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From the time I was 17 until I was was 24, I was a substantial part of the white racialist movement. I was a founding member of what went on to become the largest white power skinhead organization on Earth, a Reverend of a self-declared Racial Holy War, and lead singer of the race-metal band Centurion, selling over 20,000 CDs of the most violent, hateful music ever made around the world. There is blood from innocent people on my hands that will never wash off. There are kids today who listen to my voice bellowing my lyrics as they're getting drunk and geared-up to go out and hurt people. There are mothers that will forever mourn their dead sons because of my actions.

After 7 years of involvement, the combination of single parenthood and higher education finally instilled enough doubt in the racist dogma that I had vehemently promoted for so long to allow sight beyond the narrow view I clung to. There was one particular afternoon that marked my epiphany:

I arrived early to pick my daughter up from daycare. No one had noticed me, so I took in the moment, watching with teared eyes as my little girl played with the other children. It struck me that the first thing I noticed was that they were all children; not black children, or white children, but the sons and daughters of mothers and fathers. I thought of all the people I had hurt, whether with my own hands or by lighting some psychopath's fuse. Those people had moms and dads and brothers and sisters. How did their loved ones feel when they saw this person who was so special to them battered and broken? How horrible would it be to have my daughter exposed to such violence in the slightest aspect? Love for my child thawed a dormant empathy for people that I was never aware of.

I have changed drastically over the years since then, becoming a person who loves Yoga and Peace Studies classes. A person who will always treasure the joyful hug shared with an old black man amidst a celebrating and wonderfully diverse crowd when Barack Obama became President of the United States. A person who ultimately realized that basic human needs -air, water, food, hope, and love -transcend race. I didn't become this person with the intention of simply being the antithesis of what I was. It happened very organically once I became too exhausted to maintain the lies necessary to be a racist.

In 2007, along with my close friend and fellow ex-skinhead Pat O'Malley, I began writing a memoir that explores how we became such monsters in the first place, and how we came to grow out of it and feel the pain of every person we hurt. Pat and I are very fortunate to have a sizable number of dear friends who made the transformation from hate to hope with us. Talking to Pat and other former racists, and hearing their stories about when they realized how wrong we were has been just as inspirational as opening myself to people and cultures I once despised and truly enjoying everything I have to learn from them.