White Right: Meeting the Enemy. Emmy-winning documentary by Deeyah Khan.

When Deeyah Khan was six, her father took her to her first anti-racism rally. A Pakistani immigrant to Norway, he promised her that things would get better and that the skinhead gangs that terrorised their family and families like them would soon find themselves relics of past prejudices, that bigotry belonged in history, that tomorrow would be a more tolerant time.

Three decades on, and we’re still waiting for tomorrow.

With a US president propagating anti-Muslim propaganda, the far-right gaining ground in German elections, hate crime rising in the UK, and divisive populist rhetoric infecting political and public discourse across western democracies, Deeyah Khan’s WHITE RIGHT: MEETING THE ENEMY asks why.

And to do so, she first addresses who.

Following the lauded JIHAD – in which she spoke to radicalised British Muslims who had fought in the name of jihad on the battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Chechnya and now found themselves full of regret – Deeyah joins the frontline of the race wars in America. She sits face-to-face with fascists, racists and the proponents of the “alt-right” ideologies that have propelled Donald Trump to the presidency. From Breitbart’s darling, Richard Spencer to Jeff Schoep, leader of American’s largest neo-Nazi organisation, Deeyah’s need to find the deeper human causes of horrific social forces opens a different possibility for connection and solutions. Rather than dismiss these men as monsters, she’s determined to discover the men behind the masks.

As she tries to get beyond the scare stories to the real stories, behind the headlines to the human beings, Deeyah finds her own prejudices challenged and her own tolerance tested. And that’s before she finds herself in the midst of a race riot, at the now-infamous Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Virginia. With her own safety in jeopardy, Deeyah experiences the vitriol from both sides in an increasingly violent and vicious divide. Though Martin Luther King Jnr said that “love is the only force capable of turning an enemy into a friend”, can Deeyah find it within her to try and befriend the fascists she meets? Will her empathy extend to neo-Nazis? Even when they declare, to her face, that she is, effectively, sub-human?

Urgent and resonant, WHITE RIGHT is Deeyah Khan’s most personal film yet. Praising WHITE RIGHT: MEETING THE ENEMY, The Times of London said: “Khan uses hard and soft skills to discover what drives such hatred and forces people to face her, their so-called enemy: it gets under their skin and yields results… Deeyah Khan is an extraordinary filmmaker.”

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My hair okay?

Is it not flying around in 20 directions?

So as you know I am a woman of color,

Yes

Yes?

I am the daughter of immigrants,

I am a Muslim,

I am a feminist,

I am a lefty liberal,

I wouldn't ever guess...

Just see your face...

and what I want to ask you is:

Am I your enemy?

You're not subjectively my enemy

but what you are promoting

will lead to the

disappearance of my people and my culture.

And I will tell you this:

It annoys me tremendously when I'm told

by some immigrant,

or a child of immigrants,

that the only reason my country is

worthwhile is because people like them

have come here.

It's as if to say,

my ancestors built a dung heap,

and I don't doubt your goodwill,

but your goodwill is

objectively going to lead to the

oblivion of my people. I'm sorry,

there is no other way to see it.

[Music]

My name is Deeyah Khan.

I'm an activist and filmmaker.

When I was 6 years old,

my father took me to my first rally

against racism and fascism.

I grew up in Norway,

where white skinhead gangs

terrorized a small Muslim community.

My father told us

things would change,

but extremism and racism

are on the rise again

in Europe and America.

[Music]

I decided to meet people

who think the white race

is under threat

and that I am their enemy.

[Shouting]

Fuck you!

Get a heart attack, nigger!

I met neo-nazis.

Jews are homosexuals.

They should be exterminated,

every single one of them.

[Laughs]

History will decide who is superior

White power!

Men, who say they've lived lives

of racist violence.

Nigger, prepare to burn

you've attacked our people

and now it's your turn.

I've hurt people

horrificly,

with my bare hands.

I've been to prison,

I've kidnapped people,

I've harmed people,

I've done things that

you would think

I'm insane.

And I sat down with the

new leaders of the

white nationalist movement;

men from privileged and

elite backgrounds.

We did it. We took it.

We took it with force.

We won.

Shame! Shame on all of you!

I joined the extremists

on the frontlines

of the race wars in America.

I wanted to see

if I could understand their anger

to get to know the personal reasons

why they are drawn to such hatred

and division.

Fuck you!

[Shouting]

In the summer of 2016

the BBC interviewed me about

living in a multicultural society.

