Discussion Led by Arlene Noodleman

*Please register to receive Zoom link in confirmation email*

In an era in which anti­semitism seems to be every­where, R. Derek Black’s mem­oir, The Klansman’s Son, is fright­en­ing­ly time­ly. Black grew up as the ulti­mate white suprema­cist. Black’s moth­er was once mar­ried to KKK Grand Wiz­ard David Duke; their father, Don Black, was a proud KKK leader whose hero was Adolf Hitler. Through­out Derek’s child­hood, Don shep­herd­ed his son to ral­lies. There, crowds with loud voic­es (and some­times torch­es) were encour­aged to vent their grow­ing grudges against their “ene­mies.” Chief among these ene­mies are the Jews, schem­ing to weak­en the white world through inte­gra­tion and oth­er lib­er­alisms in order to replace white peo­ple. Next on the list are peo­ple of col­or. (Young Derek loved their Con­fed­er­ate cos­tume and flag, a trib­ute to the good old days.) Then come the immi­grants from any­where but North­ern Europe. These “ani­mals” roam across our bor­der, eager to drug, rape, and then mur­der decent, law-abid­ing white Americans. The res­o­lu­tion of the con­flict Derek experienced when he went off to college and saw many other points of view form the high point of the mem­oir. Find­ing out how this child of neo-Nazis shift­ed so dra­mat­i­cal­ly to the oth­er side of the ide­o­log­i­cal spec­trum is fas­ci­nat­ing — and, in our times, exem­plary and educational. (Jewish Book Council review)