Christian Picciolini

Last updated
Christian Picciolini
Christian Picciolini (cropped).jpg
Picciolini in 2016
Born
Christian Marco Picciolini

(1973-11-03) November 3, 1973 (age 50)
Blue Island, Illinois, U.S.
Alma mater DePaul University (B.A.)
Occupations
Awards Emmy Award (regional)
Website christianpicciolini.com

Christian Marco Picciolini (born November 3, 1973) is an American former extremist who is the founder of the Free Radicals Project, a global network working to prevent extremism and help people disengage from hate movements. He is the author of a memoir, Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead, which details his time as a leader of the white power movement in the U.S. An updated version of the story was published in 2017, titled White American Youth: My Descent into America's Most Violent Hate Movement--and How I Got Out. His book Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism (2020) looks at how extremists recruit the vulnerable to their causes.

Contents

Early life and education

Picciolini was born and raised in Blue Island, Illinois, the son of Italian immigrants. [1] His father was a hair salon owner and his mother is a restaurant owner. [2] At age 14 in 1987, Picciolini was recruited to join the Chicago Area Skinheads (CAS) by the group's founder, Clark Martell. [2] [3] Two years later, after Martell had gone to prison for a second time, Picciolini became the group's leader at age 16. He facilitated a merger between Chicago Area Skinheads and the Hammerskins, a more violent and well-organized white supremacist skinhead organization. [2]

He would go on to head the white supremacist punk band, White American Youth (W.A.Y.) and, eventually, a hate rock band called Final Solution. Final Solution was the first American white power skinhead group to perform in Europe. The concert was held in a former cathedral in Weimar, Germany, attended by 4,000 people, and was made up of several other white supremacist bands. [2] [4] In 1994, Picciolini opened a record store called Chaos Records where he primarily sold white power music. [4] He officially renounced ties to the American neo-Nazi movement in 1996 at the age of 22. [5]

Picciolini attended DePaul University later in life, earning a degree in international business and international relations. [6]

Career

Picciolini founded another, non-racist punk rock band called Random55 after leaving the white power movement. The band toured with Joan Jett in the mid-1990s. In 1999, Picciolini began working for IBM. [6] He eventually left IBM to start his own record label, Sinister Muse. Sinister Muse is part of the broader entertainment firm Goldmill Group. [7] [8] Picciolini managed Flatfoot 56, a Celtic punk band from Chicago and The Briggs, a Los Angeles punk band. [7]

After graduating from DePaul University, Picciolini spent time writing his personal memoirs about his experience as a youth involved in the early American white power skinhead scene. [1] In 2010, he co-founded Life After Hate, a peace advocacy and counter-extremism consulting group, with former neo-Nazi, Arno Michaelis. [2] That same year, he took over as the executive producer and general manager of JBTV, a music-themed television program and entertainment media network based in Chicago. Picciolini is responsible for changing the show's basic format, securing a national distribution deal with NBC, and earning the show multiple Regional Emmy Award nominations. He would stay at the show until 2012. [1] [9]

In 2011, Picciolini spoke at the Summit Against Violent Extremism (SAVE) in Dublin, Ireland which was presented by Google Ideas and the Tribeca Film Festival. [4] Also in 2011, Picciolini served as the executive producer and film director for the Smashing Pumpkins' DVD re-issues of Gish and Siamese Dream . [10] [11] [12] He also served as the producer for The Frantic's music video for "Blackout Brigade" [13] and, later, as the producer for Dead Town Revival's music video for "Johnny". [14] Picciolini had previously served as producer for The Frantic's music video for "Audio & Murder" [15] and for Dead Town Revival's music video for "The Rain." [16]

Picciolini released Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead in April 2015. [2] Over the course of his career, Picciolini has contributed to a variety of nationally broadcast programs as a subject matter expert, commenting on issues related to far-right, white supremacist extremism. He appeared on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, on Anderson Cooper 360° on CNN where he discussed the Charleston church shooting, as well as several appearances on DemocracyNow!. [5] [17] [18] He has also appeared on Chicago Tonight on WTTW, The Afternoon Shift on WBEZ, NewsMax TV's MidPoint with Ed Berliner, Al Jazeera, WGN Radio, and The Adam Carolla Show . [3] [8] [19] [20] [21] [22] He has also been profiled in online publications like Vice. [4] [23]