The fact of the matter is,

the UK is never gonna be white again

Similarly, our parents who have left

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia,

Muslim countries,

for them to think that they can

reestablish those countries

and the lives that they had there

over here --

it's not gonna happen.

We're together

going to have to find out

what does it mean

to build the society that includes

all of us.

To my shock,

this interview went viral,

and I received a deluge of

hate emails from people

across Europe and America.

[Music]

But I've decided not to hide.

I've decided to try to meet

the kind of people

who sent me this abuse.

[Music]

I want to try to get

behind the hatred

and the extremist ideology,

to find out what they

are really like as human beings.

I'm starting in

Charlottesville, Virginia.

It's a quiet town,

which in the weeks ahead

will find itself at the center of

America's growing racial tensions.

The Klu Klux Klan have received

permission to march

in protest at the removal of

Confederate statues.

Waiting for them

are other protestors.

[Shouting]

Back away!

[Shouting, noise]

I want to talk to the KKK

but I can't get close to them.

I do talk to the

counter-protesters

This is the result of

what happens

when you put an idiot

into the White House.

One thing is going to take people

being willing to sit down and

listen to each other

to actually have a meaningful

dialogue with each other

there are some people that

you just can't reach,

and I accept that and I understand that.

But those who you can have

a possibility of saving,

you have to at least try.

There may be some glimmer of hope

I don't know where it is,

but I know that we gotta

start somewhere.

The rally finishes

but more far-right protests

are expected at Charlottesville

in the months to come.

A week later

an important far-right leader

has agreed to meet me.

[Shouting]

Jeff's group leads the biggest

neo-nazi organization in America.

Cultural invasion from Mexico,

and every other

Third World shitspool

that's coming here to try

to override our borders.

the National Socialist Movement

reveres Hitler,

and until recently

their symbol was the swastika.

For the first time ever in my life

I'm about to meet a neo-nazi.

[Door opening]

Hello

I'm Deeyah

Nice to meet you.

Well, I didn't bring me text

That's the, that's the thing

So I just assume I guess you...

I mean we don't have to use it, just...

It's your film, so its...

Well, I'm Jeff Scoop,

Commander of the

National Socialist Movement.

We're a white

civil rights organization

here in America.

We're white nationalists.

Just as Martin Luther King

did for

the blacks, you know,

our mission is

pretty much the same.

We feel that

the white race in general,

in fact Western civilization in general

is under a full assault.

A lot of statistics are saying

that the whites are gonna be

a minority here in this country.

Our stance has been

that we like a homeland of our own

for white people.

[Shouting]

He says his movement is growing,

partly, he says, because of Donald Trump.

A lot of the things that he was saying,

build a wall,

stop illegal immigration.

bring back American jobs,

he was saying things that could have been

a lot of things that were right

out of our playbook

that we've been saying for years.

We've been kind of

on the fringes for a long time

and it ends with our

talking points finally

appearing in the White House.

Nationalism has become

more mainstream.

Jeff hates the idea of

multiculturalism.

he thinks it's part of a plot

against the white race.

I think it goes back to

the Zionists and the Jews.

Jews controll all the media

and they're pushing this, this

agenda that we should all mix

together and I think

it's to dumb down the population

and to be make us easier

to control.

And what if you're wrong?

Do you ever question yourself

and think, what if all of this

that I'm doing,

and all of this that I think,

what if it's wrong?

That doesn't really come into play

very often in my head.

I really haven't questioned

if I'm doing the wrong thing.

I read somewhere that you,

you read Mein Kampf

at the age of like 13,

very very young.

What would attract a teenager

to the ideology of Mein Kampf?

Do you remember what, you know,

what kind of feelings you had?

Uhmmm...

It was a long time ago.

That is an important point in your life.

I mean it set the course

for, you know, you sitting here today

My mind is wandering.

Right now like I'm

I think I'm kind of getting burned out

on the questions or something

I asked if I can read him

the threatening emails I received.

"Hey, swamp nigger,

you're going back

get out of whitie world,

you leeching slag,

shit skinned cunt"

What does shit-skinned mean?

Just what it says, I guess

Your fellow travelers

would they call me

a "mud person"?

Some might, might say that.

Yeah?

"This vicious little creature

must be crushed beneath our

boots until nothing remains."

Don't you condemn it?

Uhm...

It's easier said than done.

I discourage any illegal activity,

which would include

making threats to people.

I understand people's anger,

I understand where it's coming from.

When a people feels

that they're being genocided

and that their whole

world is changing around them,

I understand my people

have those reactions.

