How To Save Your Friends And Loved Ones From Hate Groups

Not Your Mascot Maine leaders tabling at the Skowhegan River Days festival August, 2015

Being involved with sharing hate language hosted by the Skowhegan Indian Pride group online has me in a quandry: how to avoid ignoring racism while not fanning its flames.

There are moles in the SIP group that take screenshots of the most disturbing posts and share them outside of the group. I share SIP's nastier posts by emailing them to the school board chair, the superintendent, and assistant superintendent. I do this to emphasize that continuing to have a racist team name holds space for ugly threats and demeaning posts aimed at Native people and, in particular, Native women.

December 2018 Skowhegan (Maine School Administrative District 54) school board meeting hears testimony from Penobscot Tribal Ambassador Maulian Dana while members of the Penobscot Youth Council (in red, to show solidarity with Native women and girls who are the targets of violence) look on.

That's on the one hand, and it's very local. The upcoming public forum on January 8 is scheduled for the night of an away basketball game, so the booster moms and dads won't be in town. Coincidence? I doubt it, because the boosters are coming on strong for retiring an outdated practice that is actively harming their children.

The school board chair, on the other hand, deliberately stacked the deck of speakers at their last meeting when 100 people showed up to support retiring the mascot. Her first several speakers were alumni who cling to their identification as "Indians." Some of these folks literally cry when faced with the possibility that the school's use of the name will come to an end. Dixie Ring then conveniently "forgot" the last speaker on the list, Dr. Susan Cochran, a known opponent of continuing to use the Indian name.

Playing fair is not a value of SIP. Respect is not a value of SIP. What, if anything, will change their hearts and minds?

Kevin James at the December 2018 school board meeting. Photo credit: Jeff Kirlin

White silence in the face of racism is a privilege that I don't want to exercise. I do a lot of reading about white on black or white on Latinx racism. I coach myself to speak up in hair salons, in schools, in person and on line, calling out racism.

The culture of politeness at any cost is what allows most white people to go about their business imagining that "things are better now" for people of color and indigenous people in the U.S.

A lifetime of silence in the face of microaggressions as well as blatant racism is white people's insurance policy for continuing to have first dibs on the best jobs, housing, health care and educational opportunities.

Photo of Shane Johnson from "Inside the Radical, Uncomfortable Movement to Reform White Supremacists"
by Wes Enzinna in Mother Jones July/August 208

This fascinating article about a man trying to coach himself out of a white supremacist hate group rocked my world yesterday. (Shane Johnson's picture reminded me of a desperate addict who terrorized our community last year before he was apprehended.)

Johnson was raised in a KKK family and is now a father who wants to raise his child differently. He experienced racial hatred as a counterweight to being poorly educated and economically disadvantaged. When he and others attempt to leave groups like the KKK, they find parallels to addiction recovery in the process.

The article offers a theory of the appeal of hate groups of any kind:

Arie Kruglanski, a social psychologist at the University of Maryland and a Holocaust survivor, hit upon a related discovery: While researchers had believed that some combination of class, gender, geography, intelligence, and age determined who was most likely to become a white supremacist, Kruglanski found that psychological signposts were better predictors of radicalization. He called these factors “the three Ns”-- need, narrative, and network. It doesn’t matter if they are skinheads or jihadis; everyone who gets involved in hate movements has a deep urge to participate in a greater cause. Yet that cause, Kruglanski argued, needn’t be destructive.

To successfully deradicalize a neo-Nazi, a new, constructive set of Ns— which might stem from education, a job, a partner—would have to replace the old, hateful one.

This theory resonated with so many aspects of the struggle to retire the Indian mascot and team name. Scrolling back through the emotional pleas of SIP members I've been following these many years, I hear their conviction that belonging to SIP makes them stronger, greater and safer. 

Also noted in the article was the transformative power of meeting an actual human being who is from the hated group. This reminded me of a high school student three years ago who was leading a SIP effort and then changed his mind. Zachary Queenan was persuaded to change his position after hearing Native people testify to the harms done by dehumanizing them and appropriating sacred aspects of their culture.

My sister Hope Savage's November speech to the school board about her own transformation from thinking it was ok to dress her little boy in an "Indian" costume for Halloween has been shared and viewed 7,600+ times on this blog. Her theme: I once thought it was harmless to appropriate Native culture -- but then, I listened.

I was just invited to share Hope's powerful words at an MLK weekend event in a nearby town as she will be away on that date.

Lots of people want to hear about the power of listening to effect positive changes in our own lives.

So, what have I learned so far in my education? How can we persuade acquaintances, friends and loved ones to stop belonging to hate groups?

One major point seems to be avoid dehumanizing language, insults, or derogatory remarks.  We all have the three Ns at work within us. Recognize our common ground in our common humanity. And keep listening.