Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Rising Out of Hatred, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Ostracism vs. Open Dialogue
White Supremacy and Racism
Family, Community, and Values
Redemption
Rhetoric and Language
Summary
Analysis
The next day, Don is at his computer when a headline about Derek pops up on his screen: “Activist Son of Key Racist Leader Renounces White Nationalism.” Don quickly reads the letter, which asserts that Derek is separating from white nationalism and thoroughly critiques the ideology. Don assumes the SPLC is trying to smear his family again and calls Derek to warn him that someone broke into his email. Derek explains that the letter is real and apologizes for not telling Don directly.
Shifting to Don’s perspective in this moment illustrates that while Derek’s transformation has been gradual and consistent, it has also been largely internal. Don still doesn’t recognize that Derek no longer shares many of his values, to the point that he doesn’t even believe that Derek wrote the letter. This again suggests that white nationalism is so intrinsic to Don’s idea of Derek and their relationship that he can’t imagine Derek renouncing the ideology.
Themes
Don hangs up in disbelief. When Derek calls back, Chloe is in tears and Don is in shock. Derek confirms that he wrote the letter, and it reflects what he thinks. Over the next few hours, Derek receives many messages from family, saying that he has thrown away years of work and that he isn’t the person they thought they knew. They feel angry, grieved, and abandoned, and they wonder if he has a “mental disorder.”
This passage illustrates how difficult it can be to change one’s values, because it often means falling out with one’s community. Derek’s denunciation is so shocking that his family even suggests he isn’t the person that they know and love. In this way, their acceptance of him is conditional—it depends on his adherence to white supremacy.
Themes
Don calls Derek that night and says it would have been better for the family if Derek hadn’t been born, which stuns Derek. Don calls back again a few moments later to tell Derek that what he said wasn’t true. The next afternoon, Derek’s sister shows up saying that he can no longer spend time with his teenage niece; he is a bad influence trying to brainwash her daughter into his ideology. Derek thinks that this outcome is much worse than he imagined, and he tells Allison that he thinks he's getting disowned. She assures him that this will pass and that he did the right thing.
Derek continues to experience the difficulty of breaking with his family because of his changing values. Don’s statement that it would be better if Derek hadn’t been born is particularly startling. Just as shared values built a bond between father and son, losing those shared values weakens that bond (or breaks it entirely). The same is true of Derek’s sister, as Derek is now essentially exiled from his family.
Themes
Allison isn’t the only one who’s proud of Derek. He receives messages from many people congratulating and thanking him for his courage, including Rose, Moshe, and Juan, knowing it couldn’t have been easy to publish the letter. The SPLC also removes Derek’s extremist file. Derek declines interview requests, but he writes a response to an interview Don gave about his disappointment. The interviewer speculated that Derek’s education helped change his thinking, and Derek also notes that the influence of New College students was the biggest piece—particularly the people who disagreed with him and the people he once considered “outsiders.”
In contrast to Derek’s family, who are now shunning him because they feel his values no longer align with theirs, the opposite is happening with Derek’s peers at New College. Now that Derek is making an effort to rectify the damage he did within the white nationalist movement, his classmates acknowledge that his values now align with their own. As such, they welcome him into the community. Additionally, Derek emphasizes the importance of his friendships with people like Juan, Moshe, Matthew, and Allison, noting that conversing with them was the most important influence in getting him to reconsider his perspectives.
Themes
Get the entire Rising Out of Hatred LitChart as a printable PDF.
The news also makes its way onto Stormfront, where Don decides he has no choice but to respond to Derek’s letter. He feels “depressed and basically paralyzed.” Don looks for clues he might have missed about Derek’s transformation, but nothing helps him understand. He wonders if he’d been wrong about Derek’s intelligence and rationality—or maybe he had been wrong about white nationalism. He doesn’t want to consider either possibility. He wonders instead if this is Derek’s way to rebel against his family, or if he's suffering from a kind of Stockholm syndrome.
Don’s depression in response to Derek denouncing white nationalism again illustrates how much of their bond was predicated on Derek taking up the white nationalist mantle. In the wake of Derek’s transformation, Don feels like Derek has completely betrayed the family. Yet Don’s thoughts here illustrate why Derek’s public renunciation of white nationalism is so important: it makes even a staunch supporter of white nationalism wonder if he might be wrong about the ideology, too.