Picciolini left the Life After Hate organization in August 2017, intending to explore international groups that encourage violent extremists to leave their lives of hatred and find better lives. [24] He went on to establish the Free Radicals Project, a global, multidisciplinary extremism and violence prevention, intervention, and disengagement platform and practice. [25]

In July 2020, Picciolini criticized Donald Trump for sharing tweets by white supremacists, using "pejorative language to describe other people", intentionally instilling fear, and emboldening racist language, saying, "It's as if Trump kicked over a bucket of gasoline on all of those small fires that have existed for 400 years and created one large forest fire." [26]

Awards and recognition

In his role as executive producer of JBTV, Picciolini helped the show earn five Regional Emmy Award nominations (three in 2010 and two in 2011). [9] The show won a technical Emmy award in 2010 for motion graphics. [27] In 2016, Picciolini won a Regional Emmy Award for his role as executive producer and director of ExitUSA's "There is life after hate" anti-hate campaign. [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice</span> Group of skinheads opposing racism

Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose white power skinheads, neo-fascists and other political racists, particularly if they identify themselves as skinheads. SHARPs claim to reclaim the original multicultural identity of the original skinheads, hijacked by white power skinheads, who they sometimes deride as "boneheads".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Aryan Resistance</span> Neo-Nazi organization led by Tom Metzger

White Aryan Resistance (WAR) is a white supremacist and neo-Nazi organization in the United States which was founded and formerly led by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Tom Metzger. It was based in Warsaw, Indiana, and it was also incorporated as a business. In 1993, the group expanded into Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-Racist Action</span> North American far-left political cells

Anti-Racist Action (ARA), also known as the Anti-Racist Action Network, is a decentralized network of militant far-left political cells in the United States and Canada. The ARA network originated in the late 1980s to engage in direct action and doxxing against rival political organizations on the hard right to dissuade them from further involvement in political activities. Anti-Racist Action described such groups as racist or fascist, or both. Most ARA members have been anarchists, but some have been Trotskyists and Maoists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hammerskins</span> Texan white supremacists with international spread

The Hammerskins are a neo-Nazi group formed in 1988 in Dallas, Texas. Their primary focus is the production and promotion of white power rock music, and many white power bands have been affiliated with the group. The Hammerskins were affiliated with the record label 9% Productions. The Hammerskins host several annual concerts, including Hammerfest, an annual event in both the United States and Europe in honor of deceased Hammerskin Joe Rowan, the lead singer of the band Nordic Thunder.

Volksfront, also known as Volksfront International, was an American white separatist organization founded on October 20, 1994, in Portland, Oregon. According to Volksfront's now defunct website, the group described itself as an "international fraternal organization for persons of European descent." The logo of Volksfront was the Algiz rune, a common rune used as a neo-Nazi symbol common among other organizations such as National Alliance. Volksfront had approximately 50 members in the United States split between four chapters designated as Pac-West, Central States, North East, and Gulf-Atlantic, and an additional 50 members dispersed in other countries including Germany, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Spain. The goal of the movement was to create an all-White homeland in the Pacific Northwest. The flag of Volksfront was based on the Nazi flag in the colors of black, white, and red with the Volksfront logo and the slogan was "Race Over All" implying that race mattered over everything else. In August 2012, the United States branch of Volksfront announced their dissolution via their website. Citing harassment and investigations by the authorities, the group said it was disbanding.

