Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead: The Frank Meeink Story as Told to Jody M. Roy, Ph.D. - Softcover

Meeink, Frank; Roy, Jody M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 097901882X ISBN 13: 9780979018824

Publisher: Hawthorne Books, 2010

Synopsis

Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead is Frank Meeink’s raw telling of his descent into America’s Nazi underground and his ultimate triumph over drugs and hatred. Frank’s violent childhood in South Philadelphia primed him to hate, while addiction made him easy prey for a small group of skinhead gang recruiters. By 16 he had become one of the most notorious skinhead gang leaders on the East Coast and by 18 he was doing hard time. Teamed up with African-American players in a prison football league, Frank learned to question his hatred, and after being paroled he defected from the white supremacy movement and began speaking on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League. A story of fighting the demons of hatred and addiction, Frank's downfall and ultimate redemption has the power to open hearts and change lives.

About this title

About the Authors

Frank Meeink became a skinhead at thirteen. By eighteen, he was roaming the country as a skinhead leader and Neo-Nazi recruiter with gangs that would beat people indiscriminately. In Illinois he had his own cable-access TV show, “The Reich.” He was finally arrested and convicted of kidnapping and beating a member of a rival skinhead gang. While in prison he befriended men he used to think he hated, men of different races. After being released from prison, Mr. Meeink tried to rejoin his old skinhead pals, but couldn’t bring himself to hate those whom he now knew to be his friends. He now regularly lectures to students about racial diversity and acceptance, author and founder of Harmony Through Hockey, Mr. Meeink’s life stands for tolerance, diversity, and mutual understanding in racial, political, and all aspects of society.

Jody M. Roy, PhD, has been studying hatred within American culture, including hate groups and hate gangs, for the past twenty years. In addition to her work as Professor of Communication and Assistant Dean of Faculty at Ripon College, Jody serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Students Against Violence Everywhere. Her publications include Love to Hate: America’s Obsession with Hatred and Violence (Columbia University Press, 2002).

Reviews

Starred Review. In this profound memoir, reformed skinhead Meeink, with assistance from academic and activist Roy (Love to Hate: America's Obsession with Hatred and Violence), recounts his former life as a Neo-Nazi. Told with passion and clarity, Meeink's story begins with neglectful parents and an abusive, junkie stepfather, who sowed the anger and hatred that would make him a prime candidate for the Neo-Nazi movement that exploded in Philadelphia through the late 1980s and '90s. Before long, Meeink's mutual embrace with the National Alliance led him to his own gang of recruits and a (largely random) "holy war" that would end up haunting him: "How many of my victims had wished for death while I brutalized them?" In federal prison at age 17, surrounded by cons of all races and creeds, Meeink first began to question what he'd been taught about the "elite" Aryan race; the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing would complete his transformation, leading him to seek out the feds for confession. A brutal tour of modern American racism at its worst, a case study of traumatized youth and drug addiction, and a stark reminder of the human capacity for redemption, Meeink and Roy's account is a shocking but ultimately reaffirming read.

Here’s a memoir guaranteed to generate a high amount of interest (and probably controversy). Before he was out of his teens, Meeink, a member of a group of white supremacists, was behind prison bars. But by the time he was released on parole, he was a changed man, having cast off his hatred; he became a public speaker, sharing his experiences, helping others to understand the nature of hatred and to find ways to combat it. Stories of personal redemption don’t get much more interesting than this one, and the gritty first-person narrative (in the episodic format associated with “as told to” autobiographies) draws the reader into Meeink’s story, giving it an immediacy and a visceral intensity that makes us feel as though we’ve lived a bit of his life. Readers should be warned that the book is unflinchingly straightforward: some of the language is quite raw, and some of the imagery quite graphic. But there’s absolutely no point in telling this story if you’re going to whitewash it first. --David Pitt

Edition details

• Publisher: Hawthorne Books
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 097901882X
• ISBN 13: 9780979018824
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 316