Like you, I have a very heavy heart today. <br /><br />I watched with horror as the news came out about yesterday\'s <a href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/06/us-usa-wisconsin-shooting-idUSBRE8740FP20120806\" target=\"_blank\">mass shooting</a> at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek.<br /><br />Good people died. Good people lost their loved ones. Good people are now survivors of a horrific crime. <br /><br />It doesn\'t make sense at all. It shouldn\'t have happened.<br /><br />Still, investigators have to piece together how the shooter, Wade Michael Page, committed this crime and why.<br /><br />From what we know at this moment, it appears that Page was a white-power bigot. According to the <a href=\"http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/alleged-sikh-temple-shooter-former-member-of-skinhead-band\" target=\"_blank\">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>, Page was in End Apathy and Definite Hate, bands that preached hate and violence. He attended white power concerts around the country. And he had connections to the National Alliance that go back a decade.<br /><br />When it was reported yesterday that law enforcement were interested in one of Page\'s tattoos, I pretty much knew that he was connected to white-power hate.<br /><br />At this morning\'s press briefing, FBI Special Agent Teresa Carlson said that Page wasn\'t on anybody\'s radar.<br /><br />“Nobody knew he was a threat,” Carlson said.<br /><br />I wonder if the FBI or other local law enforcement are now combing the footage of last fall\'s <a href=\"/article-15967-nazis-set-to-converge-on-west-allis.html\" target=\"_blank\">neo-Nazi rally in West Allis</a> to see if they can find Page.<br /><br />That rally was horrific. Drunken idiots with a tenuous grasp on history (or reality) gathered at the West Allis City Hall and spewed ignorant, horrible stuff at the counter-protesters. What struck me was the sight of so many neo-Nazis who could just fit into any rough crowd. If you saw them without a swastika or other paraphernalia you\'d just think, whoa, that dude is nasty. But you wouldn\'t necessarily identify that dude as a Nazi, unless you\'re trained to look for that sort of thing.<br /><br />Apparently, Wade Page, who lived in North Carolina and Colorado until recently, was able to blend in to his Cudahy neighborhood. It doesn\'t seem like he was close to anyone, but it doesn\'t seem like he went out of his way to preach his bigotry to anyone who would listen.<br /><br />It\'s up to the investigators to figure out whether he was connected to other white-power groups or if he acted alone.<br /><br />So why did he do it?<br /><br />It may be tough for investigators to figure that out, since it doesn\'t seem like many folks knew him.<br /><br />I called <a href=\"/article-9811-milwaukee-manrss-lslife-after-haters.html\" target=\"_blank\">Arno Michaels</a>, a thoroughly good guy. But back in the day, Michaels was a white-power bigot who played in bands that spewed hate.<br /><br />Fortunately, Michaels changed his ways and changed his heart. He\'s now the head of <a href=\"http://lifeafterhate.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Life After Hate</a>, a peace organization that teaches tolerance and understanding among those who don\'t seem to have a lot in commonon the surface at least.<br /><br />Michaels said he was absolutely shattered by what happened yesterday. <br /><br />“First and foremost I\'m deeply saddened for those who lost their lives and for everyone who is left in the wake of that,” Michaels said. “It\'s just a horrible thing.”<br /><br />He said he doesn\'t monitor hate groups anymore and prefers to focus on positive, productive activities. So he didn\'t recognize Page or the name of his bands, or whether Page was involved in any local hate groups. <br /><br />But Michaels was able to shed light on the psychology of white supremacists.<br /><br />“It\'s very important to understand that people who are swept up in hate groups are miserable,” Michaels said. “It\'s a horrible, horrible way to live. Anytime that you have an attachment to a fundamentalist ideology, whether it is a white power ideology or whether it is a fundamentalist right-wing ideology or a fundamentalist left-wing ideology or a fundamentalist religious ideology, everything in the world around you is constantly at odds with this ideology that you have staked this very identity on. <br /><br />“On a day-to-day basis, the world is challenging and intimidating what you hold dear. So everything that happens is a threat to you. When this guy was going to work every day, every black person was a threat to him. If he ever turned on the TV, every second of TV he saw was a Jewish conspiracy. <br /><br />“Imagine living like that, where you\'re terrified all day, every day. And that\'s what led me to commit violence when I was thinking like that. Obviously, different people can react even more poorly by going to the level that this man did yesterday,” Michaels said. <br /><br />Michaels was able to get out of that mindset during the 1990s, when he began realizing that people who aren\'t exactly like him are good, decent people. He also didn\'t want his daughter to grow up in a world fueled by hate. <br /><br />But he said that a good chunk of the folks still stuck in the white power movement are probably cheering Page\'s crimes, as sick as that is, even if in public they try to denounce violence. <br /><br />Michaels, obviously, condemns that sort of thinking, saying that Page\'s crime is nothing short of horrific and should not be admired. <br /><br />Instead, Michaels is asking concerned individuals to honor the people who lost their lives on Sunday by honoring the principles of the Sikh faiththe principles of peace and tolerance and compassion.<br /><br />“It\'s something that we can take away from this kind of tragedy, to put ourselves in the position of these people who have lost family and people who are close to them,” Michaels said. “To think about how we would feel if that had happened to us. And going forward, to use that as motivation to open ourselves up to people who may seem different than what we are used to and accept them as human beings and practice kindness and compassion for everyone on an unconditional and daily basis. <br /><br />“That\'s really the utmost that anyone can do in response to thisto make the world immediately around them a nicer place by simply being loving to the world around them…. We can honor the people whose lives were lost by being kinder and more appreciative of everyone in our great human family going forward.”<br /><br />Michaels said more tolerance could reduce the isolation and polarization that likely led Page to get involved in white power and commit these crimes.<br /><br />“One of the things that changed the course of my life, when I was where this man was, was people who I wanted to hate showing me kindness,” Michaels said. “That happened over and over again. And the more it happened, the harder it became for me to go and disconnect from my humanity and from theirs in order to hurt people. I don\'t think it\'s a stretch to say that the right act of kindness at the right time could have given this man enough pause to not do what he did yesterday. That\'s speculative, of course, and unfortunately that\'s all that we can do in this case. But how many other potential shooters are out there like this? Or potential shooters like the guy who shot up the Batman movie? The people who do this are suffering. They\'re in horrible misery. And anyone reaching out to them with a simple smile or holding the door for them as they go into the grocery store, or letting them into a lane of trafficsomething that simple could honestly change the course of all sorts of people\'s lives. We should be very happy that that capacity is there. And we should appreciate it and practice it as often as we can.”<br /><br /><em><br /><a href=\"http://www.occumc.org/\" target=\"_blank\">The Oak Creek Community United Methodist Church</a> is hosting a prayer vigil tonight, Monday, Aug. 6, at 7:30, to support the Sikh Temple\'s victims and their families. The church is located at 8675 S. 13th Street, at the corner of 13th and Puetz Road.</em><br /><br />PHOTO: Wade Michael Page in a photo released by the Oak Creek police.<br /><br /><br />
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