White power skinheads, also known as racist skinheads and neo-Nazi skinheads, are members of a neo-Nazi, white supremacist and antisemitic offshoot of the skinhead subculture. Many of them are affiliated with white nationalist organizations and some of them are members of prison gangs. The movement emerged in the United Kingdom between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, before spreading across Eurasia and North America in the 1980–1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Front</span> Nationalist white-supremacy group

American Front (AF) is a white supremacist organization founded in San Francisco, California by Bob Heick in 1984. It began as a loose organization modeled after the British National Front. Heick began working with Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR) in 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fourteen Words</span> White-supremacist slogans

Fourteen Words is a reference to two slogans originated by David Eden Lane, one of nine founding members of the defunct white supremacist terrorist organization, The Order, and are accompanied by Lane's "88 Precepts". The slogans have served as a rallying cry for militant white nationalists internationally.

<i>JBTV</i> American TV series or program

JBTV is a Chicago-area broadcast, weekly 60-minute music television show featuring live in-studio performances, music videos, and music-related interviews from emerging and established musicians. Based in Chicago, Illinois, JBTV has over a 30-year history. It was created and hosted by Jerry Bryant in 1986. As of the show's 32nd season, Jerry Bryant and Greg Corner are the show's main hosts.

Skinheads USA: Soldiers of the Race War is a 1993 HBO documentary film about a group of white power skinheads involved in the neo-Nazi movement in the southern state of Alabama. It features the white supremacist Bill Riccio, then-leader of the Aryan Youth Front. Other Klan organizations are also featured.

Clark Reid Martell is an American white supremacist and the former leader of Chicago Area SkinHeads (CASH), which was founded in 1985 by six skinheads under his leadership. This was the first organized neo-Nazi white power skinhead group in the United States. The group was also called Romantic Violence, and was the first US distributor of records and tapes from the English band Skrewdriver.

Stormfront is a neo-Nazi Internet forum, and the Web's first major racial hate site. The site is focused on propagating white nationalism, Nazism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as anti-feminism, homophobia, transphobia, Holocaust denial, and white supremacy.

Neo-Nazism is the post World War II ideology that promotes white supremacy and specifically antisemitism. In Canada, neo-Nazism has existed as a branch of the far-right and has been a source of considerable controversy for over 50 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Heimbach</span> American white supremacist (born 1991)

Matthew Warren Heimbach is an American white supremacist and neo-Nazi. He has attempted to form alliances between several far-right extremist groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Against Violent Extremism</span>

Against Violent Extremism (AVE) is a global network of former extremists, survivors of violence and interested individuals from the public and private sectors - working together to counter all forms of violent extremism. A partnership between London’s Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Google Ideas and the Gen Next Foundation. AVE's stated aim is to offer a platform for communication, collaboration and a means for activists to find resources and funding for projects.

Gregory Withrow is an American far-right White supremacy activist. He was described by the Chicago Sun-Times as being "widely acknowledged as the founder of the [white power] 'skinhead' movement in 1978". Withrow subsequently publicly abandoned his earlier political beliefs in the late 1980s and became a regular face on television speaking out against racism and the organisation of young people by the far-right. In later years Withrow repudiated his change of heart and returned to far-right activism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Metzger</span> American white supremacist and Neo-Nazi leader

Thomas Linton Metzger was an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi leader and Klansman. He founded White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a neo-Nazi organization, in 1983. He was a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Metzger voiced strong opposition to immigration to the United States, and was an advocate of the Third Position. He was incarcerated in Los Angeles County, California, and Toronto, Ontario, and was the subject of several lawsuits and government inquiries. He, his son, and WAR were fined a total of $12.5 million as a result of the murder of Mulugeta Seraw, 28, an Ethiopian student, by skinheads in Portland, Oregon, affiliated with WAR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Life After Hate</span> American nonprofit organization

Life After Hate is a nonprofit organization founded in 2010 by Arno Michaelis. Its stated mission is to help "people leave the violent far-right, to connect with humanity, and lead compassionate lives.” In January 2017, the Obama administration awarded the group $400,000 as part of a grant from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Countering Violent Extremism Task Force. However, DHS advisor Katharine Gorka and other aides of President Donald Trump decided to discontinue the grant in June 2017. A crowdfunding campaign established after the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally has raised $429,500 to go towards the organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Right: Meeting the Enemy</span> 2017 documentary

