When I was 14, and living with friends and relatives after moving out of my parents house 1 year earlier. I was taken in by my cousin and her boyfriend, and my cousin's boyfriend was a nazi skinhead . That’s all a long story (long and strange), but at that time, even though they were a lot older then me, they too were very confused, and hurt by this world. I still love them both still though, very much. (regardless of our history)
I took to being a skinhead right away, even though at that time I had many friends of other nationalities and colors.

I don’t want to make any lame excuses, but I want to explain my twisted state of mind, so that one might be able to empathize with these people, and might be able to witness to them.

So like most racist, it was hereditary. My father went through the Georgia riots, in the million man march, and his business in Georgia got burned to the ground in those riots. He really liked black people, before that happened, and all of his employees were black, and he considered them friends. But when that race riot happened, his heart had grown cold toward them. And he lost trust. Then, after being restationed a few years later, he was in the bay in California, and the WATTS riots happened, and he got in tons of disagreements with people in that area, who were black. His heart grew a little colder. Believe me, I know that is strange to go through 2 major riots like that in such a short time, on two ends of the country, but he did, and that was the start of it.

I grew up a short time later, after being born to my mother and father just a few short years after the Watts riots. We lived in Santa Cruz then, and every time we seen a black person, I would feel, or hear the fear from my parents. In the form of a racist joke, a giggle, or my mother telling me to be quite around 'those kind of people'. Even after moving to Arizona, and then Utah some years later, where there were very few people who were black, I was exposed to the racist attitude of my family. I'm sure that they didn’t even really realize it at the time. But it was always constant.

Then the time came when I grew up, and was disturbed by this world that I grew up in. I was always getting in fights at school, because I was always the new kid, and when someone would give my shit, I would tell them where to go. Then they would get their friends and kick my butt. That was always constant in my life, and I changed schools more then 10 times!

So then I turned 13, and by this time, I had already been arrested a few times. My parents were getting separated again, and my dad was drinking really heavily. So I moved in with my grandma. After 1 year of living with my grandma, I started hanging out with the worst crowed that I had been hanging out with to date. And I was admitted to a rehab facility for doing drugs and drinking.

When I was released, I was supposed to live with my family (mom and dad had gotten back together again). So I did, and this time they had lost EVERYTHING, and we were living in a trailer court. It was in this new area where I left home, and started living with several of my cousin’s. Eventually I moved in with that kid (whose name I wont reveal, because even this boy has a sister who is half black), who was a skinhead, and my cousin. There, my beliefs against blacks, and Mexicans, and the government was re-enforced, and exploited.

Basicly, we believed that 'affirmitive actions' were screwing all of us white people, and that the blacks were just a bunch of wild, out of control people who needed to be separated from the whites (remember, this was during the Rodney King riots in LA). There were a lot of "logical" reasons having to do with politics, and fear. But all in all they were just excuses to obtain that kind of power of other people, or at least a sense of direction (even though the end result as well as the path there was horrible, I admit). Because all of my life up to then, I was completely powerless, and my life was out of control.

I can’t say that I really hated anyone, but myself. But my emotions were at the surface, and because of drugs that my friends were feeding me, I didn’t want to care. So I pushed all of my friends away, all of my really close friends, and I became a loud-mouth-skinhead. I never won a fight the whole time that I was involved with skinheads (3 years), and I never mobbed anyone, because I really hated violence, and the thought of gang violence. Because my dad always taught me to fight me own battles. But, it was nice to have friends that understood me, and I was going to do anything short of violence to prove my loyalty to them.

Later, after seeing how much that I lost, for such a stupid cause. I gave up on the skinheads, and it has been a blessing ever since, that was 5+ years ago.

GALATIONS 5:22-26
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.