San Diego Filmmaker Interviews Former White Supremacists For New Documentary

Speaker 1: 00:00 At a time when we're watching our nation become painfully divided and bitter culture Wars ramping up to threats of violence. The film that we'll talk about next is like a lighthouse in a darkening storm. And it, we hear from people who grew up steeped in white supremacy values, committed to white supremacists goals, and we watch how our own prejudices and fears melt as they talk about their transformations. San Diego filmmaker, Susan Potter's shirts has a documentary called love, wins over hate, and it airs tonight on KPBS television. Susan joins us now welcome to midday, Susan. Thank you. Talk to us a bit about why this film is so important right now at this particular moment in history. Speaker 2: 00:41 First of all, from a statistics point of view, prejudice and hate crimes are more prevalent than ever. And our country is being divided by such, um, hate speech, um, actions, physical actions, prejudices, and it's unbearable. I mean, you can't watch the news without feeling really sad about how people are acting and what people are saying and doing so it's growing and growing and I think it's extremely dangerous and sad. Speaker 1: 01:19 Yeah. So now you interview several people for this film who considered themselves white supremacists. What did they tell you about why they embraced white supremacy? And in several cases, brutal violence. Speaker 2: 01:32 I interviewed six white supremacy and, um, a couple of other prejudice people. And interesting enough, most of them did not grow up in prejudice homes or any kind of white supremacy homes. Most of them had families that were very dysfunctional, um, physically abusive, verbally abusive. They were bullied and they had no self esteem. So when they were done with school, somehow they hooked up with a white supremacy groups and these groups, uh, go around looking for vulnerable people. And the groups would say to these people, um, jeez, we can be your family. You're really smart. You can go high up in the, in the organization. And then they would indoctrinate them literally with how they feel. And so they had a purpose. They had a new PR, a purpose in life. Sometimes for the first time in their lives, they had a purpose, they had friends, they had a family. Speaker 2: 02:42 So that's what happened. And then they became very, very prejudiced and, and many of them violent, only one of them. Tim Curic grew up in a household. It was a very religious household that thought gay people were sinners. Um, and so he was indoctrinated by his family. And then later he met gay people and realized, you know, they're the same as everybody else, all the other people, I don't think any of them or for a recall, grew up in families or even knew people that were such haters. Hmm. Interesting. So in some ways they were kind of looking for connection. Um, one of the clips that really struck me in the documentary is from one of your subjects. Let's take a listen. Speaker 3: 03:28 Hatred is born of ignorance. Fear is its father and isolation as its mother. And I absolutely believe that anger and fear and uncertainty, I think most of all, uh, is what really feeds or make somebody prone to accept the narrative of hate. Speaker 2: 03:45 The thing about the movie is even though the subjects at the beginning are definitely experiencing a lot of turmoil. They all have some kind of a breakthrough in the change of heart where there's some common threads in their stories of what triggered that change of heart. Absolutely. Some of them actually met people that they thought they hated and they realize that there is a very similar background. There are people and they had a lot in common, but probably more so in common than they had not in common. So that was an epiphany for many of them is when they actually met people. So, um, I think connection was one of them, uh, um, having a family life, wanting to preserve their family life, not liking what they saw people doing to others, not liking violence and, and they just had enough. Right, right. No, there's, there's an arc to this documentary. Isn't there. It gradually unfolds to a place of hope and strengths at the end. Let's hear what one of your characters says here. Speaker 3: 04:52 Empathy teaches that we're the supporting character in every other person's existence that we come into contact with. The more we practice it, the less we'll have school shootings. The less we'll have friendships breaking apart because of politics or because of religion. The less we'll see a schism between the religious and the nonreligious. Speaker 2: 05:13 He's the one that I was mentioning that grew up with his parents, thinking that homosexuality was a sin and he went to Liberty university and he's just the kindest guy. And he goes to pride parades. And, um, he's just a great spokesperson for the LGBTQ, um, LGBTQ, uh, community. Right? You really follow these people's stories through the documentary. I really do. I just, I was so shocked because there were such good human beings. And when I talked to them, I could not believe that they used to be so different, you know, because they were so kind. And as you can see, they're eloquent and they a lot, and they're psychological and they're loving. And you know, my first interview, I was really scared to interview the guy because you think of white supremacy is people being really violent. And you know, obviously they're not violent all the time and they do, you know, they have a heart and it's just misplaced. I mean, I'm not condoning them. I they're horrible. They do. But after interviewing these people, I saw that there is a way out. And there was a reason, even though it's a bad reason that they got involved in, in these movements, Speaker 1: 06:33 I had a, a bit of a change of heart in making this movie too Speaker 2: 06:37 Very, very much so. Yeah. Speaker 1: 06:39 What do you hope that this documentary leaves people thinking and feeling? Speaker 2: 06:43 No. What I, um, one of the guys Arno McEllis, he says it better than I do. He said, if you're going to combat hate and violence, you cannot do it with more hate and violence. You need to do it with love and empathy. And that's the only way love will win. And that kind of what I would like people to understand. And then I think the idea of connecting with people, sitting down with them, realizing that they're human beings, just like they are with the same problems. You know, one of the guys mentioned, we all want our families to be healthy. We want to earn a living. We want to have a nice life and everyone wants that. That's what everyone wants. Um, so showing that all people are, one is one of the things I would like to show showing that people need to have empathy with others is another thing. And then that there's hope to overcome this hatred. Speaker 1: 07:41 Well, thanks so much for making this film, that tips the scale towards love season. Thank you for talking with us. Thank you so much. I've been speaking with San Diego filmmakers, Susan Polis shoots whose documentary love wins over hate airs tonight on KPBS television at 10 o'clock.