The reality of white supremacy in our country is violence: Violence against people of color, violence against women, violence against anyone or anything that threatens white supremacy. Having a white supremacist in office and the majority of elected officials in support of white supremacist structures has meant a rise in violence on American soil. 60 Minutes did a piece Sunday night on the rising white supremacist/alt-right/white nationalist movement through a profile of former neo-Nazi and self-described domestic terrorist Christian Picciolini. Picciolini detailed how he become a raging and violent racist, how he bottomed out, and how he overcame it.
Scott Pelley: When you first met this man in the alleyway and then the rest of the skinheads in that town, what was it that they were promising you?
Christian Picciolini: They promised me paradise. They promised me that they would take me out of whatever hell I was living in, whether that was abandonment or marginalization and to a degree they delivered. They did give me a new identity. I was now this powerful person. And they gave me a community that accepted me.
Picciolini became a big soldier in the white supremacist movement and ended up beating people and perpetrating violence in its defense. This exchange between 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley and the ADL’s Oren Segal is particularly telling.
Oren Segal: The data tells us this, 74% of extremist-related killings in this country in the last ten years have been carried out by right-wing extremists, not Islamic extremists.
Scott Pelley: Including white supremacists.
Oren Segal: Yes. So white supremacists, in particular, have been responsible for a majority of the killings, even in the last ten years.
You don’t have to do much critical thinking or research to see that that is true. As Picciolini explains, the violent life he chose has not left him, but he is now on the right side.
Scott Pelley: Do you fear for your safety?
Christian Picciolini: I receive death threats-- on a daily basis. But the way I look at it is, for eight years of my life in my youth I was willing to die for something that was wrong. So if I wasn't doing what I was doing to try and help pull people out of this movement, I don't know that I'd be able to live with myself.