On Growing Up Surrounded by Racism

My dad came back to Ohio with me after the trial. The Klan didn’t have his back when everything went down—they had no ability to finance any lawyers, they basically just ran for cover. So he distanced himself from them completely. He was still racist and full of hate when he got out though.

I grew up hearing every racist slur you could think of. My dad worked down in Cleveland as a food distributor. He was always so bitter about it. Looking back, it’s hard to say if he was just a hateful person in general. Growing up, he’d always tell my sisters things like “Better not bring a black boyfriend home!” You know, all that stuff white men probably tell their daughters.

So I was aware of racism from a young age. I mean, you hear racist stuff all the time out here in the country. When I was entering high school I became friends with a much older crowd, I remember encountering other races and my friends going up yelling something at them, or driving by and screaming the n-word out the window or throwing something.

When I’d hear that stuff…it was ear-piercing. You know that it’s not right. It rattled me. I never felt like I had the right to say things like that.

On Developing Friendships in Military Prison

Because of my dad being racist and pushing me away from black culture, as I got older, I really tried to go out of my way to get to know different people. I was definitely a rebellious kid. I grew to hate my father at a point. Lost all respect for him and challenged him on everything.

My dad was violent and explosive and eventually I was too—to the point where my temper and strength was superior to his. Our fights were dominated by me at 16 years old. I really think this was the catalyst that broke him. No one ever defeated or challenged him. He had money and an explosive temper that he always won by either power or fear. At 16 you have no sense of money, so for me that meant nothing.

My father lived a privileged life. I did not. So my struggles and hate were genuine. His were artificial. He chose his. He also chose to instill them in me. I don’t think he ever thought I would have rebelled and become so uncontrollable that I would eventually direct all my hate toward him. I blamed him for mother’s death. I blamed him for the stepmother I hated. I blamed him for me not having the things other kids had. I hated him for everything I could.

I joined the military when I was 18. I wanted to escape my life and see the world. I only seen a small amount of it because not long after I entered I ended up in prison. I stole some weapons with a buddy of mine and they put the entire military base on lockdown. This was post-9/11 so they were not playing around. I got sentenced to a year in military prison. I was the youngest kid in there, skinny white kid, maybe weighed 130lbs.

People warned me to stay away from blacks and Puerto Rican’s. I didn’t even make eye contact with them the first week. The truth to that is prison gangs prey on the weak. I had no bad intentions and I was not there to start trouble so I was generally accepted by everyone. I actually got to meet some cool people in there. There was this black dude that was the same size and build as me, we worked out together and ate together every day. We were really good friends. We were so alike it was strange to me. I think I was still perplexed that he was black and I was white so I would ask him a lot of questions in the beginning. He said something to me that still echoes through me to this day. He said “One day you won’t even see that I’m black.” He was right.

I think a lot of people are too scared to put themselves around certain people. It’s obviously comfortable to only be around people of your own race. But I believe in growth and going out of your comfort zone. I purposely set out to establish those relationships—not just with black people but all different races— because I did have racist thoughts at times and I never wanted to be racist. I struggled with that. Ignorance. Education is the cure for racism.

The same thing happened to my dad. Over time he developed relationships with all the different people he worked with in Cleveland. And as he got older all that hate and negativity just started to dissipate. He actually became friends with all different ethnicities. It's funny now because if my little sister brought home a black boyfriend my dad wouldn’t even care. He’d be like, “Yup, I’ve come a long way.” I’m sure he’d have his moments but I think at this point in his life he’d welcome it more than anything. Almost as if to add to the complexity of his legacy.