Jeff says I can come

and film with them

at their next event.

But would I be safe,

just walking up as a

as a shit skin?

Why do you keep saying that?

You don't like it?

You don't like me saying that?

No?

I joined Jeff at their next event.

They're taking part in the biggest

far-right rally in recent years,

and it's going to be

back in Charlottesville.

Fourteen words is: we must secure the

existence of our race in the future for

white children.

And 88?

HH

W hich stands for?

Heil Hitler

This is America;

we still got freedom of speech.

That's right.

This is our, our PR director

Brian Culpepper

Nice to meet you, my name is Deeyah.

Ma'am

The NSM is trying to

soften its image and

appeal to a wider public.

So they're removing

the swastikas from their shields.

Far-right groups from all over

the country are converging

for the event.

I'm the only outsider

whom the NSM have allowed

to accompany them here.

Gentlemen, come, join us!

this is the greatest assemblage

of white identitarians

I've personally ever seen.

[Applause]

We are the forces of light

and civilization,

and we are fighting against

the forces of darkness.

[Applause]

For about a mile away from the park

where the event is scheduled to happen.

To get there, they're going to walk the

gauntlet of angry locals and

anti-fascist protestors.

[Shouting]

Blood and soil!

Shame, shame

[Shouting]

Some anti-fascist protesters,

the so-called antifa, used pepper spray

against the marchers,

including me.

You get hit with something?

I got mazed. You got mazed?

What can be better than a little

pepper spray in the morning?

30 yards away from us,

open violence breaks out

between the far-right

and counter-protesters

[Shouting]

A state of emergency is declared,

and the entire protest is cleared.

If you do not disperse immediately

you will be arrested.

You, too.

Okay.

[Shouting]

Fuck you!

Get a heart-attack, nigger!

I knocked the guy out yeah

well he pushed me so I,

I hit him with Thor's hammer.

What did he do?

He shoved me. Yeah.

It was declared an illegal assembly

by the Commonwealth of Virginia,

and they ordered us to disperse

Why?.

They're run by Jews...

[Laughter]

[Sirens]

My voice are gone because I was

shouting in jubilation

for, you know, our rights

and protecting our civil rights.

And how proud I am that everyone

has showed up today.

How brave they are.

While they celebrate,

a mile away from us

this happens.

[Screams]

[Banging noises]

Go, go, go, go!

Anti-racist protester Heather Heyer

is killed by a car

driven by a far-right protester.

The brutal killing of Heather

and the extreme violence of the protest

means Charlottesville makes headlines

around the world.

[Music]

It's a few weeks after the rally.

I've traveled to Detroit

to meet Jeff in his home city.

[Music]

Hey

Hello

How are you?

Good.

In the aftermath of Charlottesville,

President Trump has made a statement

saying there were very fine people

on both sides of the protests.

I think there's blame on both sides,

and I have no doubt about it

and you don't have

any doubt about it either.

And, and...

It's caused a political storm,

but energized the neo-nazis.

The President did finally condemn

white supremacists,

but Jeff tells me that

Trump's political rhetoric

addresses the same economic

and social anxieties

of white people

as the far-right.

Donald Trump was elected

because, in this country...

because of some of the things

that he was saying.

It was those nationalist points

that got him elected.

My generation is the first

generation that had it worse, worse off

than our parents before us.

Here you're gonna see

some of the urban decay.

And why do you want me

to see this specific area?

I mean, look around you.

It's sad

it's, it's definitely a sad...

a sad sight.

So, like you notice in this area

you've got all these

abandoned buildings,

sort of like a ghost town

Why did you move to Detroit?

Perfect recruitment grounds

for the NSM.

Anytime you're in an area

where the economy is suffering,

it's somewhere that

our message resonates

with the people.

So Detroit is an

excellent city for us to be in.

Jeff says,

many of his followers think

jobs are going abroad

or are being taken by immigrants.

Others are former soldiers,

who feel forgotten and abandoned

by the country they've served.

At my last meeting with Jeff,

I decide to show him something.

It's a photo of me with my father,

taken at an anti-extremism rally,

when I was six years old.

So that's my Dad,

Oh wow!

And that's me.

[Laughs]

People who represent

what you represent,

made a six-year-old child

feel hated and unwanted

and unwelcome and ugly.

The movement that you are a part of

has this type of real-life effect

on people like me.

How does it make you feel?

Uncomfortable. I don't like it.

You don't like it?

I don't think anybody should

have to feel like that.

