Understanding about why those needs rose to such an acute level in my life. “Do you now believe in a different explanation or In something that felt like it mattered and was part of something bigger.” Seemed like a threatening and brutal place for me. “Because I needed an explanation for why the world It had to do with why the ideology was seductive and felt “Most of my change in worldview,” she types, “had literally nothing toĭo with the ideology. (she’s given up on the idea of changing people’s minds via argument) and towardĮmotion. She steers their conversation away from doctrine Shannon Martinez does her deradicalization work at home on a phone. And it’s a means of connection with “actives” like Adrian, whom Martinez hopes she can help to heal. Her phone is a portal to her jumbled network of “formers,” academics, activists, law enforcement officers, policymakers, and amateur experts who are collectively working to counter the rise of far-right extremism. She is raising her seven children, ages 3 to 22, and a teenage stepson with autism.
She bartends about 30 hours a week, and her husband works at a restaurant. She alternates between her back patio-knees up, feet propped on the base of the deck table-and her front porch, where she reclines, legs crossed, in one of those low-to-the-ground camping-and-soccer-games chairs. She works without an office and smokes without an ash tray. Martinez, smoking an American Spirit, is unfazed. Then he asks her, “What convinced you that the Jew’s were right after all?” Birds are chirping, the sky is blue and the temperature is in the 70s. “As small aĬhance as it is, there is still a technical possibility I am misguided, and IĪdrian and Martinez talk about the findings of an earlier study she’d conducted on the online viewing habits of the far right that he’d also taken part in. Of a turncoat to talk to, that would be great,” Adrian replied. To talk to someone who used to hold similar beliefs. Speaking to the friend, also via Twitter, the friend asked Adrian if he’d like Real identity because of the sensitivity of the conversation) first started She was referred to Adrianīy a friend of hers who researches right-wing extremism. Martinez is a former neo-Nazi who now works toĭeradicalize people who are still in the movement. “Hello!!!!!” she responds as her 3-year-old son plays nearby. He hasĪlmost no followers, so he notices her within minutes. “follow” on the Twitter profile of a White nationalist named Adrian. Summer morning in Athens, Georgia, Shannon Foley Martinez sits barefoot on her back patio, still in her pajamas, and clicks