Structured face-to-face accountability with a harmed individual catalyzes recovery from hate.

Evidence

Another former white supremacist described how someone who was working to deradicalize him took him to a café run by former gang members as part of his deradicalization process. While they were eating, he said: … I remember the girl that waited on us was a black girl and she was like my typical stereotype of what I pictured black gangbanger girls looked like… . And I remember she kept staring at me like she wanted something from me, but it was like an angry stare. And I couldn’t understand it. And I remember at first, I was really uncomfortable. And I remember [name] was like, “The first step to healing is to acknowledge how you’ve hurt other people. So I did you a favor, homie. I know that you would not be ready for that step yet so I went ahead and told her who you were. She knows you’re KKK, or trying to get out… . She’s well aware of you… . And she’s expecting you to come over there and talk to her like a human being.” … I remember, he was not taking no for an answer. He’s like, “Go talk to this girl. She’s on her break standing there waiting for you to talk to her.” And I was like, “Oh my god.” I was scared. For the first time, I was scared of what I didn’t understand. And I remember I walked up to her and I started to say, “Hi, I’m [name] …” And I started to bawl my eyeballs out. Like baby sob. And she grabbed me and she hugged me and she said, “It’s okay, man. It feels good to let it out.” And I was like, “I am so sorry.” And I just started—like, I’m getting emotional right now because that was a really important part of my recovery from hate, and [name] made that happen. — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America, 430

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Forcing a perpetrator to confront his victim’s humanity can dissolve hatred into compassion. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 665; Perceiving a victim’s shared humanity can break the disengagement that enabled violence — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2424; Accountability is responsive behavior, not merely answering to superiors (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Forcing a perpetrator to confront his victim’s humanity can dissolve hatred into compassion. #corroborates (0.92) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 665
• Perceiving a victim’s shared humanity can break the disengagement that enabled violence #corroborates (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2424