What we stand for, what we believe

is not about oppressing anybody

it's not about hurting anybody.

I don't like hearing that sort of thing.

Unless that's all the movement is,

unless skin color is all that matters.

And maybe all the politics and

all the social and economic issues

are actually just window dressing

to be a racist.

That's not true

So the issues are more important

than the skin color?

I think so but

You think so?

But we are still

a whites-only organization

Exactly. You're not gonna

convince me different.

Wow

[Gunshots]

I'm in the mountains of Tennessee.

I'm filming with the biggest

neo-nazi organization in America,

the National Socialist Movement.

This is a training session at the home

of their public relations director,

Brian Culpepper.

We are training defensive technique

for our people in the case of EMT

for a leftist attack.

We fight for our world and our kids

and our family and our community.

And we just want to be left alone.

Thank God, I'll be prepared

for a fight.

A very violent bloody one.

Do you think there is going

to be a race war?

As far as I'm concerned,

it's turnover.

Charlottesville was permanent,

a spearhead of battle.

Do you feel that?

I do.

I think they're testing us

to see what we have,

how many of us,

how, how willing we are to

march into the valley of

potential death.

Tthis is Mike Schloer,

He's a former military contractor,

and is the longest serving member.

I've had my share of

trials and tribulations

throughout my life that I have

overcome and conquered, you know,

as far as my own inner demons go.

what kind of inner demons do you have?

Just past experiences,

being over there in Iraq

for a couple years.

it's taken a toll on me,

seeing the mortars coming down

and, and people getting blown up,

and dismembered and screaming for help,

and then seeing the destruction

that they cause.

You know, I, I still wake up

middle of the night, cold sweats, shaking,

thinking I'm still over there.

But it, I still carry with me.

The day ends with Brian practising

taking a faceful of pepper spray.

Up yours ante for fuck you!

That is it.

That's good, that's good.

[Coughs]

Let's go man, let's go further!

[Shouting]

Wash your face.

You can't get it out this way.

Don't rub it, man!

Don't rub, don't rub!

[Shouts]

I'm going to get more water, okay?

Somebody...

Can't get more water...

How does it feel?

It feels like ass

I live for this shit!

[Laughing]

Yeah

that was novelty

that was novelty

Yeah, let me let me get this off

and I'll be real quick

and let's get the girl going

and let's have some fun!

Ain't we go home

Since I met him at Charlottesville,

I've come to know Bryan quite well

he's dedicated to the idea

of creating a white ethno state

and that would mean deporting

non-white people like me.

So I asked him,

would he actually go through with it.

Honestly

Honestly,

No, I wouldn't wanna see,

I wouldn't wanna see you get dragged out

you know and dragged off

and dragged out and hauled off

I would not do it.

I consider you a friend at this point,

and I personally would hate

to see you go.

So what would you do?

You grew up here in the West,

you know, you grew up in the West,

and you are... honestly,

I would never want to see you be hurt.

But...

What I would be doing, Deeyah,

is ensuring the preservation

of our race, my, my race

and my nation.

That's what it comes down to,

and that's the only way forward,

then I would have to make sure

that everyone that was

ordered to do so, would have to leave.

Including me?

Including you.

[Shouting]

These bloody terrorists

Accepting the refugees

Rape our women,

suck our benefits

and this goes on and on and on

This is Ken Parker,

one of the more recent recruits

to the NSM.

We will stop at nothing.

White power!

[Applause]

He's been a member of the white power

movement for many years

and previously was a

Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.

I met him when I was filming

at Charlottesville

before the rally

descended into chaos and violence.

Ken is exactly the kind of person

I've always been afraid of,

but now I'm going to spend

time with him at his home in Florida,

which he shares with his

girlfriend, Krystal.

So that's the Klan?

yeah this is the Klan tattoo.

I'm not racist, I don't hate anybody.

well I guess in that sense like, 'coz I

absolutely despise Jews.

So yes, I'm a racist.

Jews and homosexuals;

They, I think, they should be exterminated,

every single one of them.

[Laughs]

Ken is now a political science student,

but previously spent years

serving in the Navy.

He says he left

because he didn't agree with

allowing homosexuals to serve

in the Armed Forces.

Tonight he's making hundreds of flyers

with swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans.

I've already hit a few

Jewish neighborhoods,

I've thrown out flyers

denouncing Syrian refugees

coming over here.

In the Muslim neighborhoods,

at the mosque,

and it stirs up a lot of

hate and discontent.

