EXCLUSIVE: Ex-white power leader visits mostly black and Hispanic NYC high school to talk race
By
Molly Crane-Newman and
Ben Chapman
| New York Daily News |
Oct 30, 2018 | 12:50 PM
Former white nationalist Derek Black criticizes President Trump for his failure to properly denounce white supremacists in the wake of Charlottesville.
In a former life, Derek Black, the godson of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, was a powerful white nationalist who preached sermons of hate to throngs of rabid followers.
Now Black, whose father, Don Black, founded the neo-Nazi Stormfront web forum, says he’s changed his views, and he wants to share his perspective with city students.
On a visit to The Facing History School in Manhattan on Tuesday, Black, 29, discussed his journey with students coming of age at a time when the discussion on race in the city — and across the country — has reached a fever pitch.
Students at the mostly black and Hispanic school directed questions to Black and his girlfriend, Allison Gornik, who played an instrumental role in his renunciation of white supremacy.
Black told the students gathered in a classroom that he and Gornik met at Sarasota’s New College of Florida in 2011.
While still a white nationalist, Black said he used to go to Shabbat dinners held by Gornik’s roommate, Matthew.
It was during those dinners that Gornik and her friends began to challenge Black on his lifelong, racist beliefs.
“There was about two years of us debating. Then in 2013, I denounced white nationalism,” Black told the Daily News of his conversion.
Student Tiara Rios asks a question to former white nationalist Derek Black at The Facing History School in Manhattan. October 30, 2018. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News)
The Facing History class, comprised mainly of black and Hispanic teens, listened intently as they took turns asking Black about his racist upbringing and his life after white nationalism.
“I really want to know, not having a support system — how did it really affect you when it came to changing your beliefs?” Tiara Rios, 16, of the Bronx, asked Black.
“It was the most difficult part,” Black said. “I got to this point where not only did I think we had it incorrect, but it was also hurting other people. And then the biggest challenge after that — even when I said, OK, I’m just not gonna do this anymore — was realizing you can’t just stop doing the wrong thing, but to actually push back against it.”
Black said that in order to abandon his racist views, he had to turn his back on his family.
“The only way to condemn it was to condemn my family, condemn my babysitters from when I was a kid, condemn my family’s friends, condemn my extended family,” he said.
“Saying that I think this belief is wrong is the same as saying, I think they’re wrong — and in a way, what they’re doing is bad and that makes them bad people,” he added.
Former white nationalist Derek Black meets with students at The Facing History School on Tuesday. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News)
Rios said that as a young woman of color living in today’s divisive society, discussions like this are important because they foster understanding.
“It’s important to have difficult conversations like this because then it opens people’s eyes,” she told The News. “It gives an opportunity for people to think about the other side and why people think a certain way.”
Black’s visit comes at a time when discussions of racial equity and integration are taking center stage in the city schools and influential national movements like Black Lives Matter are making an impression in classrooms as well.
Facing History School Assistant Principal Calee Prindle said in today’s heated racial climate, communication and listening are vital.
“It’s really easy for people to think of the destruction of racial injustice. It’s really easy to destroy hate, to destroy bigotry — that’s because it’s easier to destroy than it is to build,” Prindle said .
“But if you’re going to destroy something, you have to build something in its place,” Prindle added. “What we’re building in the place of this hate and bigotry and racial injustice is more empathetic people, a civic dialogue. A conversation with one another.”
