美国国家公共电台 NPR Is There A Cure For Hate?

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It is clear from his own words that Robert Bowers², the man alleged³ to have opened fire on that Pittsburgh synagogue, was filled with hate. He posted bigoted⁴ statements and conspiracies⁵ online for months ahead of the shooting. And during the attack itself, according to a federal indictment⁶, Bowers said he wanted to kill Jews. He is charged with 44 counts, including hate crimes, for the murder of 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue. NPR's Eric Westervelt looks at what, if anything, can get violent, far-right extremists in America to change.

ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE⁷: Tony McAleer knows something about the mindset of the suspected synagogue gunman, and he knows how savvy⁸ racist⁹ recruiters can be. He was one of them. McAleer was steeped in the racist invective¹⁰ Robert Bower¹ spewed online, one that sees a cabal¹¹ of malevolent¹² Jews running the world by proxy¹³ through banks, corporations, Hollywood and the media. As a member of the White Aryan Resistance, or WAR, McAleer peddled¹⁴ that conspiracy¹⁵ to attract new members.

TONY MCALEER: I was a Holocaust¹⁶ denier. I ran a computer-operated voicemail system that was primarily anti-Semitic.

WESTERVELT: He eventually renounced¹⁷ his bigotry¹⁸ and helped create the nonprofit Life After Hate, one of the few groups working to help right-wing extremists find an off-ramp. The good news - there are some programs like his that seem to be effective in de-radicalizing homegrown extremists. The bad news - they're small, hard to scale, and there's no consensus¹⁹ on what really works. Overall, it's an understudied, underfunded and neglected area.

PETE SIMI: We haven't wanted to acknowledge that we have a problem with violent, right-wing extremism in this kind of domestic terrorism.

WESTERVELT: Sociologist²⁰ Pete Simi at Chapman University has researched violent white nationalists and other hate groups for over two decades. We know more, Simi says, about what works to best intervene with American gang members or jihadists than how to combat far-right hate. That willful denial, he says, means many nonprofits, social workers and police today are largely flying blind.

SIMI: There really haven't been much resources, attention, time, energy devoted²¹ to developing efforts to counter that form of violent extremism.

WESTERVELT: In fact, the Trump²² administration in 2017 rescinded²³ funding that targeted domestic extremism, including a four-hundred-thousand-dollar Obama-era federal grant to Life After Hate. The administration instead has focused almost exclusively on threats from Islamist extremists and what it sees as the security and social menace of undocumented immigrants. The programs that best help people leave hate behind, Simi says, are those that address the full range of issues someone swept into a far-right extremist world might face.

SIMI: Some additional schooling²⁴ or employment trainings. Maybe they have some housing needs. Maybe they have some unmet mental health needs, I mean, substance use problems - what's called wrap-around service approach.

WESTERVELT: But that more holistic²⁵ model is labor²⁶ intensive, costly²⁷ and thwarted²⁸, Simi says, by America's woefully inadequate²⁹ drug treatment and mental health care systems. McAleer, the former White Aryan Resistance recruiter, says adherence³⁰ to racist beliefs, whether as part of a group or as a lone³¹ wolf like the suspected synagogue gunman, is more often sparked by a flawed search for identity and purpose than a deeply held belief. From his experience, the best approach is simply listening and connecting to a person's buried humanity. You condemn³² the ideology³³ and the actions, he says, but not the human being.

MCALEER: You know, think of them as lost. Somewhere along the line, they find themselves in this place. And I can tell you, being in that place is not a fun place to be. When you surround yourself with angry and negative people, I guarantee you your life is not firing on all cylinders³⁴.

WESTERVELT: But he concedes that inspiring compassion³⁵ is a challenging one-on-one approach and one that's hard to scale. Eric Westervelt, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF PHILANTHROPE'S "REBIRTH")