My Life After Hate

My Life After Hate
Author: Arno Michaels
Publisher: Life After Hate
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2010-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780983129097

A former racist skinhead examines aspects of his past: Where did the hate begin? How did a teenaged alcoholic become a central figure in the white power movement of the late 80s and early 90s? What happened to bring about his drastic change of mind and heart? With a collection of reflective essays, disturbing flashbacks, and an interview, My Life After Hate scrubs scabs off the festering wound of racism, then soothes with the essential wisdom of forgiveness and compassion. ..".a reckoning between who a person was and who a person can be. The drastic changes of Arno's perspective and the effects thereof clearly demonstrate that how we experience reality is up to us-that we can always choose compassion over aggression." -Bashir Malik, Artist, Milwaukee Community Elder "My Life After Hate is the new standard of brutally honest. It is sure to invoke strong reactions and personal moral inventories. The recounting of past hate oozes ugliness, but it is a necessary evil if others are to understand the true meaning of the word 'change.'" -Sammy Rangel, Mental health and AODA therapist, former gang leader

The Gift of Our Wounds

The Gift of Our Wounds
Author: Arno Michaelis
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2018-04-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1250107547

The powerful story of a friendship between two men—one Sikh and one skinhead—that resulted in an outpouring of love and a mission to fight against hate. One Sikh. One former Skinhead. Together, an unusual friendship emerged out of a desire to make a difference. When white supremacist Wade Michael Page murdered six people and wounded four in a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin in 2012, Pardeep Kaleka was devastated. The temple leader, now dead, was his father. His family, who had immigrated to the U.S. from India when Pardeep was young, had done everything right. Why was this happening to him? Meanwhile, Arno Michaelis, a former skinhead and founder of one of the largest racist skinhead organizations in the world, had spent years of his life committing terrible acts in the name of white power. When he heard about the attack, waves of guilt washing over him, he knew he had to take action and fight against the very crimes he used to commit. After the Oak Creek tragedy, Arno and Pardeep worked together to start an organization called Serve 2 Unite, which works with students to create inclusive, compassionate and nonviolent climates in their schools and communities. Their story is one of triumph of love over hate, and of two men who breached a great divide to find compassion and forgiveness. With New York Times bestseller Robin Gaby Fisher telling Arno and Pardeep's story, The Gift of Our Wounds is a timely reminder of the strength of the human spirit, and the courage and compassion that reside within us all.

My Life After Hate

My Life After Hate
Author: Arno Michaels
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2010-11-07
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0983129053

Romantic Violence

Romantic Violence
Author: Christian Picciolini
Publisher: Goldmill Group LLC
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2015-04-28
Genre: Ex-gang members
ISBN: 9780986240423

At 14 years old, Christian Picciolini, a bright and well-loved child from a good family, had been targeted and trained to spread a violent racist agenda, quickly ascending to a highly visible leadership position in America's first neo-Nazi skinhead gang. Just how did this young boy from the suburbs of Chicago, who had so much going for him, become so lost in extremist ideologies that would horrify any decent person? 'Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead' is a poignant and gripping cautionary tale that details Christian's indoctrination when he was barely a teen, a lonely outsider who, more than anything, just wanted to belong. A fateful meeting with a charismatic man who recognized and took advantage of Christian's deep need for connection sent the next decade of his life into a dangerous spiral. When his mentor went to prison for a vicious hate crime, Christian stepped forward, and at 18, he was overseeing the most brutal extremist skinhead cells across the country. From fierce street brawls to drunken white power rallies, recruitment by foreign terrorist dictators to riotous white power rock music, Picciolini immersed himself in racist skinhead culture, hateful propaganda, and violence. Ultimately Christian began to see that his hate-filled life was built on lies. After years of battling the monster he created, he was able to reinvent himself. Picciolini went on to become an advocate for peace, inclusion, and racial diversity, co-founding the nonprofit Life After Hate, which helps people disengage from hate groups and to love themselves and accept others, regardless of skin color, religious belief, or sexual preference.

White American Youth

White American Youth
Author: Christian Picciolini
Publisher: Hachette Books
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316522910

As featured on Fresh Air and the TED stage, a stunning look inside the world of violent hate groups by a onetime white supremacist leader who, shaken by a personal tragedy, abandoned his destructive life to become an anti-hate activist. Raw, inspiring, and heartbreakingly candid, White American Youth explores why so many young people lose themselves in a culture of hatred and violence and how the criminal networks they forge terrorize and divide our nation. The story begins when Picciolini found himself stumbling through high school, struggling to find a community among other fans of punk rock music. There, he was recruited by a notorious white power skinhead leader and encouraged to fight with the movement to "protect the white race from extinction." Soon, he had become an expert in racist philosophies, a terror who roamed the neighborhood, quick to throw fists. When his mentor was sent to prison, sixteen-year-old Picciolini took over the man's role as the leader of an infamous neo-Nazi skinhead group. Seduced by the power he accrued through intimidation, and swept up in the rhetoric he had adopted, Picciolini worked to grow an army of extremists. He used music as a recruitment tool, launching his own propaganda band that performed at white power rallies around the world. But slowly, as he started a family of his own and a job that for the first time brought him face to face with people from all walks of life, he began to recognize the cracks in his hateful ideology. Then a shocking loss at the hands of racial violence changed his life forever, and Picciolini realized too late the full extent of the harm he'd caused. "Simultaneously horrifying and redemptive" (AlterNet), White American Youth examines how radicalism and racism can conquer a person's way of life and how we can work together to stop those ideologies from tearing our world apart. *An earlier edition of this book was published as Romantic Violence

