Christian Picciolini Quotes
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We caught that individual and we proceeded to beat him brutally. And at one point when I was kicking him on the ground and his face was swollen, covered in blood, he opened his eyes and they connected with mine. that was the first time I felt empathy for one of my victims. And that was the last time I hurt anybody.
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He advised parents and teachers not to "attack or confront" those drawn into extreme, black-and-white thinking, but to "build a bridge of empathy" and listen - to try to understand the underlying pain, even if the ideology is abhorrent.
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It’s kind of the same thing you look for if your kid’s getting into drugs or getting into gangs
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Over the last 14 years I have actually helped over 100 people disengage from the same movement that I was a part of.
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I had already been a part of the punk-rock subculture, so I was already searching for something to express my anger.
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Over time, my customers and I would strike up conversations about music that led to deeper discussions, allowing me to humanise people that were once the objects of my hate. I began to develop empathy for them – and also received it at a time when I least deserved it, from those I least deserved it from. Once I began to connect with others that I once hated, I could no longer justify that hate.
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Music was the vehicle for propaganda
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The truth is, I never met or had a meaningful dialogue or engagement with anybody that I thought I hated. And when they took the step to try and reach me, the demonization of them that I had in my mind started to crack.
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Hatred is bred through ignorance. Fear is its father, and isolation its mother. Yet, we are born of empathy and so we hope to return.
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I'd traded my natural empathy for acceptance. I confused hate and intimidation with passion, fear with respect....When I reconnected with the empathy I had as a child and accepted compassion from others when I probably least deserved it, the hate disintegrated and my warped ideology stopped making sense.
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I felt a sort of energy flow through me that I had never felt before — as if I was a part of something greater than myself