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R. Derek Black has been described as the “first child” of American white nationalism. Born in 1989, they — Black now uses the pronouns they/them — are the children of Don Black, founder, in 1995, of the neo-Nazi site Stormfront, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the first major hate site on the Internet. .
Black’s mother’s first husband was David Duke, the longtime leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a powerful figure in R Derek Black’s life. The family lived in West Palm Beach, Florida, where, as a young adult, Black drove a truck, with a Confederate flag sticker on the back, past a club called Mar-a-Lago.
Black was brought into the family business – let’s call it that – early on. Raised in an atmosphere of intolerance, they created a children’s page on their father’s hateful website when they were just 10 years old.
Yet Black managed to let go of that life. By telling the story in his own words, the author makes it clear how much he wants to repudiate the past. “I am haunted by the legacy of the white nationalist movement that I inherited and helped advance into the future. Its violence is a source of infinite guilt and irreparable harm,” Black writes in The Klansman’s son.
The memoir comes at a time when far-right parties and politicians are on the rise in a number of countries, and the shadow of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol looms over the upcoming election American presidential election. As such, this testimony is poignant and significant.
Yet it is a curious tome, strangely compelling in its ordinary banality, a necessary warning that hatred can be comfortable as well as violent, that familial warmth can nourish the worst as well as the best. Black has already been the subject of a biography, Get out of hatred, by American journalist Eli Saslow; but in The son of the Klan the reader hears in Black’s own words the daily life of an everyday racist and follows his gradual, painful path to enlightenment.
As a homeschooled child, the virulent prejudices were simply familiar. The credo: “White nationalism is built on white supremacy,” Black people say, explaining what they were raised on (“White” is capitalized throughout). “The white nationalist movement was created by people inheriting centuries of white supremacy created and preserved by a racist legal hierarchy. »
Yet one of the peculiar aspects of this memoir is that this noxious philosophy remains abstract, as when Black speaks of the “ultimate goal” of their father’s political career: “the eventual recognition of a new racial nation within the States -United “. A blank, that goes without saying.
The reader is confronted with compelling contrasts. Recounting the time when Black’s father — in 1981, at the age of 28 — joined nine other Klansmen in an attempt to overthrow the government of Dominica, the author reflects: “Growing up, this story contrasted with the calm man I knew.”
In a sense, this almost eerie calm allows the reader to understand the way in which Black, as a child, would have simply accepted the belief system in which he was raised. They begin to question the tenets of white nationalism when they enroll at New College of Florida in Sarasota – a small liberal arts college that has recently made headlines following a sparked staff exodus by taking control of a board of directors closely linked to conservative Governor Ron DeSantis. .
Black people make friends with people of color, with Jewish students – they are happy to attend, surprisingly, Shabbat dinners – but somehow manage to cling to their fantasies of ‘inferiority. “It was convenient to have structured my beliefs so that groups and populations, not individuals, were the problem.” This sounds crazy because it is; If Black does not try to understand how this was possible, it is because, ultimately, this is simply not the case.
Black people signed up in 2010. They were able to keep their beliefs secret because it was just before the time when the all-knowing eye of social media would have made such concealment impossible. Eventually, Black is outed on an internal university internet forum, and the journey toward renouncing these beliefs begins.
It is striking to hear how the friends – in this story – stood idly by; that they were willing to listen as Black’s understanding evolved. It is worth associating this book with that of Anand Giridharadas. The persuaders, published in 2022; Giridharadas clearly explains what patience is needed to truly change someone’s mind.
The reader may become impatient with Black as he dithers in an attempt to delay the inevitable. But in the end, the author does the right thing. This example, in an era of often punitive polarization, is important.
The Klansman’s Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Anti-Racism by R. Derek Black Abrams Books £21.99, 320 pages
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