Whenever politics has been polarized between Left and Right, there have always been liberals and socialists hoping that their enemies could be won back. In the Italy of 1943–45, a country divided into a South at peace with Britain and the United States and a North occupied by the Nazis, the novelist Italo Calvino told his brother, “We are on the side of redemption, while they are on the other side.” Anti-fascist Catholics prayed, “For all of them. For the others too.”
Arguably the best-known former fascist around today is Adrianne Black. Previously Derek Black, she was born in Florida to a Nazi family who insisted she had to be schooled at home and given a suitably ideological education. Her father, Don Black, ran the Stormfront website, while Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke was her godfather.
From the age of ten, Black wrote for far-right sites; by her early twenties, she was hosting a fascist radio show with her father. The people who took responsibility for changing her were neither the state nor organized anti-fascists, but rather a group of college students who chose to look after a contemporary they barely knew.
Whenever politics has been polarized between Left and Right, there have always been liberals and socialists hoping that their enemies could be won back.
In recent years, Adrianne Black has abandoned the Right. She has begun touring round the United States, telling her story. The audiences she finds aren’t only interested in Black herself, but also in how she can help them win arguments with the people around them. They want her help in challenging their lovers, friends, or parents who are dabbling with the far right.
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Auteur: DK Renton
