Confronting Prejudice Through Dialogue and Rethinking

One day, Daryl was driving his car with the chief officer of a KKK chapter, whose official title was Exalted Cyclops. Before long, the Cyclops was sharing his stereotypes of Black people. They were an inferior species, he said—they had smaller brains, which made them unintelligent, and a genetic predisposition toward violence. When Daryl pointed out that he was Black but had never shot anyone or stolen a car, the Cyclops told him his criminal gene must be latent. It hadn’t come out yet.

Daryl decided to beat the Cyclops at his own game. He challenged him to name three Black serial killers. When the Cyclops couldn’t name any, Daryl rattled off a long list of well-known white serial killers and told the Cyclops that he must be one. When the Cyclops protested that he’d never killed anybody, Daryl turned his own argument against him and said that his serial-killer gene must be latent.

“Well, that’s stupid,” the flustered Cyclops replied. “Well, duh!” Daryl agreed. “You’re right. What I said about you was stupid, but no more stupid than what you said about me.” The Cyclops got very quiet and changed the subject. Several months later, he told Daryl that he was still thinking about that conversation. Daryl had planted a seed of doubt and made him curious about his own beliefs. The Cyclops ended up quitting the KKK and giving his hood and his robe to Daryl.

Daryl is obviously extraordinary—not only in his ability to wage a one-man war on prejudice, but also in his inclination to do so. As a general rule, it’s those with greater power who need to do more of the rethinking, both because they’re more likely to privilege their own perspectives and because their perspectives are more likely to go unquestioned. In most cases, the oppressed and marginalized have already done a great deal of contortion to fit in.

Having been the target of racism since childhood, Daryl had a lifetime of legitimate reasons to harbor animosity toward white people. He was still willing to approach white supremacists with an open mind and give them the opportunity to rethink their views. But it shouldn’t have been Daryl’s responsibility to challenge white supremacists and put himself at risk. In an ideal world, the Cyclops would have taken it upon himself to educate his peers. Some other former KKK members have stepped up, working independently and with Daryl to advocate for the oppressed and reform the structures that produce oppression in the first place.

As we work toward systemic change, Daryl urges us not to overlook the power of conversation. When we choose not to engage with people because of their stereotypes or prejudice, we give up on opening their minds. “We are living in space-age times, yet there are still so many of us thinking with stone-age minds,” he reflects. “Our ideology needs to catch up to our technology.” He estimates that he has helped upwards of two hundred white supremacists rethink their beliefs and leave the KKK and other neo-Nazi groups. Many of them have gone on to educate their families and friends. Daryl is quick to point out that he hasn’t directly persuaded these men to change their minds. “I didn’t convert anybody,” he says. “I gave them reason to think about their direction in life, and they thought about it, and thought, ‘I need a better path, and this is the way to go.’”

Daryl doesn’t do this by preaching or prosecuting. When he begins a dialogue with white supremacists, many are initially surprised by his thoughtfulness. As they start to see him as an individual and spend more time with him, they often tap into a common identity around shared interests in topics like music. Over time, he helps them see that they joined these hate groups for reasons that weren’t their own—it was a family tradition dating back multiple generations, or someone had told them their jobs were being taken by Black men. As they realize how little they truly know about other groups, and how shallow stereotypes are, they start to think again.

After getting to know Daryl, one Imperial Wizard didn’t stop at leaving the KKK. He shut down the chapter. Years later, he asked Daryl to be his daughter’s godfather.