Part
One. The Basic Human Needs, All of Which Are Absent in Frank Meeink
One.
Basic trust, the foundation of human development according to Erik Erikson,
which gives a child a sense of unconditional love so that he or she can explore
the world without a fear of condemnation.
Two.
To love and to be loved. Again, Meeink feels hated by his parents; he feels
like an inconvenience to everyone in his family.
Three.
Belonging. Meeink feels like a misfit, a loser; he belongs nowhere.
Four.
Distinction. Meeink has never found himself as he is lost in an abyss of
drinking and drugs. Languishing
with a sense of being a nobody, Meeink at 14 years of age becomes a skinhead
and on page 58 he writes: “I was fourteen, and I was a neo-Nazi skinhead. For
the first time in my life, I felt like I mattered.”
Part
Two. Having never learned how to love, Meeink is fated to follow misguided
paths to love, for which there are many, including:
1. Find love
by shopping, honing a shopping an addiction, and becoming in essence a consumer
philistine. This first misguided way of finding love is not Meeink’s problem,
but the does suffer from the rest that follow.
2. Become an automaton or conformist, one who finds
“love” by being molded by the herd, by the authority, by the clique. In
Meeink’s case, he conforms to the Skinhead Orthodoxy and becomes a proselytizer
for racism and all divers forms of crackpot theories.
3. Become a perennial child; become dependent on an adult
or authority figure to feel safe and provided for. The obedient child of skinhead
doctrine, Meeink becomes mired deeper and deeper in ignorance and
irrationality.
4. Become a power-monger: use your talents and brute
force to lord over others and become intoxicated by a sense of power. Meeink
becomes a sort of skinhead warlord celebrity; he even has his own TV show that
he pays for on local cable.
5. Become a vain narcissist. In an interview, Frank
Meeink confessed to being a narcissist, someone with “a big ego and low
self-esteem.”
6. Popularity is based on fashion and imitation. And Meeink does
this well. In his sick social circle, his uniform and theories are considered
admirable. In other circles, something is deemed cool or desirable in the
marketplace of fashion for a time and then it cycles out. Therefore, popularity
is like the stock market. What makes you popular today might make a nobody
tomorrow. A popular red-head actress from the 1980s is now homeless in
Torrance. I saw her at Penguins buying a frozen yogurt with pennies and she
spilled her frozen yogurt all over my shoes while I was buying mine. Where’s
all her friends now? In Meeink’s case, his popularity doesn’t last long. As
soon as he wants out of the skinhead movement, his “friends” try to beat and
kill him.
7. Become an addict and seek oblivion to escape the
unbearable separateness and alienation that results from not being able to
love. Meeink’s drug addiction is so bad that by the time we get to the book’s
end, we still see him struggling with it.
Part
Three. The Foundation of Meeink’s Conversion to Skinhead: Nihilism and the
Death of Meaning
1. Frank is rejected by his parents who care about drugs
more than they care about him.
2. Frank’s father, divorced from his mother, cynically
and recklessly tells his son Frank that Frank’s mother will choose her new
boyfriend over Frank and his father turns out to be right, so in essence Frank
is rejected a second time.
3. Frank has sublimated rage, anger so deep he doesn’t
know what to do with it and not seeing his rage with crystal clear vision, the
rage goes into two different directions: inward killing him and outward in his
false ideology of Nazism.
4. Frank is desperate to be loved and to enjoy a sense of
belonging even if it means being cradled in the brutish arms of Nazi Skinheads
and its “Identity Theology” (see page 54).
5. Frank is desperate to find an easy to answer to the
misery, rejection, and worthlessness that he feels and rather than tackle the
realistic complexities behind his rage and general sense of depression he looks
to a fantasy: a scapegoat (blaming innocent targets) and racist ideologies
always fixate on scapegoats.
6. Being “called into God’s army [of racist degenerates]”
gives Meeink a sense of mission and purpose that he never had before. See page
54.
7. To feel unified, Meeink and his fellow racist cohorts
must rally against a common enemy, ZOG.
8. Sadly, we learn that thousands of young men, treated
like rubbish from their parents, look for answers to explain their situation as
marginalized unloved throwaways and they find these wrong pseudo answers in
these racist ideologies.
9. Nihilism, the belief that life has no value or
meaning, is so painful and creates a void so unbearable that gullible misguided
youth will glom onto the most odious hate-filled ideology just to wipe away
their nihilism.
10.
The “believers” tend to
come from similar backgrounds, hated or ignored by parents, and they are able
to share a similar vein of rage and create a sense of togetherness and unity.
No longer do they feel alone.
Part
Four. The Ideology Must Fulfill Basic Needs for the Throwaways of Society
1. The hate ideology must contain an easy-to-follow
narrative about the “pure” race becoming “contaminated” by the impurities of
other races.
2. There must be specific groups that are hated in order
to serve as scapegoats.
3. There must be members of “your tribe” who compromise
their behavior by not adhering to racist ideology and as such are “traitors.”
4. There must be clear rites of passages to be initiated
into the group. Cut your hair, wear a uniform, join a violent wilding spree,
etc., to prove your “street creds.”
5. You must possess doctrine or teachings that present an
alternative “true” teaching to the “propaganda that mainstream society teaches
you.”
6. The hate group must serve as a surrogate family and
provide parental figures as replacements for the ones you never had.
7. There has to be a chain of command so that everyone
knows their place and can aspire to ascend the ranks.
8. There has to be a radical lifestyle change so that you
can see your behavior as righteous and healthy, in contrast with the
contaminated behavior of The Other.
9. There has to be a renunciation of past ties to family
and friends as you become reborn in the new hate group.
10.
There must be constant
proof of one’s fidelity, loyalty, and allegiance to the group often evidenced
by crimes, killings, or any errand given by your superiors.
Part
Five. Essay Options
Option #1: In a 5-page research paper, analyze the conditions
that made Frank Meeink ripe for racist brainwashing and the forces that
unshackled him from the chains of his racist ideology.
Option #2: In a 5-page research paper, analyze Frank Meeink's descent into the Skinhead movement in terms of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom." How, in other words, is Meeink's conversion an escape from freedom?
Option #3: In
a 5-page research paper, compare the Fall and Redemption of Frank Meeink
and
Jeff Henderson.
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