20
White American Youth:
My Descent Into
America’s Most Violent
Hate Movement—And
How I Got Out
By Christian Picciolini
Hatchette Book Group, 2017. ISBN-10: 9780316522908 ISBN-
13: 978-0316522908 (paperback). $12.68 (Amazon.com Kindle,
$11.99). 304 pages.
Reviewed by Doug Duncan
In his plenary speech at the recent annual ICSA conference in
Philadelphia, Rod Dubrow-Marshall spoke of how somebody
who is in a cult is subjected to a process of coercive control
in a way that is similar to people in other situations such as,
for example, people who are victims of domestic violence.
Others have made similar points, drawing the connection
between cults and terrorist groups, and people who are
in gangs and fringe political movements. White American
Youth..., by Christian Picciolini (pronounced peach-o-lee-nee),
is a good example of somebody who was recruited into and
participated in a group that will feel very familiar to those of
us who study cults.
Picciolini starts off with a good description of why he was
vulnerable to recruitment into a gang. As a lonely teenager
with first-generation immigrant parents who were extremely
busy working to try to gain an economic foothold in their new
country, Christian was subject to the appeal of a determined
persuader. A young man who was just a few years older than
Christian took an interest in him and began the process of
bringing him into a movement—the neo-Nazi skinheads—
that would serve as his surrogate family for the next several
years. The description of how he was drawn into something
he had not even heard of before he encountered his recruiter
is quite well done. Indeed, it is a good generic example of the
recruitment process that is applicable to both cults and other
ICSA TODAY
White American Youth:
My Descent Into
America’s Most Violent
Hate Movement—And
How I Got Out
By Christian Picciolini
Hatchette Book Group, 2017. ISBN-10: 9780316522908 ISBN-
13: 978-0316522908 (paperback). $12.68 (Amazon.com Kindle,
$11.99). 304 pages.
Reviewed by Doug Duncan
In his plenary speech at the recent annual ICSA conference in
Philadelphia, Rod Dubrow-Marshall spoke of how somebody
who is in a cult is subjected to a process of coercive control
in a way that is similar to people in other situations such as,
for example, people who are victims of domestic violence.
Others have made similar points, drawing the connection
between cults and terrorist groups, and people who are
in gangs and fringe political movements. White American
Youth..., by Christian Picciolini (pronounced peach-o-lee-nee),
is a good example of somebody who was recruited into and
participated in a group that will feel very familiar to those of
us who study cults.
Picciolini starts off with a good description of why he was
vulnerable to recruitment into a gang. As a lonely teenager
with first-generation immigrant parents who were extremely
busy working to try to gain an economic foothold in their new
country, Christian was subject to the appeal of a determined
persuader. A young man who was just a few years older than
Christian took an interest in him and began the process of
bringing him into a movement—the neo-Nazi skinheads—
that would serve as his surrogate family for the next several
years. The description of how he was drawn into something
he had not even heard of before he encountered his recruiter
is quite well done. Indeed, it is a good generic example of the
recruitment process that is applicable to both cults and other
ICSA TODAY
