By the time I went to college, I had become an international spokesperson for the movement and a presumed leader in waiting. In college, however, after initially flying under the radar, I was outed and spent several years engaging with a new community of people who were personally harmed and shocked at what I believed. It wasn't the first time people told me racism was wrong and stupid. But it was the first time that I had been told I was not only wrong, but hurting people I knew and cared about.
It wasn't the first time people told me racism was wrong and stupid. But it was the first time that I had been told I was not only wrong, but hurting people I knew and cared about. At the end of that experience, I condemned the beliefs I grown up in and have spent the decade since advocating against the movement I once expected to lead.
I publicly declared that I wasn't [a white nationalist] anymore. I'd dismissed the last pieces of that worldview months earlier, but it was in the moment of saying it out loud that I saw what it meant to change my mind. And that process had only been possible once I felt connected to a new community that challenged me.
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