[Laughs]

"Take America back from the Jews"

[Laughs]

And it's Yom Kippur

and I wanna work in the Jewish towns

[Laughs]

she even get the synagogue, too.

But would you perceive that

as a threat?

No.

Would you perceive that as a

something hateful,

or potential warning?

I mean, yeah, hateful yes, but

I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Is there anything I could say

that would make you change your mind?

No.

Do you understand that

if I would do

what you are doing tonight...

Do you understand how that makes you look?

It's all right.

I don't consider myself a bad person.

But you're doing something bad now...

I don't think this is bad.

And these are all, all Jewish communities,

and they'll have walls built around them.

That's the synagogue

Ken has been looking forward

to tonight,

but the more I talk to him,

the more agitated and anxious

he seems to get.

Does it matter to you that I think

what you're doing is wrong?

No.

Do you know why I think it's wrong?

Yeah

Can you tell me?

'coz I'm gonna hurt the feelings

of individuals that can't realize

the fact that it's just a piece of paper.

Well, there's a lot of people that

thought, us going to Charlottesville

was evil, too

but that didn't stop us.

I can't control feelings,

like I said earlier,

so...

If..

You can control it by not doing that.

Yeah, I get yeah I guess I could

but I choose not to.

I find Ken's actions extremely disturbing.

but I want to try to get behind

the hateful behavior of these men

to see if there is more to them.

So I spend more time with Ken.

He tells me he grew up in a

devout Christian community,

and I'm the first person

of Muslim background

he's ever spent time with.

He starts to tell me about his life.

This is a scrapbook my mom

put together for me

and I guess this is uh

maybe one of the very first

pictures of me, I guess.

You look so sweet.

[Laughs]

Yeah, maybe, maybe back then I was.

There's me at a violin recital,

graduation picture,

I didn't even want to go to

my own graduation.

Why?

Because I didn't want to wear that dress.

Is your mom proud of you?

Uh...

Yeah, she's proud of, uh, my military

experience and what I'm doing in school.

She's not necessarily proud of

what I'm doing in the movement.

I decided to share some of my own

experiences with him.

So I show him the interview

I gave to the BBC.

...what does it mean to be of a society

that includes all of us.

Where it means looking like me,

and looking like you...

And I read him some of the racist emails

I got as a result.

Save a life and bring that knife

into her chest.

Miss our country be gassed,

fuck off, bitch, Nazi Germany did it.

when I'm not here,

and you speak to your friends about me,

would you use some of

these words about me?

No.

Would you call me a "sand nigger"?

Uh, maybe if I'm drunk...

And if I told you that you calling me

those words hurts my heart?

I'll do my very best not to use them.

Yeah?

Yes.

Because?

Because I respect you

and I don't want to hurt your feelings.

Why, why are you nice to me?

You've been completely respectful to me.

I, I actually consider you to be a friend.

Uh, you know, my opinion about Muslims

since I've been interacting with you

has gone up significantly.

Besides asking me questions

that, you know, kind of got

under my skin, a little bit,

Don't do the fliers, blah blah blah,

don't throw them out in a

Jew neighborhood,

don't use the Jew flyers

with the swastika,

you're gonna hurt people's feelings.

It comes down to,

when my girlfriend was in

the hospital for a month, and the only

one that called to see how she was doing

was a woman from the mosque.

I was like, holy shit,

I can't believe that,

here are these people

that I fucking hate,

are checking up on her.

And, and what do you think

that is going to change in you?

Actually, you know, I don't, I don't think

I'm gonna mess with the the mosque anymore.

Trust me, I have thought about getting

pigs heads and scattering them around

mosques, and stuff like that.

But I haven't.

The worst I've done is bacon...

But I I'm, I'm done I'm done messing

with those people.

You know if you called me up

and say, hey, I need help moving,

or hey, I got a flat tire

would you mind help me out, you know,

I would do that.

Friendship, it makes people feel good.

Honestly I mean...

Somebody that you can talk to,

have discussions with,

even if you don't agree with each other,

You know, it's, it's nice to have friends.

Do you think that he's betraying

his people and his cause

by becoming friends with somebody like me?

No, it's good he's changed his views,

His Mom will be happy.

He's realizing that not everybody's bad.

I mean there is some good people out there

that aren't white

You don't think that other, other Nazis

will watch this and go

"What's he doing?"

I don't give a shit!

I don't believe it,

how can he say he's friends

with that shit skin?

I don't give a shit if they

say that or not.

You can be friends with

whoever you wanna be with.

There's no problem there.

I'll never break bread with a Jew though.

