Opinion LIVE TV

Former White supremacist: This is how to tackle

hate and bigotry
Opinion by Chris Buckley
 Updated 11:12 AM ET, Thu November 12, 2020

Source: CNN

SE Cupp: What will it take to stop white supremacy? 02:59

Editor's Note: Watch the full conversation with SE Cupp and her panel of experts
on "What Comes Next?" here. Christopher Buckley of LaFayette, Georgia, is an
Afghanistan war veteran. He is a former White supremacist. Now he spreads awareness
and educates the public about the dangers of extremism through his work with the
nonprofit group Parents For Peace. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.
View more opinion at CNN.
(CNN) — This week, we ask the question: What comes next for America and hate? The federal government lists
White supremacy as a top threat to national security, thanks in part to a rise in White nationalism over the past four
years. With a new president elected, how does Joe Biden confront the scourge of racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny
and xenophobia that President Donald Trump helped stoke? SE Cupp talks to a panel of experts for our CNN
Digital video discussion, but first, former White supremacist Chris Buckley writes our CNN Opinion op-ed.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, White supremacy is the biggest security threat facing the
Opinion
United States LIV
today based on the number of violent crimes committed. It eclipses all other types ofEextremism.
TV

Hate and bigotry are now bigger than they have ever been. And because of the internet, it has become easier for
hate groups to spread propaganda and attract new members.

Among these groups are active US military personnel and veterans.

I would know -- because that was me. After serving in

Afghanistan, I o cially joined the White Knights of the KKK in
2014. The skills that I learned in the military, like a heightened
level of mental and tactical awareness, are exactly what
groups like this valued for the purpose of training new
members. I was a prime target to be groomed and recruited.

Hate and anger were things that I had dealt with since
childhood.

As a young man, I was a survivor of molestation. I became

extremely homophobic because of this. My racism developed
after I started taking the bus to a school with other races. As
Chris Buckley one of the few White kids in that school, I su ered a lot of
racial bullying. The more confrontations and bullying I
experienced, the more confident I became in my beliefs.

Because I was so vulnerable as a child and had not dealt with those early traumas, I was searching for a way to
feel strong and dominant as an adult. In some ways. Being in the military allowed me to bury, not resolve, my
childhood traumas, but it also created new traumas when I lost comrades.

During my service in Afghanistan, my best friend was killed in

an unexpected attack on a routine drill. He died in my arms,
and I blamed Muslims for his death. We were trained to see
them as the enemy. I came home with a hatred for Islam as
well as an addiction to the painkillers I was prescribed after a
back injury. I had been trained in the military to serve with
duty and loyalty. I would have done anything to show my
loyalty to the White Knights of the KKK. It gave me a sense of
purpose that I was missing after I came home.

White supremacy, in many ways, filled a void in my life.

But my life in the KKK was a miserable cycle of perpetuated

Related Article: America is violence and hate, fueled by drugs and enhanced by the
media's rhetoric against us. If you look for hate, you will find it.
hurtling toward a crossroads on It was exhausting, and there was nothing positive about my
November 3. What comes next? experience when I look back. It was not good or exciting. I
was on a constant high on supremacy, hatred and free
narcotics. In the group, there was always someone there who
had drugs. You could pretty much pick your poison and someone there gave you what you wanted.

In early 2015, while shopping in a supermarket with our toddler, my wife was threatened by a group of women
because they knew that her husband was in the KKK. At that moment, she knew that if she didn't do something,
our family would be harmed.

A few weeks after this incident, my wife decided to find help and Googled "how to get your husband out of a hate
group." She found Arno Michaelis, a former Neo-Nazi, online and emailed him for help.

Arno was once the lead singer of the White power rock band, "Centurion," and is now an accomplished anti-hate
activist who also works with Parents For Peace.
My wife didn't think she would hear back, but Arno responded and flew down to meet me and take on the
Opinion
intervention. LIV
At first, I was extremely resistant and angry. But he was patient with me and helped meE T V sober and
get
find my way back to who I was before the hate consumed me. This process took a few years.

Arno not only helped me address my trauma and pain but he

also introduced me to Dr. Heval Kelli, a Kurdish Muslim
refugee who is now a cardiologist, in 2018. Arno met Dr. Kelli
at an event in Georgia. Dr. Kelli had done a lot of community
outreach work to build bridges between Muslims and the rest
of his community.

Because of the love and compassion they showed me, I was

able to move forward in my life and give back. Now I help
people disengage from hate groups, return to their families,
and live healthy and happy lives.

Many people have asked, how can the problem of hate be

Related Article: The single most
important quality a president
must have
solved? That is a very tough question to answer.
I believe the cure for hate is education and healing from one's
own issues and trauma. Many extremists who I have
encountered su er from similar emotional and physical issues
that I dealt with.

Through my own intervention and in helping others, I have found that treating those issues requires getting help, in
part, from someone who has lived the same experiences. Treatment often begins with recognizing and isolating
the root of hatred.

As a former White supremacist and drug addict, I started to wonder if it was possible to be addicted to hate the
way I was addicted to drugs as a coping tool. Based on this, I have spent the last two years developing two
programs aimed at addressing the root causes of hate with Parents For Peace, which takes a public health
approach to preventing radicalization, extremism, and violence.

I believe the most common causes of hate can be broken

down into three categories: mental health, substance abuse
and early trauma or grievances -- all of which applied to me.
While I think that the government is interested in finding a
cure to this problem, through actions like awarding grants to
agencies that try to counter extremism, the government
needs help from an appropriate team of advisers to address
the issue of prevention e ectively.

Many people who are in this situation are not comfortable

Related Article: Whoever wins in
November is going to have to
solve the Covid-19 crisis
outcomes are positive but silent.
calling government-funded organizations. So, on many
occasions, the people who need it the most aren't being
helped.
Additionally, the government often cannot act if a crime hasn't
been committed. That is why Parents For Peace's work is so
important. The organization focuses on prevention and
intervention to keep people from becoming extremists or
committing extremist acts. Our work is challenging, and the

Treating the causes of hate requires youth resilience, community-based counternarratives and education and
deradicalization programs. To be e ective, the programs should be available to schools, first responders and
community leaders.
That's what I'm aiming to do with Hate Anonymous and Trauma Anonymous (TraumAnon), two programs that I'm
developing. Opinion L I V Eexperience
Both are programs developed to identify, isolate, address and heal the traumas people TV in
their lives. I treat addiction to hate the same way I treated my addiction to substances. At Parents For Peace, we
call hate "the drug of choice."

Through Hate Anonymous and TraumAnon, we o er a 12-week course in which certified professionals provide
mental health services. We work with participants and family members to get to the root cause of hate and
extremism.

While these programs are currently in the pilot phase, they are
based on cases that Parents For Peace deals with every day.
Get our free weekly For example, in 2017, Parents For Peace helped a mother who
newsletter called the helpline about her son who was involved with White
supremacy, lashed out at people who were di erent than him
and planned to participate in the Charlottesville "Unite the
Sign up for CNN Opinion's new Right" rally. The son was drinking heavily and had access to a
significant number of guns. Parents For Peace worked with
newsletter. the mother to create a plan that put her son on the road to
recovery.
Join us on Twitter and Facebook
If we think of hate as a public health crisis and a disease, we
should treat it as such. It is the only way to e ectively combat
the rise of extremism.

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