't matter who the other person is, black and white, brown, green.

there is always somebody to hate but i know that we can get past that because as unfortunate and as terrible as 9/11 was, the one day that i saw america unified, it didn't matter who you were or where you came from. was november 12. that gave me hope. for just a minute. >> so i know that we can get back there. >> we have to hear and one in the balcony. >>. >> i'm going to buy your book and read it, it's fascinating. my question is based upon your experience and examples that you brought up, it seems like your organization and efforts are grounded more towards white supremacists. is there any outreach, are there any efforts that you guys are doing for, to name an example, muslim history

and percentagewise, how much of your efforts are, have been changed up to that point. >> i tend to like to use the word isys inspired terror . >> i certainly do like the white muslim ideals. we focus on the far right because that's our background. however, i also know that what we do transfers over to gangs, transfers over to isys inspired extremists or jihadists. and the left wing extremists as well. >> we do have a very large network of former jihadists that we work with i personally have also worked with people, when i was in belgium, when i was in belgium a few months ago, a man had reached out to one of the municipalities where i

was speaking and he was a returned foreign fighter that came back from syria, had done his prison time and i was trying to reintegrate and he was having a hard time doing that. he had nobody to talk to. he couldn't talk to the people in his community because some of those people thought he was a traitor. >> couldn't talk to the community because some of them didn't want to associate with him because they thought if they taught to him, they would think i'm a terrorist. he really had no network and he sought me out, so i was going to speak there, said i would love to this man and we met in brussels and walked around and we spent three hours which seems to be the magic number for some reason, we spent three hours together and our stories were so strikingly parallel it was mind blowing. >> both of our parents were immigrants. they both settled in areas where people were really friendly to immigrants. his brother had been killed in syria, my brother was murdered after he left the movement.

and we struggle with identity and that loss of unity and that sense of purpose because we both really believe what we were doing at the time was the righteous thing to do, that we were saving the world and we can understand for the life of us why people can understand. >> so i do think that someday in our future when we have the ability to scale in that direction we would like to offer our services or at least partner with organizations that can offer those and the culturally specifics services but i think fundamentally opportunity and finding positive avenues for that identity and community are there. >> the most important question for me to know is did pontiac really make us pot firebird 1968? just getting. >> i go on all the time.

whenever time i have, i really enjoy it. >> i like to connect with my friends and fun things to see. one day somebody posted something about the rothschild. i heard this name throughout my life. i still don't know anything about it. but for that one moment, i decided to just, who are these people? i wrote the name in the search bar. and it must've been some kind of algorithm because all these other sites came up and it was very subtle, they didn't seem to have like, we hate jews. it wasn't like that but it was just something about it that wasn't on the phrase, it wasn't quite kosher. my question to you is what kind of, because you mentioned how subtle this movement is. what are some words that even

somebody, an experienced person like myself can look out for? >> you're talking my language. yes, first of all i want to touch on your topic of algorithms. i think that's very important. what happens when you go online whether it's social media or dueling things, there are algorithms that act as a recommendation.just like when you go to amazon and you buy pampers diapers that will say oh, you should buy huggies. >> news is the same way. when you start reading these fake news stories, these propaganda stories, it will keep recommending them to you because it thinks that's what you want. the danger in that is that you go down into a silo, into a bubble, into your own reality with very little crossover. thishappens on both the left and right.

this is not exclusive . and it's so hard to distinguish what's real news from propaganda, with fake news , there's so much information out there, we've lost our sense of critical thinking in many regards because we're so reliant on the powers that be. so now to talk about the dog whistles that they use or some of the subtle rebranding of things that they use when they're really talking about things that when i hear, i know exactly what they're talking about. they use the terms globalization and the globalists these days to describe kind of like the international bankers and the jewish controlled finance system. that's really what they're talking about. theywill , they've become very good at massaging the message so they're not saying jews control the media, they're calling it the liberal media now. there were accusations that

in the last donald trump add that he ran on election day where the star of david was used next to a picture of hillary clinton and when the voiceover was talking about the globalists there were pictures of george soros, a prominent jewish people and what i saw that video, the first thing i said was wow, this is a white power video. i would've made this 30 years ago and i could've written the speeches that he's saying . what they've gotten good at doing is they massaged the message. a toned it down so that it's palatable to the average person. if you go up to the average american racist in the south and you say take the swastika flag and put it on your wall they'd say well, that's anti-american. but if you give them maybe a confederate flag or something else, though no yeah, i hate black people. i'll hang out on my wall.

