Ex-skinhead recounts lifetime of intolerance

When T.J. Leyden was in the Marine Corps, he had a two-inch high Nazi "SS" tattoo on his neck, a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf by his bed and a swastika poster in his locker. Leyden, who has since renounced white supremacy and is now a leader in the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Task Force Against Hate, spoke before an audience of about 150 people in Logan Hall last night about his 15 years as a neo-Nazi. The talk, held in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, was co-sponsored by the Holocaust Education Committee and several other organizations, including the InterFraternity Council, the German Department and Connaissance. "The story I tell you is one I'm not proud of having to tell you," Leyden said to open the talk. Leyden began by speaking about his entrance into the neo-Nazi skinhead movement via the punk rock scene of the late 1970s. Since his southern California neighborhood was predominantly white, Leyden and his fellow skinheads focused their aggression mainly on other local whites. "Getting a black, Hispanic or Asian was like a bonus," he said. "They would not make it out of my neighborhood without being beaten up." After graduating from high school, Leyden joined the Marine Corps, which he said "made [him] a better racist" by teaching him organizational and recruitment skills. For instance, at the Enlisted Men's Club, he would write racist statements like "Kill whitey" on the bathroom walls and try to get the white Marines to accuse the black Marines of having written the slur, fostering racial tension and hatred. Interestingly, Leyden spoke about working with other Marines involved in the Black Power movement, who would write phrases like "Lynch the nigger" to get a similar reaction from blacks. "If we could get the whole bar [fighting], that's what we were shooting for -- and some nights we did," Leyden said. Leyden then showed slides of tools -- such as "White Power" comic books and CDs -- that he used to recruit young teenagers into the movement. He explained that children just entering puberty were the easiest targets, because they are very concerned about "fitting in." Leyden also discussed his departure, both physically and ideologically, from the neo-Nazi skinhead group. He spoke briefly of his mother, who contracted polio at a young age and was subsequently treated by Jonas Salk's vaccine. "I may literally owe my life to a Jewish doctor," he said. "Ain't that a hoot?" Another wake-up call for Leyden came when he was watching television with his children, and his 3-year-old son turned the TV off and said, "You know better than that, Daddy. We don't watch shows with niggers on them in this house." At first, Leyden was proud that his son had learned so well, but then he began to think of the boy's future. "I had buried six friends in 15 years, and I had the ultimate sensation of fear that my boys would end up like that," he said. After Leyden left the movement, he became affiliated with the Simon Wiesenthal Center and now speaks all over the country about racism. He has been the target of several assassination attempts by members of the white supremacy movement who now call him "a traitor to his race." College sophomore Shana Coplowitz, the co-chairwoman of the Holocaust Education Committee, said she was pleased with the speech. "It went off really well," Coplowitz said. "I was impressed that so many people took time off on a busy Monday night to come hear this, and I learned a lot about neo-Nazi white supremacy."