Had to go and say something, didn't you?

Oh, I don't want this to turn into

something like, oh well, this big,

badass Nazi is

this little teddy bear.

But he is?

Yeah, but I would never

break bread with a Jew.

Ever.

So maybe that should be

part two of this film...

[Laughs]

What? Send a Jew over here?

Yeah

No

[Laughs]

A couple of months after I left Ken,

I got an email from Krystal.

She said Ken had posted

this picture of himself

onto his student Facebook page.

Ethnic minority students

had seen it as a threat,

and he'd been banned from the campus

of the University of North Florida.

[Music]

You will not replace us!

Until now, I'd been filming

with men from working class backgrounds.

But in recent years,

a new kind of white nationalist

has emerged:

people who present a very

different image.

they're often known as the alt-right.

Their leaders are from

privileged elite backgrounds,

such as Richard Spencer,

born into a family of

wealthy landowners.

We are fighting to be powerful

again, in a sea of weakness...

Spencer says he's not a racist,

but opposes multiculturalism

and wants to bring about

a white ethno state

Hail Trump,

hail our people,

hail victory!

[Applause]

He's invited me to his apartment

in the most expensive part of

Alexandria, Virginia.

He's hanging out with his followers.

I don't think I've ever done a video

while not wearing a collared shirt.

Yeah

But in terms of formal wear,

I like things that are striking, well,

high quality, well-made

A Dennis Army wear

yeah

other pros, the pros are doing it now,

Yeah

[Laughter]

Want some Wild Turkey?

Get an actual whiskey glass, you idiot!

[Laughter]

[Music]

[Television sounds]

As a, as a natural leader

I have certain obligations and duties,

that other people don't.

Why are you someone who should lead?

I think that's obvious.

Why do I need to even talk about it?

Say it.

Tell me why.

'cause I'm better.

Yeah

I'm going to tell you something

Go on

All right

Elites rule the world,

elites make history.

The question is: who,

who is in charge?

That's what matters.

People like me need to be in charge.

We determine the course of world history

in ways that

other races can't even dream of doing.

And part of your greatness is

the exploitation of other people,

part of what's made this country great.

We did it. We took it.

We took it with force.

We won.

We took the entire continent.

That's what matters.

Outside his apartment,

protestors have gathered

to hold a vigil for Heather Heyer,

the woman who was killed

at Charlottesville.

Buenas días.

You guys just stare at me

in a dead pan of white way?

God, these people are pathetic

Do you know how like, dumb, this is?

Heather Heyer

Do you think, a few people intimidate me?

[Singing]: We shall overcome

Oh, my God!

[Laughs]

[Singing]: We shall overcome

Seriously, you guys are gorgeus

[Singing]

I go to see another leader,

who's closely associated

with Richard Spencer in the alt-right

Jared Taylor also denies being a racist,

and says the white race is under threat.

I asked him,

how he thinks

multiculturalism could work?

That's like saying

how can we make

alcoholism and insanity work?

How can we make cholera work?

How can we make AIDS work?

How can we make something,

that is inherently unstable

and will eventually result

in my extinction, why would I even

think in terms of making it work when

it's clear it is not working,

and it would require

a fundamental change in

human nature for it to work.

[Music]

I'd come to America because I wanted to

know the deeper, more personal reasons

why people are drawn to this kind of

ideology.

At Charlottesville I filmed

alongside many young people who seemed

to be embracing the cause,

like this young man.

My face is my livelihood

Thank you so much for coming.

[Shouting]

After I met him,

footage of him at Charlottesville

went viral.

[Shouting]

He was identified publicly

by opponents of the far-right.

His name is Peter Tefft.

[Music]

He lives in a working-class district

of Fargo, North Dakota

and works as a carpenter.

He tells me he's not a racist,

and says he's a

white civil rights activist.

I asked him about his childhood.

I was largely a...

you know, I felt like a ghost

at the school.

You know, like a nerd or a,

or a freak or something.

Um, I might have had

you know, body dysmorphia

I felt like I was either

too, too big or too fat,

A lot of the way people think and act

doesn't happen in a vacuum,

and I guess maybe there was a part of me

that wanted everyone to like me.

And did they?

Uh, no. Nope

[Laughs]

No.

Between the age of 23 to 25,

you know, I just got really depressed,

I saw so much wrong with the world

and...

Like what?

What had bothered you most?

