Rising Out of Hatred: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Matthew Stevenson has hosted Shabbat ever since his first few months on campus. He was the only Orthodox Jew at the school, and he got together with another Jewish student named Moshe to have dinner together. Gradually, the Shabbat dinner became a social circle all its own, including Christians, atheists, and students of color. They had recently been spending a lot of time talking about Derek after he was outed on the forum.

Matthew had visited the Stormfront website years before, hoping to better understand anti-Semitic prejudice. Because he wore a yarmulke regularly, he was often harassed on the street. When he discovered Derek’s posts, he wrote to Moshe about how horrifying the hate speech was. But he reflected on his own faith and wondered if he could transform Derek’s thinking—after all, Matthew had undergone his own radical transformation.

Matthew was baptized Presbyterian; he came from a family of Protestants with ancestors in Scotland and Ireland. When he was young, his mother had gone into treatment for alcoholism, and he started feeling acute physical pain that no doctor could figure out. They treated him with drugs before insisting that his problem was likely psychological. He started to explore different spiritual treatments, and he and his father Michael enrolled in classes at the Kabbalah center, a Jewish tradition popularized as a method of self-improvement. Matthew’s pain began to ebb, and he grew more interested in Kabbalah and Judaism.

Matthew gradually converted to Judaism, wearing a yarmulke, eating kosher, and teaching himself Hebrew. When he got into New College, he worried about putting distance between himself and the Kabbalah Centre. But his father and rabbis encouraged him to go; the purpose of Kabbalah is to put his faith to practical use. They told him to set an example on campus by respecting human dignity and always seeking out the best in himself and others. And so, Matthew does so by inviting Derek over—and Derek accepts his invitation to dinner that Friday.

That Shabbat, only Matthew, Moshe, and Derek’s friend Juan are there. They want to ask him about his views, particularly on racial purity (as Juan is part European, part indigenous, and part Black) and the Holocaust (as Moshe’s grandfather narrowly survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp). They don’t feel uncomfortable talking to Derek in private like this, since there is less risk that classmates will accuse them of sympathizing with Derek or condoning his behavior. Several of their friends decide not to attend the dinner at the last minute. Matthew is angered by their small-mindedness, believing exclusion only reinforced divides. Matthew understood this acutely, as he is a political conservative among a largely liberal population on campus.

Matthew knows there is very little he can say to Derek to change his mind after growing up inside the white nationalist movement. So instead, Matthew simply wants to build a relationship that could teach him about Jewish people and people of color. At the dinner, they talk little about Derek or his background, instead talking about history. At the end, they have mutual respect, and Derek agrees to come back, feeling very lonely after months of isolation. There seems to be an implicit agreement: they will pretend to be oblivious about his white nationalist convictions, and Derek will keep his beliefs to himself. He decides that maybe every minority didn’t need to be his enemy, and the next day, Matthew tells Moshe that he thinks they made progress.

In between dinners, Derek spends much of his time at his rental house and gets to know the landlord, Maynard Hiss, who knows nothing about Derek’s background. Maynard likes Derek’s earnestness, friendliness, and humility. He thinks that Derek is well-raised, but he does wonder why Derek seems so lonely. So, when Maynard is leaving one evening for a community contra dance (like square dancing), he invites Derek along, and Derek agrees to go. They later start kayaking together as well.

A few weeks later, however, Maynard learns about Derek’s background from another New College student, who warns that Derek might be dangerous. When Maynard confronts Derek, Derek admits that he is a white nationalist and that he still hosts his radio show. He apologizes to Maynard, who says he needs to consider things. But as Maynard tries to square the idea of a bigoted radical with the Derek he knows, he becomes convinced that Derek isn’t really hateful, as he so openly engages with people unlike him.

Later that fall, Derek signs up for the New College talent show after making a tentative reentry into social life on campus. He walks onstage to a smattering of boos, but when he starts to play a folk song called “Adrian” by Mason Jennings, the crowd quiets—he is very good. Derek loves the song, which he thinks is about the Wild West and an unjust execution. He finishes to some applause and a second-place prize.

The next day, however, some classmates send Derek a note. The song, “Adrian,” was inspired by Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a book about the psychological effects of slavery. The song is about a lynching, and Mason Jennings sang it at civil rights rallies. They thought Derek was “trolling” them, and he writes back explaining himself. To him, the song is the story of a person who’s condemned unjustly and made an example of by a crowd; he views it as a song about himself.

One student, Bárbara Suárez, replies, telling Derek that he endorses cruelty and inhumanity; he is not a victim of it. Derek replies that he doesn’t want to ignore human suffering, and she responds that he ignores anything that might point to his privilege. In addition, he dodges his real stance on race.

Derek is starting to hear other people’s views, which are very different from his own. He enrolls in a German poetry class and listens to Jewish poems about the Holocaust. A Haitian immigrant stops him on campus and tells him about the impact of stop and frisk. Another student emails him asking why the U.S. shouldn’t belong to Native Americans, the original majority. After hearing so many perspectives, Derek begins to question his assumptions. But he sticks to his talking points about white privilege and race, and other students begin to feel they are talking to a robot.

That winter, students want to protest what they feel are increasingly hostile aggressions and micro-aggressions on campus, even beyond Derek. Students are hanging Confederate flags and writing slurs on posters in the café. The student activists decide to try and close the school for a day and force their classmates to listen to their concerns on racism. Five students speak at a staff meeting, asking permission for this shutdown and to hold events about prejudice and discrimination. Ultimately, they convince the faculty to agree, and the students arrange for someone from the SPLC to lead the event.

Derek grows nervous hearing the SPLC is involved, as the SPLC has long kept an extremist file on his family. Don often called the SPLC “vile predators” and “Jewish supremacists.” Derek complains to the student organization that the SPLC uses personal attacks to defame people, but few people care about his complaints. At one of the events on the lawn, the SPLC reads anonymous statements from students, talking about transphobic comments and examples of racism on campus. One comment says that they left a class because Derek was in it and they didn’t feel safe, and the student asks why Derek’s free speech is more important than their education.

Seeing his professors, Matthew, and Moshe gathered to listen to the speakers from the SPLC, Derek wonders how so many smart people could all be wrong. He hears non-white speakers talk about how racism makes them feel unsafe and diminishes their self-worth, and he considers that there might be truth in what they are saying. At the same time, activists on campus wonder whether Derek might actually be listening to their message.

A few days later, Matthew hosts a birthday party for Derek. Real friendships have returned to his life—Derek has even hosted Matthew at his home, making sure all his ingredients were kosher. Derek has continued to attend Shabbat dinner, and many of Matthew’s friends returned. After the dinners, Derek stays with Matthew (who can’t work, drive, write, or use his phone on Shabbat), and they talk and play games together.

Some people start to worry about Matthew getting so close to a white nationalist; they wonder if Derek might be using Matthew. Matthew knows that people naturally divide themselves, but he doesn’t want to do that; he wants to treat Derek with respect. Other students quote Derek’s latest anti-Semitic radio talking points to Matthew. Still, Matthew is resolute—he thinks Derek is already softening.