How hate is born
One story ends; others begin
The old dog lazed his way toward my rental car; his wagging tale hardly slowing my jittering heart as I opened the door. Once again I wondered why I was here, in the belly of the beast so to speak, although it looked more like my grandparents’ farm house: weather worn and run down, an unpainted wood porch with a line of unmatched rocking chairs, and two tow-headed children concentrating on their coloring books on the steps.
It was the early 90s and I was on a mission in foreign territory: the part of Idaho favored by white supremacists, especially the infamous Aryan Nations led by Richard Butler. I didn’t belong here; had no business being here other than a wild hare idea to write a book about the times and these hate groups.
Doing the basic research had made me want to know more about who these people were, what made them white nationalists prone to murder and spreading their message of hate. At the end, they were put out of business by the death of their leader and the financial pressures of lawsuits, primarily by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
However, I couldn’t see that future when I drove into that forested, packed-dirt compound with Nazi and confederate flags flying. I just knew these were violent men who specialized in terror and crime. A few years after my visit, a woman whose car backfired while she was driving past the compound was chased down and assaulted. She was later awarded $6.3 million in damages.
In the heat of passion for this project, I had worked up enough nerve to ask for an interview. Shocked that they agreed to talk to me, I was now here with my ignorance, my cheap rental car, and some Pollyanna-sense that the truth would set us free. I had to follow through. So, I made nice with the dog, waved at the people rocking on the porch, and proceeded to the metal building where I had been instructed to go.
Butler’s office overflowed with papers, pictures of Hitler, swastikas and t-shirts for the believers. It was a bustling, crowded work place putting out millions of pieces of hate material on an old press that ran 18 hours per day. Butler was in his mid-70s, looking somewhat like my grandfather as he began to spew a well-rehearsed stream of how white people are threatened and have to stand up for themselves. He had heard all of my questions before. His answers were ready and pat so he didn't mind that I was recording them.
After about an hour of his mind-numbing monologue, I left, defeated, slumping back to my car. The children were still on the steps, still focused on their books, only this time I could see what they were coloring: Swastikas!
Rocked and breathless, I managed to get my car started and leave the property, then stopped and wept, broken open by the sight of hate being instilled in the hearts of children.
That was about 30 years ago and I still think about those children. After the lethal Charlottesville, “Unite the Right” march on August 12, 2017, Jimmy Fallon gave an impassioned speech and said, “We cannot go backward.”
It made me weep when I heard his words, and I weep again today as I remember those children and wonder … did they become part of the torch-carrying crowd in Charlottesville? Were they among the Proud Boys who showed up on January 6th? Are they out there today spreading hate, emboldened by the reign of a leader with no moral compass? Did all of the people carrying hate in their hearts today start out like that little boy and girl coloring swastikas on their front steps?
We have so much work to do. We cannot go backwards. However, those of us who believe in love, have to find a way to connect with those who hate. It reminds me of Edward Markham's poem Outwitted:
He drew a circle that shut me out, Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But, love and I had the wit to win. We drew a circle and took him in!
That sounds like a fairy tale, but I don’t know anything else that can work.
P.S. I never did finish that book … I just didn’t have the heart to dig deeper into that world.
Another View: A visit to the heart of darkness - May 17, 2001
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Whew! I never heard your account of that info gathering trip before. I understand your concern for the kids. My worries about children growing up to be dangerous haters are sparked every time I see news of family separations and deportations at our southern border. Kids coloring swastikas is depressing, but kids in cages is not exactly the American way.
How brave of you. My heart raced reading this.
I live in a the suburbs of Los Angeles. About ten years ago a SWAT team came to clear out a gang that moved in to a happy looking home--yellow and white ranch house, with flowers in the front garden. Turns out it was a white supremacist gang who rented the home and wouldn't leave until threatened by an armed police SWAT team. Scary.