Think Again

HOW A BLACK MUSICIAN CONFRONTS WHITE
SUPREMACISTS
One day, Daryl was driving his car with the chief officer of a KKK chapter,
whose official title was Exalted Cyclops. Before long, the Cyclops was
sharing his stereotypes of Black people. They were an inferior species, he
said—they had smaller brains, which made them unintelligent, and a
genetic predisposition toward violence. When Daryl pointed out that he was
Black but had never shot anyone or stolen a car, the Cyclops told him his
criminal gene must be latent. It hadn’t come out yet.

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Daryl decided to beat the Cyclops at his own game. He challenged him
to name three Black serial killers. When the Cyclops couldn’t name any,
Daryl rattled off a long list of well-known white serial killers and told the
Cyclops that he must be one. When the Cyclops protested that he’d never
killed anybody, Daryl turned his own argument against him and said that his
serial-killer gene must be latent.
“Well, that’s stupid,” the flustered Cyclops replied. “Well, duh!” Daryl
agreed. “You’re right. What I said about you was stupid, but no more stupid
than what you said about me.” The Cyclops got very quiet and changed the
subject. Several months later, he told Daryl that he was still thinking about
that conversation. Daryl had planted a seed of doubt and made him curious
about his own beliefs. The Cyclops ended up quitting the KKK and giving
his hood and his robe to Daryl.
Daryl is obviously extraordinary—not only in his ability to wage a one-
man war on prejudice, but also in his inclination to do so. As a general rule,
it’s those with greater power who need to do more of the rethinking, both
because they’re more likely to privilege their own perspectives and because
their perspectives are more likely to go unquestioned. In most cases, the
oppressed and marginalized have already done a great deal of contortion to
fit in.
Having been the target of racism since childhood, Daryl had a lifetime
of legitimate reasons to harbor animosity toward white people. He was still
willing to approach white supremacists with an open mind and give them
the opportunity to rethink their views. But it shouldn’t have been Daryl’s
responsibility to challenge white supremacists and put himself at risk. In an
ideal world, the Cyclops would have taken it upon himself to educate his
peers. Some other former KKK members have stepped up, working
independently and with Daryl to advocate for the oppressed and reform the
structures that produce oppression in the first place.
As we work toward systemic change, Daryl urges us not to overlook
the power of conversation. When we choose not to engage with people
because of their stereotypes or prejudice, we give up on opening their
minds. “We are living in space-age times, yet there are still so many of us
thinking with stone-age minds,” he reflects. “Our ideology needs to catch
up to our technology.” He estimates that he has helped upwards of two
hundred white supremacists rethink their beliefs and leave the KKK and
other neo-Nazi groups. Many of them have gone on to educate their

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families and friends. Daryl is quick to point out that he hasn’t directly
persuaded these men to change their minds. “I didn’t convert anybody,” he
says. “I gave them reason to think about their direction in life, and they
thought about it, and thought, ‘I need a better path, and this is the way to
go.’”
Daryl doesn’t do this by preaching or prosecuting. When he begins a
dialogue with white supremacists, many are initially surprised by his
thoughtfulness. As they start to see him as an individual and spend more
time with him, they often tap into a common identity around shared
interests in topics like music. Over time, he helps them see that they joined
these hate groups for reasons that weren’t their own—it was a family
tradition dating back multiple generations, or someone had told them their
jobs were being taken by Black men. As they realize how little they truly
know about other groups, and how shallow stereotypes are, they start to
think again.
After getting to know Daryl, one Imperial Wizard didn’t stop at leaving
the KKK. He shut down the chapter. Years later, he asked Daryl to be his
daughter’s godfather.

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W