I guess, looking back

what bothered me the most

was uh

I don't know, I guess, myself

Yeah

It makes a guy rethink things and then

you know, when you start realizing

and examining stuff and

all of a sudden you realize

hey, maybe like

these Christians

or these right-wingers or at least

people that have some semblance of

trying to

be good, greater...

I do feel, you know,

a certain duty to act heroically

And this movement provide you with that,

uhm, platform to be heroic?

Honestly, yeah.

You know it does kind of feel like

I'm in like a league with

like superheroes.

These guys, I mean, they're so smart,

you know, I feel like I'm the Green Lantern

and they're my watchers.

You know, there's guys

at a church that,

you know, pat me on the back and say,

will you be a warrior for Christ?

[airport talk]

I've traveled to America

because I'm trying to understand

the mentality of people who join

far-right movements.

[Music]

I've decided to go back in time to meet

one of the most violent racist skinhead

leaders of the previous generation.

[Music]

This is Arno Michaelis.

In the 1990ies

he was the leader of a highly influential

racist skinhead band

called Centurion

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

These are my lyrics, I, I wrote these...

Nigger, prepare to burn, you've attacked

our people and now it's your turn.

[Music]

The courtesans will drown the mud,

as in 'mud race'

as in people who aren't white,

in an ocean of blood

and there,

there literally was

an ocean of blood in the...

over the seven years

or like how many people we beat up,

and how many people we hurt.

And who knows how many people have

been beat up and hurt since then

because of this song.

[Music]

Centurion was a audio incitement

to violence.

[Music]

Arno was a founding member of the

Northern Hemiskins,

one of the most notorious

skinhead gangs in America.

So, we're in River West now and we spent

months like this rampaging through the

city and attacking anybody we had found.

Anybody.

But if we could find a black person

or Latino person, they were,

they were fair game.

I've hurt people

horrificly, with my bare hands.

I've, I've beaten people

until I thought they were dead,

and I left them in a bloody mess.

Over and over again.

We beat up people as

that made us feel better

about ourselves.

We had made us feel like

we were powerful,

like we were important,

like we were warriors, we were dominant.

I was a fucked up kid,

with no empathy for other people,

like manipulating people

I was...

you were a sociopath, man

Arno's been seven years

in the movement,

but after his daughter was born,

he started to distance himself

from the hatred and violence.

I'm ashamed of all the kids

I've led astray.

I preyed upon their trauma

and their suffering,

to, to manipulate them to hate people

and to hurt people.

Until the day I die I'll be

ashamed of that

This is Frank Meeink.

He was recruited into a skinhead gang

at the age of fourteen.

He told me he had grown up

in Philadelphia,

in a violent and deeply

impoverished household

My mom's husband, he hated me

and he was a drunk and drug addict

who beat the shit out of me

all the time

A 36 year old man used to beat me

like another guy would beat another guy

in a bar fight and I'm 11 years old.

Every day,

my goal was to get hit by a car.

I wanted to get hit by a car

before I made it home,

and I would walk home

more dejected and, and...

just felt more of like a loser

than ever, and I had to go home

and face my stepfather who was gonna

tell me how much of a fucking loser I was.

or he beat the shit out of me.

In his early teens,

practically abandoned by his family,

he started hanging out

with a racist skinhead gang.

One night he took part

in an altercation

between a skinhead and a man

the gang had decided to intimidate.

And I've seen it

and I absolutely loved it.

Fear,

he had fear in his face for us,

and I loved that.

I'm a broken human being.

I feared everything.

I feared my parents,

I feared my step parents,

I feared my school,

I feared my...

I feared if I was gonna have

enough food to eat today

And now someone fears me?

The same night he joined the gang.

Iit was the camaraderie,

the being part of,

the numbers, the safety...

and in that time

they, we trained to be race war

we trained to shoot guns,

And they basically tell me,

after all, this is all done that

God chose me

to be one of the Angels

that ruins Sodoma and Gomorrah.

I'm now an angel for God,

this is powerful. Like I'm

wondering what the adults know now.

Frank quickly rose through the ranks

and became head of

the Philadelphia chapter

of the Strike Force skinhead gang.

I

was a violent human being

I was the most evilest

fucking diabolical person you've met.

To break it down,

people like me,

we're egomaniacs with no self-esteem.

That's what makes us fucking violent.

[Music]

This is a movement which destroys lives

[Music]

Hate crimes are on the rise across Europe

and the US.

I travel to meet a man

called Pradeep Singh.

We meet at a Sikh temple

in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

In 2012

it was attacked by a racist skinhead

called Wade Michael Page.

