April 13th, 2017

Montana Life After Hate Tour: Lessons From A Former White Supremacist
 
When former white supremacist skinhead Christian Picciolini left the movement he helped build, he began the dramatic shift to work to disengage youth from white supremacist groups and violent extremism. The Montana Human Rights Network will be hosting Christian for his “Life After Hate” Montana tour to share his story and offer ways to counter the movement his was part of promoting.

Rachel Carroll Rivas, Co-Director at the Network said that, “This tour is prompted by recent hate activity in the state. We know we can combat violent extremism by understanding how good people get caught up in bad movements, politicians manipulate our unrest by blaming certain groups, and coded language leads to extremism. Christian’s story is just that, a story about how people are pulled into these hate movements looking for identity and community. The white supremacist movement offered him and too many others a sense of purpose and someone to blame for his problems.”

In the midst national uptick in hate activity, Montana was the center of national news because of the mainstreaming of white supremacist ideas by operatives like Richard Spencer, whom has connections to Whitefish. Spencer is the most well known of the white supremacist “alt-right” movement and even incited a crowd after the election with “Hail Trump” chants and Nazi salutes. Recently, Spencer and his mother precipitated and encouraged an online troll storm against Jewish women and human rights activists in Whitefish.  

Montana has long been a target of the white supremacist and violent anti-government “Patriot” movements. Similarly, Montana made headlines in 2016 as the state exported a number of extremist activists central to the standoff at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada and at the occupation of the Malheur Refuge in Oregon. Montana is also home to the extremist group the Oath Keepers, whose predecessors in the movement included the Militia of Montana and Freeman.

While radicalization is all too common in the Montana, the state is also known for having a unique watchdog group in the Montana Human Rights Network. While Christian Picciolini was promoting racism with skinheads in the 80s and 90s, the Network formed as part of a number of local groups nation-wide that produced reports about the radical Right and engaged in a basic community organizing to counter hate. Most of these groups around the country disappeared, but the Network continued as a steadfast model of how to oppose the radical Right as they switched issues and targets and emerged stronger, as we see today. That sustaining effort has meant that the Network’s local affiliate Love Lives Here in the Flathead, for example, has been reported as a national model for how to successfully respond and counter the white supremacy they faced in the last few months.

“The most important part of Christian’s story how he changed and he believes it’s everyone’s job to stand up to bigotry and violence everywhere we see it,” Carroll Rivas said about what the Network hopes is the outcome of Christian’s visit.

Christian Picciolini is an Emmy Award-winning director and producer, an author, and a reformed extremist. His work and life purpose are born of an ongoing and profound need to atone for a grisly past and to contribute to the greater good. After leaving the violent hate movement he helped create during his youth, he began the painstaking process of rebuilding his life. In 2010 he co-founded Life After Hate, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping communities implement long-term solutions that counter racism and violent extremism. Christian published his memoir, Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead, where he details his involvement in the early American white power skinhead movement in 2015. In 2016, Life After Hate launched ExitUSA, North America's only program run by former extremists, focused on helping people disengage from white supremacist ideologies. Last year he won an Emmy Award for producing ExitUSA's anti-hate PSA, "There is life after hate."

The Montana “Life After Hate” tour will be in the following locations in the state. More information can be found athttp://www.mhrn.org or www.facebook.com/MTHumanRights
April 2017
Fri 21st 7:00 pm, Great Falls
Dark Horse at Celtic Cowboy, 116 1st Ave S
 
Sat 22nd 7:00 pm, Helena
Plymouth Church, 400 S Oaks
 
Sun 23rd 3:00 pm, Hamilton
River Street Dance Theater, 421 N 2nd
 
Sun 23rd 7:00 pm, Missoula
University Center, RM 332, UM Campus
 
Mon 24th 7:00 pm, Whitefish
O’Shaughnessey Center, 1 Central Ave