My enlightenment – or what it's been so far – started a few years after I got married. Things weren't working out and ultimately wouldn't, but I remember an afternoon when I got home from work and Philip DeFranco was on one of our Facebook feeds. I liked his news because he was an OG YouTuber and seemed to want to keep things pretty unbiased, most of the time. I respected him too because he was young but had already made such a huge name for himself.
Anyway, I think the video I saw was just one of the snapshots of a larger video, like those sixty second preview type things he does. It was talking about a book deal gone south, and I remember being fascinated because he showed the author's face and it looked so intelligent. I think I was 19. I heard that the publisher had backed out of the contract because they had decided the contents of the book were too controversial and they didn't want to appear to promote the ideas.
If you've been keeping up with things the past few years, especially the state of things in Europe, then you'll know I'm talking about Milo Yiannopolous and the book he wrote, “Dangerous,” which allegedly contained many controversial, “dangerous” topics.
At the time, I didn't have any more information than that, but I was really curious and conflicted; on one hand, of course the publishing company would be hesitant to publish anything that, in the view of the people, was repulsive or controversial. But on the other hand, it's not okay to break contract because of political views. Right?
That was the day I started to get curious. In the past, the term “White Supremacist” was never really used around me, because there weren't any where I lived, for the most part. There was no need to talk about them in school. So to hear people call this man a white supremacist was so surprising.
Initially, I only Googled him because I assumed it was true, and I wanted to know what actual reasons a white supremacist thought he had to believe the way he did. Kind of like Googling the flat earth society and reading and laughing and crying a little.
That one search started a whole new self-discovery for me.
***Disclaimer
Over the course of this blog I plan to reference, quote, and speak highly of plenty of people for various reasons and to various goals. This won't always mean I endorse their beliefs or support their aims. Usually, the people I reference will have been useful tools for me in broadening the scope of opinions I've heard, and not in shaping my actual opinions. For example, although my discovery of Milo and his interactions with members of the millennial generation was a huge eye-opener and led to my eventual intellectual independence, there are plenty of things he has said that I do not necessarily agree with.