This is kind of where the shooting

started out here.

there's two brothers,

they're both priests here.

Wade Page encountered them out there

and shot them both

dead, outside, in the parking lot.

these two ladies

went to go pray

The shooter lets off

a few rounds at one of the ladies,

and he followed her this back corner

and shot her from point-blank range

This is, this is one of the bullet holes.

took it out from the bottom.

So there was three people in here

and the priest.

The priest, the head priest was

in the bathroom at the time

So he found cover,

but, but the other people

were essentially just kind of sitting ducks

and had nowhere to go

He shot the other gentleman

two times in the stomach,

the other man who was shot

twice in the stomach,

ran out and ran this way,

down the hallway

And then so Dad was left alone

with him.

And then he suffered

five gunshot wounds

all to the side of his body.

[Music]

Wade Michael Page

murdered six people,

including Pradeep's father

before he turned his gun on himself.

He was a former Army veteran,

and played in an extremist

white power band,

just like Arno Michaelis

I asked Pradeep

what would he do

if Wade Page was here today.

If he's sitting here

I would want you to leave me

alone with him

for, you know, ten minutes

and, and really

beat the shit out of him.

But at the same time,

I would want to understand why,

because something is fueling it.

I feel like for anybody

who is willing to live this life

of putting themselves through

this miserable existence:

of isolation,

of violence, of hatred

what is it that fuels you to do that?

After the murder

Pradeep did a remarkable thing.

He reached out to a former neo-nazi

to search for answers.

[Laughter]

So, how are you?

[Laughter]

Arno Michaelis.

For, for me

why I reached at Arno, 'cause

I wanted an explanation.

More important than that,

I gained a brother,

I gained a friend,

and I gained someone

that was gonna say, you know what,

I'll not only tell you

what happened and why it happened,b

but I'll walk with you

and we can explain it to other people, too.

Wade Page was like exactly

who I used to be.

If I'd have remained in the movement

for another ten years,

it's totally conceivable that I could

have reached that point as well.

Yeah

I think the surprising thing to me is not

that Arnold sees himself in Wade Page.

The thing that surprises me is that

other people don't see themselves

in Wade Page.

When we don't see ourselves in

that person,

then we lose our ability as humans

to do anything about it.

Pradeep and Arno now work together

visiting schools and colleges,

trying to warn young people

of the dangers of racist extremism.

Hello Brian

A few months after

I finished filming with him

I get a call from Brian Culpepper,

the PR officer

for the national socialist movement.

He says he has surprising news for me.

Wow

He says one reason he's leaving

is because he had been upset

by the racist abuse

I'd received from people in the

far-right movement.

I remind him that

the last time we met,

he said he would deport me

from a white ethno state.

Including me?

Including you.

Otherwise,

my entire worldview,

my entire political platform,

my entire ideology,

and everything that I promote

and stand for

are nothing more than words.

Now that you've left,

do you think that you would

give me a different answer

to that question?

So, so, so today Brian Culpepper

would not deport me?

And why not?

Because we've become friends.

Brian says he's not relinquishing

the cause of national socialism,

but he does say

he wants to reach across political

and racial lines

to work with any group

willing to talk to him about the issues

he's interested in.

Frank Meeink left

the white power movement

after spending time in prison,

and now spends his days

working with youth at risk of extremism

He says what changed his life

was when he started making friends

with people of different races,

people he had once thought

were the enemy.

Empathy is the greatest emotion

because it's where we're able

to turn the things that are in us.

Bad things that happened

bad things we've done

we're able to turn them

into a positive.

And say, I can help you with that,

because you're doing what I'd done

before, or I went through

what you went through.

While I see you guys still active

in the movement I see suffering.

I see right through to their suffering.

I see

individuals that have been through hell

and that have been through all sorts of

trauma that they don't know how to

process and they don't know

how to react to it,

So they're lashing out because

they're like a wounded animal that's

been cornered

It's so much easier

to say "I hate Jews and niggers"

than to say I'm afraid,

I'm afraid nobody's gonna like me,

I'm afraid I'm not worthy of being loved,

and that's by no means an excuse for

any of that behavior or any of that

train of thought, but it is a reason.

How do I rebuild my life?

This is gonna be very cheesy,

I hate it,

it's gonna be just one day at a time.

It is do the next right thing

in front of you

Watch how good your life starts to turn

when you don't even know it,

just slowly starts to turn.

So when you don't wake up angry anymore,

you feel good about who you are...

It's such a change!

it feels so good!

So that's it, let's go!

[Music]

[Music]