Canadas White Supremacy Problem

my name is elizabeth

and i am a former racist extremist

25 years ago i left the heritage front

which was canada’s largest white

supremacist organization at the time

i’ve spent most of the last quarter of a

century educating people about the

dangers of hate groups

and sharing my story about how i regain

my humanity

i often get feedback that people are

moved or inspired by what i have to say

and if i shared my narrative with you

today perhaps you’d be touched too

perhaps you’d even feel a little bit

better about this messed up world we’re

in for a minute

unfortunately i can’t give you that

feel-good change agent narrative today

you see there are lots of people out

there journalists activists

writers and academics who wish that

formers like me

would just go away they criticize us and

say we’re given unfair status and perks

while people who have fought racism

their whole lives are ignored

they say we should just get out of the

way so that people who need anti-racism

the people whose lives depend on it can

get on with the work they need to do

without distraction

you know what they’re right

in the past couple of years i’ve

witnessed farmers rush around and break

a whole lot of things

now i need to take a step back here and

say that there are formers who are

engaged in tremendously good work

in both academia and the nonprofit

sector so i

certainly don’t mean to disparage all of

us but the damage

that some formers are causing needs to

be addressed

when it comes to activism farmers can

end up walking a

very tight line on the one hand many of

us

end up connecting with organizations

that are created by and for people who

are affected by hate

and on the other hand particularly if

we’re engaged in de-radicalization work

we’re exposed to people and

organizations that promote that

intolerance

that’s a very very delicate push pull

and on top of that if we’re doing it

right we’re engaged in a lifelong

process of unlearning our own prejudices

and fixing our broken world views

not to mention healing the trauma that

led us to be vulnerable to hate group

recruitment in the first place

it’s a lot i mean it is

really a lot and it can be really hard

to keep going

some formers navigate all of this by

focusing on

peace building now if peace building

which can

encompass you know community building

forming relationships building bridges

it’s very important and valuable work

and i’m sure this is unfathomable to

most of you

but when you leave a hate group

understanding that we possess

a shared humanity and a fundamental

equality

it’s a revelation and finally reaching

out and connecting with other people

and learning and growing it feels so

good

in fact it’s almost a relief and really

it’s no surprise that formers would want

to stay in this part of their activism

because

the potential for doing good

is so i’m sure you’re saying but there’s

a butt in there somewhere

and yes there is and the butt is that

peace building and staying in that place

can unfortunately lead to a lot of

sidestepping

that sidestepping can include our

personal work that we need to do

as well as i guess what i would call a

political moral compass

this phenomenon can express itself in

many ways including

lack of empathy for others new formers

being brought out

into public conversations they’re

ill-equipped to handle

people not doing the work they need to

do to confront all their prejudices like

transphobia for example

and also when this is really quite

troubling

not confronting the misguided notion

that

anti-fascists are part of the problem

all of this can cause real and lasting

harm to the communities that were

supposed to be there to

help and all of this is happening

in the name of anti-hate it should come

as no surprise really

hate groups recruit broken people break

them further and then

leave them without any social structure

healthy belief system

or connection to who they are as a

person or their world

i’m so glad that there are

de-radicalization programs out there

today to help people navigate

this process but even so it doesn’t

matter you could have the best

mentor the best therapist

but there are still demons that you have

to fight on your own

and it is up to all of us as formers to

win those fights and

make sure that we deserve that former

label that we’ve been given

wish that leaving a hate group

was all that needed to happen to prove

that you’re a good person

but really figuring out that hate is

wrong is kind of the lowest

bar of entry into being a decent human

being

there’s no guarantee that anybody is

going to do the work they need to do

and even the passage of time doesn’t

necessarily mean that someone has

progressed in their journey

i can say that after 25 years

of being away from hate after learning

about love and experiencing hate as a

victim instead of a perpetrator

i’m still as broken as the rest and i

have no more right to be here on this

virtual version of the iconic ted talk

stage than anybody else

and yet i’m here and the irony of this

is more than a little uncomfortable

i nearly pulled out of this event it

felt irresponsible to me to come here

and share some story of personal

redemption while the world burns

now i can’t see your faces obviously but

i can imagine that

if these issues around de-radicalization

and former’s activism is new to you

you probably think this has nothing to

do with you in your life

you might even think that this is just

