Dontbesoshitty

This is very well said. I also used to be a white supremacist, but I typically keep that part of my past under wraps. I often struggle to explain to people I know now that white supremacists can be reasoned with and can see the error of their ways, particularly without outing myself.

I think it's a reminder that we all need sometimes.

I'm glad I got out too. It's been 10 years. Life isn't always great, but it's always better than it was then.

So here's the thing.

You're trying to reason with them using statistics. Many of them bought into white supremacy because someone else sold them on statistics, and when faced with facts opposing your woldview, people naturally double down.

When I say "reasoned with" I'm not referring to trying to bombard someone with facts until they believe that you're right and they're wrong. Getting them to continue down the racist rabbit hole happened subtly, not forcefully. People take the path of least resistance.

My recovery from this didn't happen from a single experience. There was, however, one specific experience that planted the idea in my mind that I might have been misguided. A young black man held the door for me, smiled at me, and told me to have a good day. I was in a new winter jacket and wearing toque, so I assume he didn't see that I was a skinhead. The vast majority of my public experiences with people of colour were immediately negative. I'm sure that because my appearance loudly advertised my ideology, in retrospect. Again, this one experience did not change me, but it was a catalyst that started to open me to change.

I'm sure many of the people who successfully reasoned with me might not have known that they were doing it. It was my exposure to people different than me, who were accepting of me, that opened me up to questioning my ideology. Once I had taken the first few steps on my own, it was easier for me to accept criticism of my ideology, but I had to first understand that the criticism was of my ideology, not my personhood.