When he was an insecure teenager, Christian Picciolini was part of a group of violent, skinhead neo-Nazis. Fast forward to today, and Picciolini spends his days helping people disengage from hate and violent extremism through his nonprofit, Life After Hate.
In October 2017, Picciolini, author of the book Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead, sat down with Mother Jones senior editor and writer Wes Enzinna at the Uncharted Festival of Ideas in Berkeley to talk about his personal journey and what it takes to de-radicalize a hate-filled extremist.
Berkeleyside’s 26th episode of the Uncharted Berkeley podcast has just been released and it features that conversation. Each episode of the podcast is one of the conversations recorded at the Uncharted Berkeley Festival of Ideas which takes place every year in Berkeley, and is produced by Berkeleyside.
Berkeleyside will be releasing more conversations from the 2017 festival as podcasts over the coming weeks. Subscribe to the Uncharted Berkeley podcast, on iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts.