so they've gotten good at marketing. at packaging. the suits, you know , they still have the same haircuts. it's just a progression. it's metastasized into something that's more easily palatable to the average american who has a grievance, who has a legitimate grievance about something in their life that is now willing to blame somebody else or put aside were not pay attention to the misogynistic comments for the racist comments or the anti-immigrant comments because i've got to feed my family in this town of 42 people where i can't find a job. it's not right . >> the same time, you don't have to be so sophisticated, youdon't have to look for euphemism . >> . >> you want euphemisms, log

on to do, one on the holocaust. the algorithms will give you. though the way, i don't know if you understand algorithms, it's part of the science of technology which continues the ways and measures pro and con on every issue. and so the bigots, on whatever issue upgrade 24 seven. and so the mechanism measures negative pros and cons and so if the traffic out there by the bigots is such that when you plug on to do, you will get anti-jew first, then you will get road you because that's the way the messengers are floating in the cloud system. same thing in the holocaust. the holocaust, i don't know if you learn holocaust you're going to get holocaust denial.

because the 24 seven bigots operating on those networks, that's what they're feeding. in my days with the adl, we went to palo alto. we went to see the geniuses. and we said to them. thank you for all these wonderful things that you've given us. >> but their unintended consequences of your genius. and the unintended consequences is that you now give a preeminence to the negatives. their answer was algorithms and with all due respect, nonsense. there are antidotes to algorithms. and we see it now. when an issue arises on the algorithmic charts, which hurts the commercial value, of that server. >> whether their yahoo or google or whatever, all of a sudden they have a way to deal with the algorithm. so another thing is don't be alert, be aware.

respond. and because i didn't tell you the last thing, one of the meetings that we went to to complain about when you log on jew, you get anti-jew. they said well, tell the jewish community to go on the internet and say nice things about the jews. like we have nothing else to do but three times a day. go on there but by the way, we did it. there was a campaign. within a month we didchange it but that's not our job . to protect so it is a very serious problem not only sophisticated but in the crude manner as well. >> and its fighting a losing battle because they're using technology, safe accounts, artificial intelligence to really inflate. don't become a conspiracy theorist like them, written

waging last rational war. >> last question. >>. >> i'm going to try to be unemotional. but i'm sitting here at the museum of jewish heritage, a living memorial. >> my mother, now sits in mills and she's going to be 90 years old next month. >> my father is 93. >> both are holocaust survivors.90 years for the first time. they visit this museum because i like the topics. i'm shocked. i am so shocked at the fact that personally, christian i want to tell you i love you. compassion from the child of survivors are named after, after my grandmother.

who was exterminated. most of my mother, all of my mother's mothers and sisters were all exterminated. my father, 12 children. >> my sixth survive. >> so i come all summer for israeli. >> i was born in a fleet which is prison. >> i hope you're going to end with a question.>> i am. i'm going to ask you how can going on, whatever you think - of mister trump or president trump make you feel compassion christian because i want to bring compassion to this room. whether you are to the left or to the right, he's an insane man. who believes that he can make a difference in a positive way. my parents brought me here to america and left once a year later.

