interview

Daryl, you are a black man. How on earth did you first start making friends with members of the KKK?

Wow

I've gotta say I frequent some drinking establishments from time to time and I've been noticing at the bar and if someone sat next to me and I'm a woman of color, and pulled out their KKK membership, my reaction might be to get the hell out of there. 

Ok. So, I mean, it sounds like the start of a terrible joke. Black guy sitting at the bar, and KKK guy sits and comes in and sits down next to him. What happens next?

So, that first encounter in a bar happened decades ago, it…

Can I call that you got hooked? Since then, as you say, you've made your personal project to be friend members with the KKK, to sit with them, to talk with them. help me, I mean, how the heck does a conversation like that go? Like, what is your opening line?

Really? What kind of music do you like?

So, you find that common ground, and, as you say, sometimes, it's one of the natural ones is music. How does that then turn into a deeper conversation about racism and hatred, and hatred of you?

And what do people say? I know you have got a lot of responses.

You ever hear, like, you are naturally violent? Cause who you are

Black people are violent? Common thing you are from white supremacists?

Laugh

Daryl Davis has had hundreds of conversations like that with Klan members and he guesses about two hundred people have ended up leaving the KKK as a result. People like this guy.

So Scott was deeply embedded in the Klan. He focused on recruitment by targeting kids from troubled homes. He was buddies with Dave Duke, the Klan leader at the time, officially known as Glend Wizard. And it was around then, sometime in the 1980s, when Scott first saw Daryl on TV.

After that second time Scott saw Daryl on TV, just under a decade ago, Scott decided to reach out to him. They ended up talking on the phone, just chatting about, well, at first, music, and then the KKK. 

What was it for you, Scott, that actually cut through the hate for you, was there one moment or something that Daryl said where clicked?

Daryl, tell me this, what is all this? All these conversations taught you about hate?

What do you mean?

You are talking about Charlottesville?

Daryl, the kind of hate you're talking about. It goes so deep. It is intergenerational, it is within families, it is organized, this isn't just a mistake in beliefs that can be corrected. It is a world view. So, how do you cut through hate that is so ingrained like that?

Scott, after you met Daryl, what did you do with your KKK robe?

The style of the interview is quiet relaxing. The interview began with a brief introduction of the interviewee, and this kind of introduction was embedded during the interview. The first question is quite formal and in order to let the interviewee to elaborate his story, so that the interviewer could ask following questions based on the first answer. One important thing is that the interviewer is also a black person, so she has the same feeling with the interviewee. The mood and reaction of the interviewer are quite important too, it will affect the interviewee’s emotion. This interviewer has great communication skill, cause she always gave the appropriate reaction to the interviewee, which could make him feel relaxed.