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by CA Joseph Paperback: 294 pages
Excerpt From the Depths of Despair: Love: How Ted Forsook White Supremacy to Marry his Princess: CHAPTER 1
Both father and grandfather were at a White Supremacist ceremony that night when he was only five years old. Particularly noteworthy was the fact that his grandfather was presiding over the ceremony, while his father stood second-in-command, and their combined zeal was enough to incite even the weakest of hearts. His grandfather’s title within the secretive organization bore striking resemblance to some sort of medieval sorcerer, while his father’s title sounded extremely similar to that of a medieval creature. In the Ku Klux Klan, they were referred to as Imperial Wizard and Grand Dragon. His mom stayed at home, but Ted, although just a child, was taken along because that ceremony was as important to his future as the evil being plotted there. “Death to the blacks and Jews. The white race has always and will always prevail!” his father shouted, as he held a flaming torch in one hand, while using his other hand to tenderly pat his son on the back. It was a strange display of hate and love, simultaneously. Racial slurs and Biblical references were used interchangeably that night, and extremely sickening was the fact that something as holy as the words of the Bible were used to justify sick, violent acts against members of other ethnic backgrounds. Ted came from an incredibly interesting family. Aside from his grandfather and father holding ‘esteemed’ posts within one of North America’s most clandestine, oldest and hated Confederate organizations, his uncle Rick was one of the founding fathers of a southern White Supremacist Church. From birth, he never had to be taught the precepts of hatred, for it was all around him even before he understood what any of it meant. There was no escaping it, because every single aspect of his life was linked to it. The religious organization his family attended, headed by his uncle, preached it. His mom couldn’t read a bedtime story if she didn’t refer to some racial difference. Even something as relaxing as a family barbecue always ended up with references to problems caused by other races, or at the least African Americans being compared to the charcoal beneath the grill. Ted was constantly inundated with prejudiced thinking, so by the time he reached the age that he could fully understand the bigotry that characterized his family, it seemed like the most normal, natural thing. At the tender age of eight, he pretty much believed that his race was superior. His parents provided him with the best, just as in any other capable American family, and they shared the dreams, aspirations and had the warmth of any other close-knit family, except for one little thing. Their hatred for non-whites. Mom and dad had an excellent marriage, and they took their responsibility as parents seriously. Since he was their only child, Jen and Mitch ensured that he was spoilt rotten, and sometimes they would take him into the city to shop. They repeatedly carried him to the biggest and best toy stores where they lavished presents on him, and instilled in him such a tremendous feeling of self-worth that he sometimes felt as if he was better than all the other kids around him. Expectedly, this was their precise wish! They lived in a lower middle-class neighborhood in Flowood, Rankin County, where all of the residents weren’t members of the secretive organization they belonged to, but where there was a noticeable absence of non-whites. His parents would sometimes purposely take trips into neighboring Jackson County, which had a majority black population, and they would deliberately point and jeer at the elderly black folk as they drove by, teaching their son by example the actions that defined the word bigotry. A sickening part of this education in racial hatred, were his father’s frequent drives to black churches, referring in his conversations with Ted to recent attacks by Klan members. He would constantly tell Ted in no uncertain terms that Negroes were rejects and animals who didn’t deserve life’s blessings or even the gift of life itself, further exacerbating the blurry perception of right and wrong, good and evil within Ted’s impressionable young mind. “Ted, the day of reckoning’s coming when our race would have to fight the fine and holy battle against these beasts. The only thing they’re good for, is to serve as slaves for us. When the time comes, you got to be prepared!” were the prejudiced words of his father one night, as they sat in his pickup truck looking over at a predominantly black church. His mother just sat silently, nodding in agreement. Ted was exposed to the ‘lighter’ side of White Supremacy, in that his father only carried him to the KKK ceremonies that were held in secret locations. The type of ceremonies that were only filled with tart words of hatred, where crosses and dark-colored effigies representing blacks and Jews were burnt. These ceremonies were pale in comparison to the meetings that Mitch went to himself. The clandestine meetings his father and grandfather secretly attended were the pro-active type, in which members wore neo-Nazi emblazoned apparel, and brandished pistols and other weapons while they relished their resistive efforts. His grandfather and father, first and second-generation Klan members, were also members of the Aryan Resistance Association, a splinter group dedicated to a more violent version of the cause. It was at these meetings that ‘Soldiers’ who had accomplished hateful, violent, dirty deeds against minorities were held in high esteem, and one of the most cruel and genocidal tyrants in history, Adolf Hitler, was revered as if he was some type of god. His father was well aware that at his age, his son was not yet ready for this aspect of the sordid life, so he was careful to expose him only to digestible tidbits of the violence he had in his mind. Ted, however, would not escape this reality forever. His dad and grandfather had plans of one day inducting him into their bigoted domestic terrorist organization. Worse yet, they began instilling within him from an early age that his was a ‘royal’ lineage, and because of this, he would someday have to take over the reins from them! He became quite accustomed to the little bubble his parents brought him up in, and as time passed he truly felt as though the world carried the same perception of life that he did. He attended an all-white school, so constantly seeing other students who were the same race as