Episode 2057: KEEN ON America featuring R. Derek Black
How seriously should we take the white nationalist threat in the United States? Very seriously, at least according to R. Derek Black, a young man who knows a thing or two about the US white nationalist movement. The son of a Grand Wizard of the KKK and a close family friend of David Duke, Black believes that white nationalism is no longer a fringe feature of the Trumpist Republican party. And it’s this fear of the mainstreaming of overt racism that triggered Black’s new book, The Klansman’s Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism, an account of his rebellion not just against racism, but against his family, particularly his Grand Wizard father, Don Black.
Derek Black is an American former white supremacist. He is the son of Don Black, founder of the Stormfront online community, and godson of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. He publicly renounced white nationalism and chronicled his personal journey away from his family's beliefs.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.
Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Ryan O'Hanlon on the End of the Beautiful Game? How the Analytics Revolution Is Changing Soccer
Maybe Even Republicans and Democrats Can Agree On This One: How Dreaming Big Requires Both Self-Deprecating Humor and the Ability to Cry
Anna Badkhen on Today's Bright Unbearable Reality: We Need to Dream Differently
Gautam Mukunda on How to Pick an American President? Making the Most Consequential Decision in the World
Lisa Hajjar on Fighting Guantanamo: How Hundreds of Lawyers Successfully Challenged the Illegal Treatment of Prisoners Captured in the American War on Terror
Chris Miller on Why the Most Powerful Thing in the World Is Computer Chip Technology
Sean Connolly on How Irish Immigration Made the World Modern
Natasha Lance Rogoff on Muppets in Moscow: The Crazy Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia
Rita Katz: In Our Age of Internet-Born Terrorism, Should We Consider QAnon, ISIS, Proud Boys, and Individual School Shooters to All Be Terrorists?
Jerry Stahl on Which Nazi Concentration Camp Had the Best Cafeteria
Alice Wexler Remembers Her Father, Milton, An Unconventional and Controversial Freudian Psychoanalyst
Victor Pickard on Why American Democracy Can't Survive Without Reliable Journalism: How to Confront Our Misinformation SocietyVictor Pickard
Patrick House on How All Writers, Even Neuroscientists, Seek the Impossible: To Replicate Our Unique Interiority