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
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]
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]