If you're looking for Life After Hats, that's completely different, but you can dance if you want to, and if your friends don't dance...
It’s common practice among responsible writers and editors, when publishing an article about suicide, depression, or a suicide attempt, to include a hotline and website for suicide prevention. Often you’ll see the same for eating disorders, addiction, and domestic abuse. What if we started making it common practice to do the same for white supremacy, and refer them to Life After Hate / ExitUSA? What if we could get the Associated Press on board?
Life After Hate is a nonprofit founded by a former skinhead, that helps radicalized people get out of hate groups and deprogram their violent extremism. Their ExitUSA program is dedicated to helping people leave white power groups. Like any other cult or criminal gang, these groups can overtake a person’s whole life and even if the person is willing to walk away, they can feel unable to do so because they lack social connections outside the “cause” or fear becoming a target themselves. Politico reports:
The group has seen a twenty-fold increase in requests for help since Election Day “from people looking to disengage or bystanders/family members looking for help from someone they know.”
The DHS under the Usurper has cut federal funding for Life After Hate (biiig surprise), but it’s bound to attract more donations if its name gets out more. Plus, they are crowdfunding for more social media outreach, and Samantha Bee is plugging it.
I’m not a nice person. I see these jackasses strutting around LARPing their misanthropic fantasies and I want them to suffer the way they make others suffer, fear the way they make others fear. It’s scary, how easy it is to hate them the way they hate and dehumanize others. Hard to have sympathy or wish them a good outcome. However, the mental mechanisms of extremism have a significant intersection with past trauma and mental illness. Maybe I can hold on to more of my own humanity in this fight by framing it as, these zombies people are essentially suffering from a disease. Like in any horror movie, they should have known better than to get infected--it’s communicable and insidious—but some cases can be cured.
There are three ways to take a Nazi out of action: punch him, cut off his resources to do harm, or bring an expert try to find the human inside and bring him back into the real world. If this third, longest and most difficult way works, you can get a better person out of it who will potentially de-radicalize more people out of the hate groups. Worth a try.
At ExitUSA, we are dedicated to helping individuals leave the white power movement and start building a new life, just like we did. Whether you are ready to leave the white power movement, want to help a friend or family member who needs help breaking away, or are just curious to know more—we’re here to talk.
www.exitusa.org
You can also call or text us at (612) 888-EXIT (3948)
