How has my atonement gone?
After seven years with IBM, I returned to the music business and the world of entrepreneurship. I served as general manager and executive producer of JBTV, an iconic, Emmy Award-winning music television program that helps expose the world to talented emerging artists. I am a writer, teacher, record label owner and artist manager, representing bands based on the strength of their music and character.
While I was earning my bachelor’s degree from DePaul University, I had an extraordinary opportunity to work as a rapporteur for the United Nations’ 57th Annual Conference on Civil Society and the Millennium Development Goals. As a result, I was able to produce an informational short film, hoping to inspire people to come together in peace to work on serious global issues like poverty and hunger, AIDS, and to promote gender equality in developing countries. As my final assignment before graduation, I wrote a twenty-page thesis detailing my involvement in the white power movement and my ultimate de-radicalization from violent, far-right wing extremism. Ten years later, that project became this book.
In 2008, I was invited to write an opinion editorial for the popular music magazine, Alternative Press, where I denounced my seven years of hate. The publication of that piece was pivotal for me, as it was the first time I’d openly spoken about my past in a large public forum. I urged readers to heed my story and find ways to make the world a better place. A world that promoted inclusion and equality for everyone.
For years after, I volunteered as a coach for my sons’ soccer teams and encouraged all the young athletes I mentored to strive for integrity in what they do, both on and off the field.
On Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in 2010, I co-founded Life After Hate, a nonprofit organization striving to be an agent of change for those struggling with hate. By sharing our unique perspectives on empathy and compassion, and by promoting basic human goodness, we aspire to be a shining beacon of hope for those who feel mired by racism and prejudice. Leadership within the organization is made up entirely of reformed white power skinheads—both male and female. By and large, some of the kindest and most courageous people I know.
And I have written this book, acknowledging the dark legacy I’ve left behind, knowing that toxic weeds may still be sprouting from the infected seeds that I planted all those years ago. Knowing that there may be retaliation both from the racists I helped create who are still strong in my country, and from law enforcement, who still have me in their files; hoping that it will keep others—even one person—from making the same selfish and uneducated decisions I made, from going down that dark, evil path of racism and supporting the ignorant belief that anyone is better than anyone else solely based on their race, gender, religion, or sexual preference.
While regrets over my past still haunt me, I have made meaningful changes in my life and can now look in the mirror without seeing a monster staring back at me. I graduated from DePaul and married Britton, the most understanding and loving woman on the planet, someone who has never known a racist moment. Every day, I thank the gods of fate and destiny for letting my path join with a woman of her strength, character, intelligence, empathy, and loving nature.
I am the father to my sons I wished my own father had been to me. I have attended every one of their soccer and football games, their school events, and parent-teacher conferences. Now that they are young adults, wiser than I ever was at their age, I still hold them accountable for their actions, unafraid to talk to them when they do something I know could harm them or someone else. And it was my role as a father that I credit the most for my transformation. It made me constantly question the path I was on, as it was certain to separate me from my sons by either death or imprisonment, as it did for many people I’ve known.
Once I took those first steps away from the movement and towards my children, each successive stride became easier. I took great pleasure in experiencing new things with my sons and not being concerned with the unjust barriers of race and prejudice that might have clouded those special moments. It evoked a tremendous amount of emotion in me to think about anyone hurting my children—or anyone else’s for that matter—because they might be “different.” And I paid close attention to those powerful feelings, envisioning the pain other parents of sons and daughters who I’d hurt along my journey might have felt.
In 1996, during what were some of the earliest and darkest days of my depression and fear after I’d left the movement, I turned to recreational drugs and alcohol to relieve my pain. But they only made my feelings of worth feel even thinner. Knowing that my drug use and sudden detachment from society after I closed my store had begun to destroy me, I grabbed a lifeline and decided to revert to the only thing I knew how to do well—perform music. I put together a little-known punk band called Random55 to try to keep my mind from shutting down. This time the lyrics were about heartbreak and loss and not about prejudice and hatred. I was fortunate enough during my time with Random55 to meet one of the heroes of my youth—the venerated Joan Jett.
An acquaintance I’d met through my record store the following year was a concert promoter at a club across town. She called me one afternoon when she had a last-minute cancellation from one of the bands she’d booked to open for a major headliner that night. She asked if we could help her out and fill the slot. We were thrilled. Before I could ask who the band was that we’d be supporting, she hung up. We packed our gear and booked it to the club. When we arrived at the venue, we were ecstatic to learn that Random55 would be the opening act for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
Shrouded by the excitement of the night, inside I was battling a solitary depression that all but incapacitated me and constantly made me question whether my life was worth living. Shortly before the doors of the venue opened that evening, as Joan wrapped up her sound check before heading to her dressing room, she noticed me sitting quietly backstage. She must have sensed that I was hurting, because she approached and put her arm around me.
“I saw your sound check earlier,” she said. “You guys are good.”
“Thank you,” I replied. Suddenly becoming starstruck snapped me out of my funk.
“I think you have a bright future. What’s your name?”
“Christian. My name’s Christian Picciolini.” Though I think she probably meant my band’s name.
“Christian, I’m Joan.” I laughed as we shook hands. Of course I knew her name. She put her arm around my shoulder again. “Get up there and warm up the crowd for me.” I told her I would.
Backstage later that night, after her second encore, I mentioned to Joan that I had actually met her briefly once before when I was thirteen years old. It had been while she was filming the movie Light of Day with Michael J. Fox, which they’d partly shot in Blue Island.
“Thanks for making me feel old,” she joked. “Why were you so sad earlier? You guys played a great show to a sold-out crowd. You should be happy.”
I told her that I’d been going through a rough patch. “You know, relationships, work, that kind of stuff,” I replied.
“Well, cheer up. Things will only get better if you let them.” Her voice was kind and caring. “We’ve actually got a tour coming up in the winter. If you guys aren’t busy, I’d love it if you and the band would come along and be our support act for a few of those shows.”
To this day, those gigs remain some of the highlights of my life. And throughout that tour, Joan continued to shower me with empathy.
Her words and actions helped save my life. During those dark and confusing days, when I often contemplated whether it was worth living, it was her kindness that lifted my spirits when I needed it most.
All human beings have a need for compassion and possess the ability to give it. To empathize—or to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and allow yourself to understand the pain they feel are feeling, to humanize them—is the most important thing we can do. We all share the ability to laugh, to enjoy life, and to love. To process pain and loss and fear. Arbitrary things like skin color or sexuality have no effect on these and other wonderful human abilities.
I am far from perfect. I know I never will be perfect. I will stumble, I may even fall, but for the rest of my life, I will continue to pick myself up and strive to honor all people and try to be of service to that which will benefit mankind.
I am my father. My mother. My grandparents. My brother. My wife. My children. My friends. I am part of everyone I have ever met and they are part of me.
We are part of each other. Bound together by the fact that we are human beings. What becomes of the human race is everyone’s responsibility, and when one of us fails, we all do. When one of us refuses to be part of what is wrong with the world, the world becomes brighter for all of us.
I urge you to recognize that and to honor it in your actions and decisions.
Be part of the good in the world. Part of the ever-growing community that seeks fairness, justice, and compassion. We all have the ability to make good happen if we just try.
You are me, and I am you.
Peace to us all.