By Eli Saslow
288 pages

The story of Derek Black is a captivating story of a young man raised in the epicenter of White Nationalism. Derek is the godson of David Duke and the son of Don Black, founder of the white nationalist website Stormfront. Derek from his early teenage years was leading online communities, even hosting a radio show, to spread the word of white nationalism. Derek learned to code and started a Stormfront website for children. In many ways, Derek Black was preparing to be a national leader or even the heir apparent to the white nationalism movement in America.

The story Eli Saslow brilliantly writes about Derek really begins in 2010 when Derek enrolls in New College of Florida. What ensues in the coming years for Derek is an outing of his white nationalist ideology on campus, resulting in mass outrage and near ostracization. Instead of being expelled from school Derek remained on campus and a small group of friends began inviting him to join their Friday evening tradition of Shabbat dinner together.

Eli is a great writer and captures, with significant empathy, these years for Derek. The confusion of questioning his beliefs about the world, race, religion, and science. The disconnect from his family and mentor, David Duke. The fear of causing societal harm with the hate he used to espouse. And ultimately the incredible challenge of disavowing this former belief structure into a new outlook of the world and humanity.

This book was written in 2018, however I think it frames a conversation that is just as critical today as it was three years ago. To what degree is the fabric of America woven in a version of white nationalism? Watching the insurrection on Capitol Hill on January 6th — the breaking into the United States Capitol, the threat of assassination of politicians, the antisemitism, waving of the confederate flag — leads to an extreme image of the cultural divide that exists in America today. And to quote Professor William Blair, Civil War historian at Penn State University, “The Confederate flag made it deeper into Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, than it did during the Civil War.”

The conversation of race in America was second only to COVID-19 in topics in the news in 2020. That conversation is not over, but just beginning. And I suggest reading the very thoughtful, intriguing, and interesting book Rising Out of Hatred to better understand this tension and then engage in this conversation.