"White Right: Meeting the Enemy" is a 2017 documentary that aired as an episode of British current affairs TV series Exposure. The documentary was directed by Deeyah Khan and produced by Deeyah's production company Fuuse.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Bensing, Kayla (July 1, 2010). "Out of his skin". The Chicago Reporter . Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Terry, Don (April 2015). "Redemption Song". Southern Poverty Law Center . Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  3. 1 2 Segall, Mandy (July 1, 2011). "Former skinhead: 'My hate had no basis'". Al Jazeera . Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Ludwig, Jamie (November 17, 2014). "From White American Youth to Life After Hate: Former Racist Skinhead Vocalist Pens Memoir About His Road to Peace". Vice . Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  5. 1 2 Reynolds, Dean (June 23, 2015). "Former skinhead explains how he was radicalized". CBS News . Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  6. 1 2 Mohr, Michael (February 27, 2015). ""ROMANTIC VIOLENCE: MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN SKINHEAD" BY CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI". Michael Mohr. Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  7. 1 2 Shrum, Tony (March 27, 2015). "Interview: Christian Picciolini Talks About His Part In The White Power Movement & His Memoir Moving Past It". New Noise Magazine. Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  8. 1 2 "American Skinhead to Peace Advocate Announcing Christian Picciolini for Glappitnova". Glappitnova. May 5, 2015. Archived from the original on February 21, 2019. Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  9. 1 2 "JBTV Is Bad, Nationwide". The Beachwood Reporter. January 20, 2012. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  10. ↑ "Christian Picciolini". www.whoproducedit.info. Who Produced It. Retrieved July 1, 2015.[ permanent dead link ]
  11. ↑ "Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream". www.fvlb.org.nz. Film & Video Labelling Body. Archived from the original on July 21, 2015. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Christian Picciolini". www.allmusic.com. AllMusic . Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  13. ↑ THE FRANTIC - "Blackout Brigade" music video (OFFICIAL). YouTube. October 18, 2011.
  14. ↑ DEAD TOWN REVIVAL - "Johnny" music video (OFFICIAL). YouTube. July 31, 2014.
  15. ↑ THE FRANTIC - "Audio & Murder" music video (OFFICIAL). YouTube. October 1, 2007.
  16. ↑ DEAD TOWN REVIVAL - "Rain" music video. YouTube. May 4, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  17. ↑ "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees". CNN. June 22, 2015. Archived from the original on June 11, 2020. Retrieved September 27, 2020.
  18. ↑ "Shows featuring Christian Picciolini". Democracy Now!. Archived from the original on July 7, 2020. Retrieved September 27, 2020.
  19. ↑ Shefsky, Jay; Qiu, Linda (May 6, 2015). "Life After Hate". Chicago Tonight . Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  20. ↑ "Afternoon Shift: Former skinhead Christian Picciolini discusses his time in the white power movement". WBEZ. October 27, 2014. Archived from the original on July 21, 2015. Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  21. ↑ Wakenight, Bennett (June 8, 2015). "Christian Picciolini Talks Romantic Violence". WGN Radio . Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  22. ↑ Laxamana, Chris (May 3, 2015). "Dr. Drew and Christian Picciolini". The Adam Carolla Show . Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  23. ↑ Davies, Luke (January 13, 2018). "These Former Skinheads Are Fighting Racism". Vice . Retrieved June 30, 2015.
  24. ↑ "Former Neo Nazi Explains Why Hate Drew Him In And How He Got Out". National Public Radio. January 14, 2018. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  25. ↑ "Free Radicals Project | Who are we?". Free Radicals. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  26. ↑ Silva, Christianna (July 2, 2020). "Reformed Neo-Nazi Discusses President Trump's Controversial Shared Tweet" . Retrieved July 2, 2020.
  27. ↑ "JBTV wins an Emmy… and celebrates". Redwall Photography. November 11, 2010. Archived from the original on July 21, 2015. Retrieved June 24, 2015.
  28. ↑ "Christian Picciolini Wins 2016 Emmy for ExitUSA Spot" (PDF). Chicago Midwest Regional Emmy Awards. December 3, 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 20, 2016. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
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