he was, reinforced his parents’ perception within him that the world’s only issue was that of racial segregation. Paradoxically, apart from the constant bombardment of neo-Nazism and bigotry, his adolescent years were only slightly different to the other teenagers who were around him. He had the exact desires and issues that teenagers all over the world faced. He loved taking part in sports, in particular football, because he always pictured himself as a tough guy, and luckily, he happened to be one of the few teenagers who were able to successfully balance both academics and sport. The fact that he was able to maintain high grades throughout high school didn’t go unnoticed by his parents either. Mitch was a construction sub-contractor who learnt everything he knew about the business from his own father, while Jen was a homemaker who met his dad when they were in high school. They were not college-educated, so the fact that their son showed such a keen interest in academics meant a lot to them both. In a sinister way, it was a particularly interesting thought for his dad, whose mind immediately shot into the future. Charismatic leaders who had the ability to brainwash the mostly energetic and youthful members headed Supremacist organizations. From its confederate inception, the leaders who wielded the greatest influence were those who had a strong academic background. These were the leaders that the underlings never questioned, because these very members were made up mostly of non-academics who could be molded to carry out sick, hateful deeds. It was as if a revelation blinded Ted’s dad that his son, a young third generation Klansman, would someday be the head to take the organization in the direction the older leaders had been envisioning for what seemed like an eternity. As a result, Ted was rigorously encouraged by his parents to make the most of his education and to quickly follow up his departure from high school with entry into college. He was, however, their only child, and their prized gift, so their approach was never done in such a way to exasperate him. Rather, they calculatedly embellished their underlying wishes for him to head a sinister Supremacist organization with well-wishes that he would someday have a better life than they had. Ted, meanwhile, had a close relationship with his dad, wanting to please him at all costs, so keeping the idea of college in mind, and eventually making something of himself seemed like the most natural thing to do. As time sped by, with Ted already into his teenaged years, his dad continued to subtly introduce the concepts of the Aryan Resistance meetings he had been attending. Consequently, by the age of fifteen, Ted had already developed an intricate knowledge of the secretive life of bigotry that coursed through the veins of his relatives. The more he was exposed to it, though, the more his hatred grew. His dad gave him the correct doses that were tolerable for his age, but from the beginning, the effects began to manifest themselves. Whenever teenaged Ted and his dad went for their drives in Jackson County, unlike his parents who cowardly insulted the older black folk, he would stick his head through the window, hurling the same and sometimes worse abusive taunts at virtually any African American his eyes landed on. It was all shamefully accepted and encouraged by his father who seemed to be delighted by the intense hatred in his son’s voice, along with the fact that he exhibited greater audacity than he did. You see, spineless Mitch dared not hurl insults at the younger, thug-looking African Americans who looked as if they were always on the lookout for a reason to release hidden projectiles. As much as an intense hatred was cultivated within his only son, however, during the early part of his teenaged years Ted never really had the opportunity to direct it face-to-face to any one particular person. It was always indiscriminately done from a speeding Chevy pickup truck. One afternoon while in town, though, he did get his chance! He and his dad were watching a football game on television one Saturday afternoon, when his dad realized that they ran out of snacks and beer. During the break, Mitch quickly signaled to Ted, they jumped into the old rusty-brown Chevy truck and headed to the nearest grocery. This part of Flowood also happened to have a small concentration of African Americans. The football game was the only thing on his dad’s mind as he ran into Wanda’s Grocery, but as Ted sat in the truck, he looked on quietly at the black folk who were passing by in the road. Suddenly, his eyes became fixed on two pre-teenagers who were walking directly toward the truck! Those very eyes became red as he seethed with pure revulsion, and when he could hold back his rage no more, he called out to them. What came out of Ted’s mouth next were the most revolting words that a fifteen year old could have ever chosen. He cursed the two kids, using every obscenity and racial slur that his relatives ever used, and the very tone of his voice caused the two innocent Negro children to freeze in front of him. The little boy was speechless, while the girl’s face quickly became wet with tears. It felt great hurting the enemy, and when his dad came outside with the snacks and saw what his son was up to, the sight became even more pitiful. The adult who was supposed to instill good values in his son joined in with the fifteen-year-old teenager and continued insulting the two children! As far as Ted was concerned, he felt as if his deeds earned him Mitch’s respect, because his dad condoned his actions and seemed to treat him differently after them. That incident emboldened Ted even more, and shortly after it, singling out victims for verbal abuse became a regular part of his trips into town. And proudly, Mitch had to do no inveigling to elicit this type of reaction. He was still not convinced that his son was ready for the terrorist-like neo-Nazi meetings of the Aryan Resistance Association, though. As far as he was concerned, the appropriate time would eventually reach when Ted would gain the intimate understanding that bigotry was not just about talk. Until that time, he would just continue to inject a self-deceived ‘watered down’ mixture of intolerance into his young son’s mind. Ted was truly on the fast track to becoming a seasoned racist as a result, and as the years progressed, he did. Little did he know, however, in time to come, his entire life and everything he and his relatives stood for would abruptly change!
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