Former neo-Nazi speaks on hate crime awareness

  PRIYA SHARMA/Daily Bruin Former white supremacist
T.J. Leyden discussed his involvement in the White
Power movement on Tuesday in Ackerman Union.

By Sarah Lazur
Daily Bruin Contributor

Former white supremacist Thomas “T.J.” Leyden spoke
before an estimated 100 students and faculty Tuesday, depicting his
experiences with the White Power movement.

“It was really scary to hear that it is still a very
prominent and effective movement in the U.S.,” said Kim
Klitofsky, a first-year student. “At the same time it makes
you feel good to know that if he can turn his life around, then
maybe other people can.”

Organized by the Jewish Student Union to promote hate crime
awareness, the presentation was timely because of the vandalism and
racially-motivated assaults last year, said JSU President Alan
Tsarovsky.

“His speech definitely had a place here on campus to be
heard,” Surofsky said.

A Redlands native, Leyden is a former Marine who spent most of
his adult life recruiting white supremacists. He left the neo-Nazi
movement five years ago and has been giving presentations since to
law enforcement officers, teachers and students through the Simon
Wiesenthal Center and Museum of Tolerance.

“Every talk I give is different,” Leyden
said. “Law enforcement gets what I call my X-rated
version, colleges and teachers get my R-rated version, junior highs
and high schools get my PG-rated version,” he said.

Leyden was first initiated into the neo-Nazis in 1978 by local
skinheads who approached him at punk shows after noticing his
violent tendencies.

“They saw something in me that I saw later on in other
kids ““ vulnerability,” he said. “It was just
the right time, the right place.”

The skinheads Leyden associated with thrived on spreading their
violent hatred.

“The neo-Nazis had a very easy philosophy:
“˜Let’s go beat (up) everybody who isn’t white and
sooner or later they’re going to hate as much as we
do.'”

To illustrate the extreme violence commonplace in his group,
Leyden described one attack he made at a party.

“They took the kid to the hospital, they wired his jaw
shut and once the swelling went down to the point where the kid
could talk, they started asking him questions. That kid to this day
has never told the cops what happened,” he said.

Leyden spent a few years in and out of the San Bernardino county
jail before joining the Marine Corps, bringing his hatred and
racism with him. He kept up correspondence with White Power
movement leaders, including doctors and pastors, and used existing
racial tensions in the military to recruit neo-Nazis.

“My role in the Marines was simple,” Leyden said.
“Break up the morale of the U.S. military at all costs so we
could recruit soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen into our branch
of the service for the future war to overthrow the United States
government.”

Leyden attributes his effectiveness as recruiter to the time he
spent in the Marines, during which his commanders ignored his Nazi
tattoos and paraphernalia because of a “don’t ask,
don’t tell” attitude.

“The military made me a better racist,” he
said. “It taught me the organizational skills,
leadership ability and recruitment techniques I used to actively
target kids 12 years old and older to join the movement.”

After his children were born, Leyden changed his mind about the
movement, fearing his sons would be stabbed and shot at if they
followed his footsteps.

His mother convinced him to undergo therapy and to become
involved in outreach programs at the Museum of Tolerance.

Leyden said the perpetuation of neo-Nazism among youth is due to
the abundance of hate-filled music, comic books and Web sites.

He currently has his name mentioned on several White Power Web
sites as a “traitor to his race,” with instructions to
“terminate on sight.”