2017 documentary
2nd episode of the 7th series of Exposure
"
White Right: Meeting the Enemy
"
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Episode
no.
| Series 7
Episode 2
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Directed by
| Deeyah Khan
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Produced by
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- Deeyah Khan
- Andrew Smith
- Darin Prindle
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Featured music
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- Danny Farrant
- Nick Kingsley
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Cinematography by
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- Deeyah Khan
- Darin Prindle
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Editing by
| Melanie Quigley
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Original air date
| 11 December 2017
(
2017-12-11
)
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Running time
| 60 minutes
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"
White Right: Meeting the Enemy
" is a 2017 documentary that aired as an episode of British current affairs TV series
Exposure
. The documentary was directed by
Deeyah Khan
and produced by Deeyah's production company
Fuuse
.
[1]
Deeyah travels to the
United States
to meet with some of the country's most prominent
neo-Nazis
and
white supremacist
leaders to seek to understand the personal and political reasons behind the apparent resurgence of
far-right extremism
in America. She made the film after being interviewed on TV about multiculturalism for which she received many threats and hate speech on social media.
Carol Midgley, writing for
The Times
, wrote of the film: "Part
investigative journalist
, part almost
psychotherapist
, Khan uses hard and soft skills to discover what drives such hatred and forces people to face her, their so-called enemy".
[2]
Synopsis
[
edit
]
"White Right: Meeting the Enemy" sees Deeyah sitting down face-to-face with neo-Nazis and white nationalists after receiving
death threats
and racially-charged
hate mail
from the Far Right movement as a result of giving a
BBC TV
interview advocating diversity and
multiculturalism
.
[3]
[4]
In the film Deeyah tries to get behind the hatred and the violent ideology, to try to understand why people embrace far right extremism.
After covering a
Ku Klux Klan
rally in
Charlottesville, Virginia
, she received permission to meet with Jeff Schoep, the leader of the
National Socialist Movement
(NSM). Afterwards she receives permission to film the group at the
Unite the Right rally
in Charlottesville, where the group gets into an altercation with and are
pepper-sprayed
by
Antifa
counter-protestors
. After
the death of Heather Heyer
and President
Donald Trump
's
controversial remarks on the rally
, Schoep takes Deeyah to the
urban decay
in
Detroit
and explains that he moved the organization's headquarters to the city to take advantage of its
economic decline
for recruiting. Deeyah later tells Schoep about her experiences at
anti-racist
demonstrations during her childhood in
Norway
, and shows him both the BBC interview and the hate mail, causing Jeff to become visibly discomforted by the
racial slurs
in the emails.
Deeyah next travels to a
training camp
run by the NSM's director for
public relations
, Brian Culpepper, in rural
Tennessee
. After becoming well-acquainted with him, she asks Culpepper if he would follow through with his desire to
deport
all non-whites to create a
white ethnostate
if he would have to do it to her, and he demurs, then reluctantly says yes. She also visits
antisemitic
and
homophobic
skinhead
Ken Parker at his home in
Jacksonville, Florida
, where he is studying
political science
. Although Ken goes through with his plan to make antisemitic flyers and distribute them to
Jewish communities
and
synagogues
, he begins to visibly develop positive attitudes towards
Muslims
, partially due to Deeyah's friendliness. His girlfriend would email her two weeks after the meeting informing her that Ken was
expelled
from the
University of North Florida
for a threatening post of himself holding a rifle on a student
Facebook
account however. Deeyah also notes the rise of the
alt-right
in the United States, and meets
Richard B. Spencer
, who displays an openly
elitist
attitude, and
Jared Taylor
, who compares multiculturalism to
mental illness
and
HIV/AIDS
.
In
Milwaukee
, Deeyah meets with Arno Michaelis, a former skinhead and lead singer of the
white power rock
band Centurion, who expresses remorse for his violent actions. She also travels to
New York City
to meet with a former skinhead,
Frank Meeink
, who explains he was drawn to neo-Nazism due to his troubled youth with intense
physical abuse
from an
alcoholic
father, providing him a source to
psychologically project
his hatred. She also meets with Pardeep Singh Kaleka, a survivor of the
2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting
in
Oak Creek
, learning how he now works with Michaelis to dissuade youth from extremism. Culpepper also makes a
Skype
call to Deeyah announcing his intent to resign from the NSM partially because of his meeting with her.
Cast
[
edit
]
Accolades
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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Participants
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Attacks
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Related
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