Themes
Don also considers whether it’s time for him to withdraw from public life as a white nationalist. Everything now reminds him of Derek’s renunciation, and Don doesn’t have the heart for any of it. People on Stormfront wonder if Derek was paid off, is secretly gay, or had a Black girlfriend. They wonder if Don’s thinking could evolve, too. Don vents about Derek on the website, saying that Derek thought family ties could be separate from politics. Hundreds of posts quickly follow: sympathy, anger, and reminders of how embarrassing the situation is for the whole movement. Derek’s rejection seems personal for all of them.
This passage illustrates that it’s not just Derek’s family who now feel like Derek no longer aligns with their values. The community at large feels betrayed, to the point that they revoke their support for him completely. Additionally, while Derek expresses his hope that family ties could be separate from politics, the book has highlighted several times how Derek’s political values have been foundational to his familial relationships.
Themes
The messages grow violent, threatening Derek, and Don doesn’t know which side he himself is on. So, he shuts down the message thread and spends more and more time in bed. His 60th birthday is only a few days away, and Don realizes how much he wants Derek to come to the party. Chloe isn’t ready to talk to Derek again, but Don insists. He sends Derek a note saying that he wants to see his son.
Derek finds that his rejection of white nationalist values not only separates him from his family and a community he’s been a part of for years but also turns him into a target. This again highlights the radical and dangerous nature of the white nationalist movement, in that they’re willing to target anyone who disagrees with or embarrasses them.
Themes
The next morning, Derek moves out of Sarasota for the last time. He was planning to pick up Allison in Virginia and drive to Ohio to visit her family before going to Michigan, but now he adds an extra stop at his grandmother’s house, where the party is. Derek doesn’t know what to expect. Don and Chloe have completely cut him off financially, even threatening to call the police to make him return his car to them.
The fact that Don and Chloe have cut Derek off financially and have threatened to call the police on him underscores how deeply his transformation and rejection of their values has affected them. This situation cements the idea that shared values are often necessary to maintain a relationship.
Themes
When Derek arrives, Chloe hugs him but says nothing; his half-sisters refuse to talk to him. Don takes him aside and they drive to one of their favorite spots in Palm Beach before going to dinner at a local bar. They talk about politics, and Derek asserts that he believes what he said in the letter. He knows that he can’t convince Don, but he goes through the research he did to conclude that white nationalism is a flawed and dangerous ideology. When they return to the party, they are no closer to an understanding.
Derek’s decision to separate himself from his loved ones manifests physically here, as the only way Don can talk to Derek is by leaving his own birthday party. Additionally, Derek knows it’s unlikely that he’ll ever get Don to reconsider white nationalism, but he also wants to open up the same dialogue that Allison opened with him, knowing that this is the only way he might be able to change Don’s views.
Themes
Don and Derek bid each other goodbye, and Derek continues the drive. Don reflects that it’s like Derek isn’t thinking straight anymore. Don feels that he’s “pretty sure” he’s right about race, especially after making the same arguments for 40 years. But now, he’s arguing with the person he loves most. He starts to wonder what he’s doing with his life, and whether it’s worth it.
Even though Don doesn’t necessarily reveal these thoughts to Derek in the moment, it’s clear that Derek’s own transformation might be shaking Don’s faith in the movement. Don’s is only “pretty sure” of his ideas about race, which hints that he might be reconsidering his own ideology—or at least losing some of his militant conviction.
Themes
Derek returns to Florida a few weeks later to change his name, staying at his parents’ house while they attend a Stormfront conference. He has submitted to a background check and paid $400. He’s switching his names, to Roland Derek Black, out of respect to his parents, but he hopes this will offer him more anonymity. The judge signs off on the paperwork, and Derek walks out as a new person. He thinks that it is over and done with—except, at that very moment, his former ideology is spreading at the conference.
Derek’s decision to change his name is a symbolic one. Reversing his first name and his middle name reflects his own ideological reversal, moving away from the white nationalist heritage that his name represented. Derek understands this; he is walking out as a “new person” both literally in his name and metaphorically in his new ideals.
Themes
