July 16, 2001: Press Report: 12-Year-Old Helps Run White Supremacist Web Site for Children

A screenshot from ‘Stormfront for Kids,’ depicting the site’s logo and two Confederate-era flags. [Source: USA Today]USA Today reports on the participation of Derek Black, the 12-year-old son of Don Black, in his father’s Web activities. The elder Black operates Stormfront, the Internet’s first large-scale Web site promoting racial hatred and white supremacy (see March 1995). Black is proud of his son, telling a reporter that he “[c]ouldn’t ask for anything more.” He keeps a framed photo of Derek dressed in a Confederate soldier’s uniform above his desk in his home office. Derek runs the site’s children’s section, Stormfront for Kids, under his father’s supervision. The children’s pages feature puzzles, games, animated Confederate flags, audio files of white-pride songs, what USA Today calls “an inflammatory article about Martin Luther King Jr.,” and a personal statement from Derek asking visitors to stop sending him hate mail. “I get a lot of people who think I’m just a pawn in this horrible game of lies,” says Derek, who has been home-schooled since third grade by his mother, Chloe. “One person said: ‘Don’t listen to what your father says. Go turn on the Discovery Channel. Find out what the real world is like.’ Why would I turn on the TV to find out what the real world is like?” Stormfront for Kids is emblematic of the white supremacist movement’s outreach to younger potential members. Of the estimated 2,500 “hate” Web sites, 44 have sections designed for children, teens, and parents, according to Mark Weitzman of the Wiesenthal Center’s Task Force Against Hate. Though the number of sites may be small, USA Today reports that child psychologists and others monitoring their activity are alarmed about their reach and influence. “If you have a susceptible child who is angry and depressed, the sites could push a child toward certain behavior,” says psychiatrist Sirgay Sanger, director of New York City’s Early Care Center. “It’s the first step toward throwing a rock.” Weitzman says: “The number of people involved in these movements is not the only important factor. Sometimes when the numbers are low, members think the only way they can get their message across is through an act of domestic terrorism or extreme violence.” The most effective way that Stormfront and other groups such as the National Alliance (see 1970-1974) reach young people is through “skinhead” music, says Jordan Kessler, director of an Internet monitoring unit for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). “This is a language kids understand—a band of cool-looking young guys blasting out music.” One label, Resistance Records (see Late 1993 and Summer 1999), sold “close to $1 million” in merchandise last year, mostly online, according to Erich Gliebe, the leader of the National Alliance and the CEO of Resistance Records. That label sells items such as Nazi parade flags and a CD titled “War Songs of the 3rd Reich, Vol. 3.” Black says, “People say, ‘You’re teaching your son Satan.’” But, he says, “I think anyone who is critical of me for instilling in my son my world view has lost track of how a society should function.” [USA Today, 7/16/2001]