some strange outcropping of

broken and damaged people who are making

poor choices

i wish i wish i could make you feel

better

i wish i could tell you that was the

case but if you

enjoy white privilege this is where you

get to sit in the

difficulty of some really hard truths

with me

when we watch the news and we see hate

groups

marching around or talking about

population replacement or whatever

conspiracy is on their mind at the time

it’s easy to decide that these people

are just some part of a lunatic fringe

they don’t represent me they certainly

don’t represent my country this is an

american problem

this isn’t who and what we are

but here’s the thing hate

doesn’t form in a vacuum and hate groups

don’t

form in isolation from the world around

them

in fact i would say that they are the

thin edge of the wedge

the most virulent and blatant forms of

expression

of a system built on white supremacy

patriarchy

genocide they absolutely

are a hundred percent

who and what we are as a country

to add to this idea of being the thin

edge of the wedge i would say that

farmer’s activism and the problems that

we’re seeing there

are the thin edge of a wedge of a

problematic white ally ship in general

now if you care about human rights at

all

at some point you are going to end up

supporting

people and narratives and issues

that are outside of your experience that

don’t directly apply to you

and that means that you’re in danger of

promoting

notions of healing that don’t apply it

means

that just like former extremists you’re

in danger of breaking a whole lot of

things if you’re not careful

allies whether they’re formers or

otherwise

can fall into several traps and

i wish i could go through all of them

but the three i want to deal with today

include selective empathy

in this case people can be really

passionate about one cause but not

understand how that cause could be

impacting other people

it can also manifest in smaller ways

where

people do things like share images and

videos of someone being

victimized by the police without

understanding how

that how sharing these images can cause

additional trauma to the community in

question

and then of course there’s armchair

activism

this to me is really lazy but we all do

it we all

want the high reward low effort

that comes with sharing hashtags or

putting a special frame around our

profile picture on facebook

it feels good we feel like we’re raising

awareness but the problem is

we’re not in fact building any kind

of sustained education into the issues

at hand and we’re certainly not

promoting the marginalized

or silenced voices that are affected by

these causes

and most importantly there’s a failure

to listen and learn

this is a really big one what i see

happening and i

admit i’ve done this myself is i find we

find ourselves in a position where we

think we’ve done the work that we need

to do

that you know we’re we’re here we’re

good and it’s other people who need to

educate themselves if we find ourselves

in this kind of position

we need to take that step back

reevaluate

look for blind spots and listen to the

people who are directly

impacted by the cause we’re working on

and follow their lead

it can be dangerous to get caught up

in the rewards of the work we’re doing

without

remembering why we’re doing it in the

first place

and on top of that especially for

formers

if we fail to remember that we always

have blind spots that there’s always

something that we can be working on

we’re in danger of letting those grow

and fester

and they can end up becoming a real

problem

on top of all this i see people becoming

trapped in what i’d call compassion

fatigue

now in this world we’re in right now

with so much uncertainty

it’s really hard to care about

everything

it’s exhausting in fact and it’s so

tempting to tell our friends and family

you know what just

stop looking at the news just stop

reading the newspaper

just stop for your mental health just

stop

but the thing is doing this is actually

an expression of privilege because there

are so many people

who don’t have the option of

stepping back and tuning out

and this in a roundabout way brings me

back to why i’m here

why as a former extremist i’m here on

the stage when perhaps i shouldn’t be

tuning out turning off turning my back

it just isn’t an option i know what

hate feels like i know what it looks

like and i know what

so many people are embracing in the

world today

and i just can’t step away from that

bernie farber my mentor and friend who

helped me leave the heritage front 25

years ago

introduced me to the concept of tikkun

alam

now there are many interpretations of

this within jewish literature but i’ve

always understood it to mean

that we have a responsibility to make

the world a better place than when we

came into it

it isn’t our responsibility to finish

this work but it’s also not our

privilege to set it aside either

personally i think this should be a

universal concept

and while it can feel overwhelming and

who knows where to start

fortunately it only takes baby steps to

make enough

to make a real impact and get somewhere

so look within yourselves find

those blind spots and lingering

prejudices

take time to listen and learn and then

act find a community that you can

help that you can lift up that you can

make the world a little bit better

and if you should find yourself being

given a platform that you feel you don’t

deserve

try to do something good with it thank

you