For some perspective on my experience, grew up in an extremely Christian conservative, extremely bigoted and abusive home, it’s just my folks were filthy rich, two-faced pillars of the community in public so they got a pass. Both my brother and I are adopted. I’m white, he’s Hispanic. Despite racist lessons, I grew up watching how the rest of the world treated him, despite being culturally white (and my parents brainwashed his ethnicity out of him while touting how great they were for “rescuing” an impoverished brown child), the community that knew exactly who we were treated him second class compared to me. I was also not surprised when he came out, which resulted in multiple “scared straight” attempts by our parents. Also worth noting I grew up in Idaho, where white nationalism has long been vocal and public.
My history of violence is originally rooted in pure misguided rage marginally channeled into something productive (fighting Nazis), but I did find community building channels in my teens. I was in Seattle in ‘99, lived at Occupy for months, and a lot in between. I’ve volunteered with refugee resettlement (Boise is a major center for placing new Americans) and as a dog rescuer, have been involved with our shelter’s program that pairs pups who need a little extra help before they’re ready with inmate trainers. My thoughts on justice, rehabilitation, and restoration changed greatly because of this experience.
People absolutely can change. Inmate volunteers are heavily prescreened by the prison before acceptance into the program, but the only automatic disqualification is a history of animal abuse. So the volunteers range from druggies, to sex offenders, to murders, to gang bangers. It’s a full spectrum of humanity who has done some heinous shit, held some genius beliefs, and while they are all working on themselves, not all are “redeemed”. Some will get out, some are lifers. My job is not to judge. They had their trials, they’ve been found guilty, their sentence is what it is. I don’t google their stories but I have a good idea of who’s in for what and some, while very capable of being loving and gentle with a dog, I agree that permanent removal from society is the best solution. But they do forever remain human, and capable of change, the onus is on them to do so.
I’ve also known a lot of miscreants in real life. Junkies, abusers, racists, bigots. I’ve met people like you, who went down a bad path but pulled themselves out. And while I never indulged white supremacy, I’ve still been violent, an addict, a womanizer, egotistical, made homophobic/misogynistic/ableist/bigoted jokes, and punched down. Like you, I got friendly support from others who saw potential for change and politely encouraged me to “do better”.
But I can’t deny the times hard boundaries, push back, and ostracism worked on me as well. It’s a hard lesson, when people you know care about you put up the wall of “love ya, don’t like ya right now”. Both can pressure change.
Where I don’t know the right path is America as it is. In the 90’s, in Idaho, we tolerated the “right to free speech” and allowed the Aryan Nations compounders and Dick Butler to file for permits and exercise the free speech and parade around once a year. The rest of the year they retreated to their compound, which eventually got sued out of existence after they Nazi’d too hard. It’s not that version of America anymore.
Our great experiment is failing. After all my teenage and youth aggression I should have grown, mostly kinda did. I shouldn’t be considering show of force to drive bands of emboldened haters out of my neighborhood. The modern world has never seen a “superpower” embrace hate on the level of the US. Even at its worst the Third Reich was 1/3 the territory the US is, didn’t have the resources and infrastructure the US has, and a lot of what it had acquired was subverting it. We’re in uncharted territory and there’s plenty of plebs all in that will enable whatever to get one step ahead, backtrack on the leader when it doesn’t come fast enough, but empower the next best promise at the expense of whoever they consider lesser.
For some perspective on my experience, grew up in an extremely Christian conservative, extremely bigoted and abusive home, it’s just my folks were filthy rich, two-faced pillars of the community in public so they got a pass. Both my brother and I are adopted. I’m white, he’s Hispanic. Despite racist lessons, I grew up watching how the rest of the world treated him, despite being culturally white (and my parents brainwashed his ethnicity out of him while touting how great they were for “rescuing” an impoverished brown child), the community that knew exactly who we were treated him second class compared to me. I was also not surprised when he came out, which resulted in multiple “scared straight” attempts by our parents. Also worth noting I grew up in Idaho, where white nationalism has long been vocal and public.
My history of violence is originally rooted in pure misguided rage marginally channeled into something productive (fighting Nazis), but I did find community building channels in my teens. I was in Seattle in ‘99, lived at Occupy for months, and a lot in between. I’ve volunteered with refugee resettlement (Boise is a major center for placing new Americans) and as a dog rescuer, have been involved with our shelter’s program that pairs pups who need a little extra help before they’re ready with inmate trainers. My thoughts on justice, rehabilitation, and restoration changed greatly because of this experience.
People absolutely can change. Inmate volunteers are heavily prescreened by the prison before acceptance into the program, but the only automatic disqualification is a history of animal abuse. So the volunteers range from druggies, to sex offenders, to murders, to gang bangers. It’s a full spectrum of humanity who has done some heinous shit, held some genius beliefs, and while they are all working on themselves, not all are “redeemed”. Some will get out, some are lifers. My job is not to judge. They had their trials, they’ve been found guilty, their sentence is what it is. I don’t google their stories but I have a good idea of who’s in for what and some, while very capable of being loving and gentle with a dog, I agree that permanent removal from society is the best solution. But they do forever remain human, and capable of change, the onus is on them to do so.
I’ve also known a lot of miscreants in real life. Junkies, abusers, racists, bigots. I’ve met people like you, who went down a bad path but pulled themselves out. And while I never indulged white supremacy, I’ve still been violent, an addict, a womanizer, egotistical, made homophobic/misogynistic/ableist/bigoted jokes, and punched down. Like you, I got friendly support from others who saw potential for change and politely encouraged me to “do better”.
But I can’t deny the times hard boundaries, push back, and ostracism worked on me as well. It’s a hard lesson, when people you know care about you put up the wall of “love ya, don’t like ya right now”. Both can pressure change.
Where I don’t know the right path is America as it is. In the 90’s, in Idaho, we tolerated the “right to free speech” and allowed the Aryan Nations compounders and Dick Butler to file for permits and exercise the free speech and parade around once a year. The rest of the year they retreated to their compound, which eventually got sued out of existence after they Nazi’d too hard. It’s not that version of America anymore.
Our great experiment is failing. After all my teenage and youth aggression I should have grown, mostly kinda did. I shouldn’t be considering show of force to drive bands of emboldened haters out of my neighborhood. The modern world has never seen a “superpower” embrace hate on the level of the US. Even at its worst the Third Reich was 1/3 the territory the US is, didn’t have the resources and infrastructure the US has, and a lot of what it had acquired was subverting it. We’re in uncharted territory and there’s plenty of plebs all in that will enable whatever to get one step ahead, backtrack on the leader when it doesn’t come fast enough, but empower the next best promise at the expense of whoever they consider lesser.