In what was close to a real life iteration of Dave Chapelle’s ‘black white supremacist’ character, Theo Wilson — an African-American poet and actor — created an alt-right personality online to understand the more sinister parts of the internet.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Wilson explains that, out of curiosity to understand those who hate him, he created an online persona named “Lucious25” and spent eight months navigating through racist media sites, comment sections, and message boards.

To successfully do this, Wilson said he had to disassociate himself “as a black person,” which allowed the experiment to turn into “a character study” of white supremacist ideology.

One of the more shocking things Wilson discovered from embedding himself into the alt-right was their belief that African-Americans “are not fully human,” as he asserted many in the white supremacist movement believe black people are a different species than whites — a species that is “lagging in terms of evolution.”

However, Wilson did claim the alt-right has “a fair point” in their categorization of tolerant progressives as “quite hateful to those who honestly hold conservative views.” In the same vein, he also added that not all in the alt-right are irredeemable or disposable.

While Wilson found himself becoming more compassionate toward the alt-right, he did not leave the social experiment hopeful on the issue of race, as he cited the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia as a sign that a “whole new generation of white guys” are turning to racism.

Watch Wison’s TEDx talk on his experience above.

[image via screengrab]

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