>> the question is how could you sit here and not resonate the fact that right now, america leadership in the world is meeting with the three different mage and major religions and in their attitude and thinking is how can we bring peace to the world. how can we fight the evil in the world and we're sitting here in the holocaust museum making fun of a man who's on a mission and the mission is the best mission you can think of in this world. >> respectfully, you don't have a question. >> i'm not here for any political. i just want you. >> i just want to tell mister christian. christian. you're right. >> compassion and education

of humans is what we need to do. so thank you for coming.>> i'd love for you to sign my book. >> i hope you read his book, thank you. the last thing respectfully i eat as a holocaust survivor is a lecture from someone else to tell me how i should ask, believe and in terms of our tradition. so i have of you, i respect it. it doesn't necessarily have to be our views and again, respectfully, it is really out of place it's really, your comments are out of place. this is not a discussion or a conversation. whether we like the president or disagree with his politics, whether he's going to bring peace or not, come to another lecture where it is. this deals with christians experience as a lessons for us to better understand the forces of hatred , bigotry and prejudice that reside in our society. our environment is part of

it. our election system and what happened is part of it but what you're talking about with all due respect has very little to do with what this is about. come toanother lecture where that's the subject, thank you. let me conclude , christian. [inaudible] we don't want anybody to burn. >> free to come up afterwards, i'm happy to answer any of these questions . >> i don't see tony's hand up. we have to break it. the words and words thank you are so benign for us to say to you that for you to have the strength, the courage, the fortitude, it's not the first time. i don't compare, i know when

i used to speak about my holocaust experiences, it was very difficult. it was very difficult because you bare your soul. you bear your experiences just to say thank you isn't enough but that's the best we value, we appreciate. we know it is painful and it's burying your soul a moment of despair and ugliness in your life for a greater purpose and for the greater purposes to inspire us, to inspire us. and again, everything we've heard and argued, your request is all the other things are very difficult. how do you change society? how do you change people? one step at a time, one person at a time and after all that you've gone through,

what do you want us to do? you want us to be nice to somebody we don't know. you know what? it's so little and yet it's the whole world. so god bless you, continue the message. come back, be stronger. >> penance is not supposed to be easy. thank you so much. i believe they are selling books in the library. >> so i would love to sit and talk to all of you. if we can meet over there that would be great. and i look forward to speaking with you, thank you so much, i appreciate it. >>. >> book tv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading the summary. >> i've got a couple books, i

never read just one book at a time. i read in pieces. i'm finishing up a novel by one of my favorite authors, dining robertson davies, a canadian called a cunning man, terrific but written in the early 90s. i'm also in the middle of rereading john f. kennedy's profiles encourage which is a great book for a senator to read because it's all about what happens in the senate historically. i'm listening to a book that i downloaded about peter the great, a long biography , mister massey about peter the great and if you want to understand russia and you've got to go back and read about peter the great in the 1600s. i've also just gotten david mccullough's new book the american spirit. and then one that i really am enjoying is an entire about washington's farewell address by a guy named john avalon so

that's what i'm into right now. >> listening on the airplane to peter the great and reading when i have time either a novel about toronto or the american spirit by david mccullough or something in between. >> those are some great titles that you're looking at right now. i'm familiar with several of them. what did it take to captivate your attention or you to read a book, especially there. >> i thought about that and when i go to browse for example in an online service to download either of online or listen to, i start with history, that's the category that i first go to. a few weeks ago i finished hr mcmaster's book called dereliction of duty about vietnam and that's a timely book because hr mcmaster is now the national security advisor to the president so reading his book which is an incredibly powerful analysis of the lyndon johnson administration and the mistakes they made in vietnam was very instructive area and so how do i pick a book left in mark i start with history

generally and i listen to reviews and then certain authors, david mccullough, you can't go wrong. anything by him 1776, john adams, anything that he's written is going to be engaging and interesting and you're going to learn something. >> but tv wants to know what you're reading. send us your summer reading list via twitter book tv or instagram at book ótv. or posted to our facebook page, facebook.com/ tv. >> book tv on c-span2, television for serious readers. >> the name of the book to stop harassment and take your power back, gretchen carlson is the author. ms. carlson, what are you trying to say with this cover? >> to be fair, to encourage all women who feel like they've been put down or subjugated to speak up a