Walking Away from Hate

Walking Away from Hate
Author: Jeanette Manning
Publisher:
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2021-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781990160004

As a troubled teen, Lauren Manning sought a refuge online in the angry world of black metal music. When she met a recruiter who offered her the acceptance she craved, the doctrine of white supremacy supplanted the values of her middle class upbringing and Lauren traded suburbia for a life of violence and criminality on the streets of Toronto. Told from the perspective of both mother and daughter, Walking Away From Hate chronicles Lauren's descent into extremism, her life within the movement and her ultimate reconnection with the family she once denounced and the mother who refused to give up on her.

You Will Not Have My Hate

You Will Not Have My Hate
Author: Antoine Leiris
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2016-10-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0735222142

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - "On Friday night you stole the life of an exceptional person, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate." On November 13, 2015, Antoine Leiris’s wife, Hélène Muyal-Leiris, was killed by terrorists while attending a rock concert at the Bataclan Theater in Paris, in the deadliest attack on France since World War II. Three days later, Leiris wrote an open letter addressed directly to his wife’s killers, which he posted on Facebook. He refused to be cowed or to let his seventeen-month-old son’s life be defined by Hélène’s murder. He refused to let the killers have their way: “For as long as he lives, this little boy will insult you with his happiness and freedom.” Instantly, that short Facebook post caught fire, and was reported on by newspapers and television stations all over the world. In his determination to honor the memory of his wife, he became an international hero to everyone searching desperately for a way to deal with the horror of the Paris attacks and the grim shadow cast today by the threat of terrorism. Now Leiris tells the full story of his grief and struggle. You Will Not Have My Hate is a remarkable, heartbreaking, and, indeed, beautiful memoir of how he and his baby son, Melvil, endured in the days and weeks after Hélène’s murder. With absolute emotional courage and openness, he somehow finds a way to answer that impossible question: how can I go on? He visits Hélène’s body at the morgue, has to tell Melvil that Mommy will not be coming home, and buries the woman he had planned to spend the rest of his life with. Leiris’s grief is terrible, but his love for his family is indomitable. This is the rare and unforgettable testimony of a survivor, and a universal message of hope and resilience. Leiris confronts an incomprehensible pain with a humbling generosity and grandeur of spirit. He is a guiding star for us all in these perilous times. His message—hate will be vanquished by love—is eternal.

Mom, I Hate My Life!

Mom, I Hate My Life!
Author: Sharon Hersh
Publisher: WaterBrook
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2010-12-01
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0307552187

“I don’t know why my daughter is so angry. She yells at me all the time!” “Our daughter comes home, goes straight to her room, turns on her CD player and won’t talk to anyone– especially me.” “The emotional ups and downs of our daughter’s life make us all feel like we’re on a roller coaster.” Navigating an adolescent daughter’s emotional life is one of a mom’s toughest challenges. A teenage girl’s volatile emotions can seemingly toss her–and you–like a hurricane. When a scary external world and a turbulent internal world collide, the result is sometimes overwhelming and confusing. What can you do to protect your relationship with your daughter, guide her through this chaotic time, and assure her you are truly on her side? Your Adolescent Daughter’ s Struggles Can Help Her–and You–to Grow and Thrive. The good news is you are equipped with the most powerful resource available for maintaining and developing connection with your daughter: a mother’s heart. Learn how you can use hand-in-hand mothering skills to become the ally your daughter needs–parenting out of love, not fear–and find out how you both can experience dramatic, life-changing growth in the process.

Healing from Hate

Healing from Hate
Author: Michael Kimmel
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2018-03-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780520292635

By the time Matthias was in seventh grade, he felt he’d better belong to some group, lest he be alone and vulnerable. The punks and anarchists were identifiable by their tattoos and hairstyles and music. But it was the skinheads who captured his imagination. They had great parties, and everyone seemed afraid of them. “They really represented what it meant to be a strong man,” he said. What draws young men into violent extremist groups? What are the ideologies that inspire them to join? And what are the emotional bonds forged that make it difficult to leave, even when they want to? Having conducted in-depth interviews with ex–white nationalists and neo-Nazis in the United States, as well as ex-skinheads and ex-neo-Nazis in Germany and Sweden, renowned sociologist Michael Kimmel demonstrates the pernicious effects that constructions of masculinity have on these young recruits. Kimmel unveils how white extremist groups wield masculinity to recruit and retain members—and to prevent them from exiting the movement. Young men in these groups often feel a sense of righteous indignation, seeing themselves as victims, their birthright upended in a world dominated by political correctness. Offering the promise of being able to "take back their manhood," these groups leverage stereotypes of masculinity to manipulate despair into white supremacist and neo-Nazi hatred. Kimmel combines individual stories with a multiangled analysis of the structural, political, and economic forces that marginalize these men to shed light on their feelings, yet make no excuses for their actions. Healing from Hate reminds us of some men's efforts to exit the movements and reintegrate themselves back into society and is a call to action to those who make it out to help those who are still trapped.

A Little Life

A Little Life
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 833
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0804172706

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.