The April 2008 issue of Alternative Press magazine, which hit the streets on March 7, 2008 featured an Op/Ed piece written by me. After many years of leaving behind a life I no longer associate with, I felt it was necessary to make it known to all what my past entailed, how it affected me, and how proud I am of the man I am today.

My hope was that this piece will give any young people struggling with a similar situation a real-life example they might identify with and decide to make a change in their own lives.

Alternative Press
Op/Ed Piece – April 2008 issue
By Christian Picciolini

At eighteen, I stood on stage in a cathedral in Germany, cries of “Heil Hitler!” blocking out the roar of 3,000 European skinheads shouting my bands’ name, “Final Solution! Final Solution!”

At that very moment, I was responsible for the electricity in the air, the adrenalin in veins, the sweat pouring down the shaved heads.

Absolute devotion to white power pulsated through the crowd on that foggy March day in 1993. I imagined this is how Hitler had felt when he led the Germans on his mission for a pure race. He was dead—persecuted and misunderstood as far as I was concerned—but I was more than ready to step in and undertake his mission.

Laws favoring blacks were taking white jobs and we were overburdened with taxes used to support welfare. Neighborhoods of law-abiding, hard-working white families were being overrun with minority gangs and their drugs. Gays—a threat to the very propagation of our species—were demanding special rights. Our women were being conned into relationships by minorities. Clearly the white race was in peril.

Or so I believed. What began as an affinity with punk music had grown to encompass the hate lyrics and messages of white power oi! music.

The truth was that my parents never lost jobs to any minorities. I didn’t even have a job, so I surely wasn’t supporting anybody on welfare. I’d never been the victim of racial bias, although I’d certainly perpetuated hate violence myself. Nevertheless, I pushed the punk rock subculture to the limits and embraced the racist skinhead mentality, and soon was so heavily indoctrinated into a world of hate that it blinded me.

I was convinced that being a soldier meant hating the enemy, battling anyone unlike us at any given moment, and spreading the seeds of hatred throughout the white community. A natural leader myself, it wasn’t long before I was also relaying the vicious messages to anyone who would listen.

And that message brought me to Weimar, Germany, when I was 18. The band I sang for, Final Solution, was one of a half dozen white power bands that performed at this worldwide skinhead concert. In fact, my band was the first ever American white power skinhead band to play anywhere in all of Europe.

On that day, swastika flags littered the old German cathedral. They glistened on skin, covered clothes, hung on backpacks.

I was up there on stage to make sure nobody forgot why we were gathered there. Never mind that I was just a teeneager from a lower middle class Chicago suburb. I was one of the powerful voices here and I had no doubt that the conviction of my words would have a lasting effect.

What power.

What ignorance.

Sometimes when I look back on that trip I can barely breathe. How could I have been so misguided? So insensitive to the horrors that had been perpetrated? So unfeeling about innocent people butchered? All in the name of racism and hate and blind faith?

Some of my ignorant behavior was nothing more than the natural rebellious nature of a teenager looking for a way to be heard. I looked around me and saw people like my parents working hard and not really enjoying life. I didn’t want that to be me some day.

I also didn’t want to be ordinary. I was sure I was destined for something greater. I wanted power and recognition. I wanted something that made me feel my hot blood coursing through my veins.

Music had that effect. And through white power music I met people who I thought cared about me, who I thought were like me. I liked being an outcast, flaunting authority. I was no longer a kid without much of a future. Instead, I was a soldier leading others on a mission.

I confused hate and intimidation with passion, fear with respect.

My involvement lasted far too long, and while it’s difficult to pinpoint one specific event that made me question my beliefs, in time I realized that what the world really needed was people who could actually care for one another despite their differences. While attending DePaul University I was part of a United Nations conference focused on the Millennium Development Goals. I saw how much work there was to be done to make life fair for people of all races, religious beliefs, genders, and sexual preferences. I learned about the horribly common exploitation of women and children, hunger, AIDS, the ravages of poverty.

The more I learned, the less personal power mattered. Instead, what became clear to me was the importance of helping others. So I left my hate and racist music in the dust and made a video devoted to the Millennium Development Goals (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRx12QUv54) to try to inspire others to help correct some of the real problems facing the world. Now all that mattered was reaching people with the message to help.

While I am still very active in the music industry, I would never again consider working with anyone that spews hatred or prejudice. I simply will not tolerate it and neither should you.

One thing that allowed me to feel such hate in my past was that I refused to see the humanity in others, so I challenge you to take that step. Find a cause you believe in—the environment, gender equality, anti-racism—and do something to make a difference. Organize a benefit concert, design and sell t-shirts promoting a cause, support positive change in the world.

Make music. But let the song you sing be one that embraces, not disgraces, humanity.

—–

Christian Picciolini is an entrepreneur, artist, writer, father, and husband living in Chicago, Illinois USA. More examples of his work and writings can be found at www.christianpicciolini.com.

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