An interesting article on a child's descent into the alt-right

[AUDub 11,153]

link

Quote

What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right

When my son Sam,* who was then 14, asked me to take him to the Mother of All Rallies on the Mall in September 2017, I said no. The pro-Trump event was billed as a demonstration to preserve “traditional American culture,” and white supremacists were expected to show up in force. Not only was this not how I wanted to spend a Saturday—like almost everyone I knew, I’d been devastated by the 2016 election results—but I had serious concerns about safety. At Charlottesville’s Unite the Right rally only a month earlier, a neo-Nazi had killed counterprotester Heather Heyer. I couldn’t shake off the shock of her violent murder, or of watching men with tiki torches shout racist slogans across the University of Virginia grounds. Police there were unable to protect citizens; I couldn’t reasonably expect this gathering in DC to be any different.

Sam knew exactly how I would react to his request. He’d anticipated my automatic veto and readied reasons in favor of attending—not as a participant, he stressed, but as an observer. I can still see him standing in front of me, the longing apparent in his big brown eyes. His favorite school subject was history, he reminded me, and he hungered to witness a genuinely significant event firsthand. As he would tell me later: “I wanted to be part of something big.”

The rally was just a half-hour Metro ride from our home in Washington’s outer suburbs—so he could make the trip alone, he assured me, flashing the transit app on his phone.

His case was well thought out, his explanations admirable. In fact, they were perfectly (too perfectly?) reverse-engineered to match my own values. I’d always preached to him the importance of seeing things for yourself before making a decision, of talking to people individually to understand what motivated them.

Still, I suspected I was being had.

Remember, the gaslighting is an important recruitment tool.

[homersapien 11,388]

Good article. 

That school administrator who over-reacted - starting all this - was a total jerk.  The equivalent of a "bad" cop.  Just goes to prove extremism can habit both sides of the political dichotomy.  Talk about political correctness run amok!

Such people in those positions can obviously do a huge amount of psychological damage to a 13 year-old kid.  It would probably be a difficult - and expensive - case to make, but the parents of this kid should have sued him for damages.  At least it might have gotten him removed.

Regarding the main point of the article, I liked the term "circular knowledge economy":

"I began to see how white supremacists have been benefiting from what the writer Carole Cadwalladr has called the “circular knowledge economy”—how search algorithms feed an internet so ravenous for content that facts are optional. But worse, I discovered how expertly extremists have leveraged the web to prey on young people who are depressed. Search for the term “depression” on YouTube, and the professional-looking white supremacists lecturing on self-empowerment might have you nodding in agreement, too. "

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Good lord at allowing a 13-year old unfettered ability to communicate with anonymous strangers on the internet via Reddit or 4chan.

[Grumps 3,704]

That was an interesting read. Thanks for posting. The alt-left and the alt-right really messed this kid up. Parents give their kids WAY too much freedom.

[AuburnNTexas 7,152]

On 5/11/2019 at 12:16 PM, Grumps said:

That was an interesting read. Thanks for posting. The alt-left and the alt-right really messed this kid up. Parents give their kids WAY too much freedom.

You nailed it.