Reviewed
by: BigAl
Genre:
Memoir
Approximate
word count: 90-95,000
words
Availability
Click
on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes &
Noble, or Smashwords store
Author:
“Christian
Picciolini is an award-winning television producer, a visual artist,
and a reformed extremist. His work and life purpose are born of an
ongoing and profound need to atone for a grisly past, and to make
something of his time on this planet by contributing to the greater
good. After leaving the violent hate movement he was part of during
his youth, he began the painstaking process of rebuilding his life.
Picciolini earned a degree in International Business and
International Relations from DePaul University, began his own global
entertainment and media firm, and was appointed a member of the
Chicago Grammy Rock Music Committee and the Chicago International
Movies and Music Festival. In 2010 and 2011, he was nominated for
three regional Emmy Awards for his role as executive producer of
JBTV, one of America's longest-running nationally broadcast music
television programs. He has worked as an adjunct professor at the
college level, and as the community partnerships manager for
Threadless, a company that combines a thriving online art community
with a highly successful e-commerce business model. Additionally, in
2013, he contributed to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt's and Director
of Google Ideas Jared Cohen's New York Times best seller, The New
Digital Age. Most notably, in 2010 he co-founded Life After Hate, a
nonprofit organization dedicated to helping communities and
organizations gain the knowledge necessary to implement long-term
solutions that counter all types of racism and violent extremism. An
explorer by nature, Picciolini loves to learn new things and thrives
on challenging himself with positive
disruptive thinking. He
values kindness, unselfishness, sincerity, and respect for all
people, and believes that small ideas can change the world.”
Description:
“At
14 years old, Christian Picciolini, a bright and well-loved child
from a good family, had been targeted and trained to spread a violent
racist agenda, quickly ascending to a highly visible leadership
position in America’s first neo-Nazi skinhead gang. Just how did
this young boy from the suburbs of Chicago, who had so much going for
him, become so lost in extremist ideologies that would horrify any
decent person?
'Romantic
Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead' is a poignant and gripping
cautionary tale that details Christian’s indoctrination when he was
barely a teen, a lonely outsider who, more than anything, just wanted
to belong. A fateful meeting with a charismatic man who recognized
and took advantage of Christian’s deep need for connection sent the
next decade of his life into a dangerous spiral. When his mentor went
to prison for a vicious hate crime, Christian stepped forward, and at
18, he was overseeing the most brutal extremist skinhead cells across
the country. From fierce street brawls to drunken white power
rallies, recruitment by foreign terrorist dictators to riotous white
power rock music, Picciolini immersed himself in racist skinhead
culture, hateful propaganda, and violence.
Ultimately
Christian began to see that his hate-filled life was built on lies.
After years of battling the monster he created, he was able to
reinvent himself. Picciolini went on to become an advocate for peace,
inclusion, and racial diversity, co-founding the nonprofit Life After
Hate, which helps people disengage from hate groups and to love
themselves and accept others, regardless of skin color, religious
belief, or sexual preference.”
Appraisal:
One of
the reasons I read memoirs is to understand someone who has had an
experience nothing like anything I ever have or will. In this case,
to get a handle on something I haven't been exposed to and don't
understand. The book was queued to my Kindle for reading when Dylann
Roof, a white supremacist, gunned down several people in South
Carolina. I decided it was time to push it up the list.
Romantic
Violence is at times
infuriating and frustrating (knowing where it is headed and having
20/20 hindsight) while also being scary as it is easy to imagine how
almost anyone in the same situation could get sucked in to an
extremist organization like this. I also noticed that the terminology
and rhetoric of a racist right-wing group is much the same as other
extremist right-wing organizations that don't have the racist
component. (Left-wing groups have their own set of touchpoints, I'd
guess.) As intense as a good thriller, made more so by being true.
FYI:
Adult
language and situations.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No
significant issues.
Rating:
**** Four Stars
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