00:00:53.240and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:58.760I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:01:02.380Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:01:09.920These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:01:13.740Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:21.360If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:01:27.080Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:01:35.740Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.
00:02:21.160Dancer Josephine Baker secretly worked as a spy, passing on secrets she learned while performing to the French military.
00:02:28.740Elizabeth Gloden hid Jews in her home in Berlin before getting them out of Germany to safety.
00:02:34.280Their work was often quiet and behind the scenes, and also very dangerous.
00:02:39.660Today, there's still dangerous work to be done.
00:02:42.600On January 6th, we watched white supremacists breach the Capitol.
00:02:46.300And they were brazen, posting for selfies, live streaming, seemingly not caring if anyone knew who they were.
00:02:52.400I still see their smiling faces when I walk around my neighborhood in D.C. on bus stop Bay posters, asking for the public's help with identifying them.
00:04:40.420Usually I start these interviews asking about people's backgrounds and where they came from and all of that.
00:04:45.800But I have to mention, top of the show, white supremacist, a.k.a. crying Nazi Christopher Cantwell, was just sentenced to 41 months in prison.
00:04:56.620You know, I feel relieved and I feel grateful that this is something that I don't have to worry about anymore.
00:05:06.540So for those who don't know, Chris Cantwell was nicknamed the crying Nazi because in 2017, he came to the Unite the Right rally.
00:05:15.920There was this Vice documentary that featured him very heavily.
00:05:19.600He's talking a big game about like how much violence he wanted to do.0.98
00:05:22.980He was going to kill people like we're going to kill all these commies and stuff like that.0.97
00:05:26.920He had all these guns and was talking about how many weights he lifts.0.93
00:05:31.920It turns out that he actually assaulted me at that rally with pepper spray during the infamous Tiki Torch rally at the University of Virginia.
00:05:42.760And when he found out that there was a warrant for his arrest,
00:05:45.900um the reason that he found out that there was a warrant for his arrest is I kind of purposely let
00:05:52.300it slip that I had signed you know sworn a warrant for his arrest he recorded this like really long
00:05:58.260um YouTube video where he like started crying about having a warrant for his arrest and then
00:06:04.320read his phone number off to like in like on this YouTube video um like his actual phone number
00:06:11.620and um you know this was just a few days after the event in charlottesville so it's very much
00:06:17.820in everyone's mind and so he became known as the crying nazi and um since that moment you know his
00:06:23.700his life has um taken many many many turns for the worse and he went to jail he pleaded guilty
00:06:30.040for assaulting me um and then he recently uh was in this process of extorting another fellow white
00:06:37.700nationalist, which got him in trouble with the feds. And he was just sentenced. He was found
00:06:43.280guilty at trial and then just sentenced to 41 months. So this is somebody that's been harassing
00:06:48.460me for a long time. And this is somebody who's been threatening me and threatening my friends
00:06:52.320and my family. And, you know, prison isn't a solution for this behavior. Like there needs
00:07:00.160to be a bigger fix. But by God, I'm going to be really grateful for 41 months of not having to
00:07:06.180worry about his bullshit. So is this how you thought you would use your data science degrees,0.99
00:07:10.640fighting Nazis? No, not at all. In fact, I went to school, I wanted to design airplanes.
00:07:15.840And I did that for a long time until I realized that designing airplanes was boring and data
00:07:21.660science both paid better and was more fun. But I never really set out, I never set out to be an
00:07:28.320activist. I felt, I always felt that I had some sort of responsibility to make the world a better
00:07:35.200place. And when I was younger, there was, there were stories about how the Klan would march through
00:07:40.800like the nearby city next to the city next to where I grew up, which was a small town in
00:07:47.020Connecticut. And it's like, what is the Klan doing in Willimantic, Connecticut? But you know,
00:07:51.980the Klan is everywhere because white supremacy is everywhere. And you know, I used to joke with
00:07:58.800my friends, we used to like kind of fantasize like, what would we do if the Klan came to town?
00:08:02.160Oh, yeah, we'd, like, throw smoke bombs at him and shoot paintball guns at him or whatever.
00:08:06.200Like, we were, like, 13, 14 years old, and here we were, like, conspiring to commit what would probably be federal crimes.
00:08:12.260But, you know, that was, you know, long ago.
00:08:17.860Statute of Limitations has since passed.
00:08:20.980But I always felt like, you know, racism, when it got to that degree, was something that had to be confronted.
00:08:29.160It took me a lot longer to understand that racism wasn't just that public behavior, that it was something more deep, you know, deeply rooted in society.
00:08:40.260And when I started to understand that, I started to become more outspoken.
00:08:44.180And I guess that's at the point in which I saw that I had a responsibility as a working professional, somebody who was fortunate enough to have stable housing, a loving wife, a good upbringing.
00:09:00.460It was my responsibility to say something about bigotry in the world.0.98
00:09:05.060It was a pure coincidence that all of this shit happened in Charlottesville, where I was living.0.94
00:09:11.800And, you know, so it was a matter of circumstance, a matter of, you know, weird destinies of the universe and a matter of just always having this moral resolve that, like, when things got really bad, like, I knew that I would be on the front lines.0.95
00:09:27.420How did you wind up going to that Unite the Right rally?
00:09:29.980I know you lived in Charlottesville, but what made you say, I have to go out there?
00:14:03.420And, you know, when Unite the Right came around, it was for me, it was like, OK, it's time for me to get up, grab my phone and go.
00:14:10.020Like there was never a moment's hesitation. I knew exactly what my role was, knew exactly what my job was.
00:14:16.320And for me, it was just go out there and do it.
00:14:19.980Yeah. I mean, you talked about when you were young, you know, what would we do if the KKK came?
00:14:24.540I always people say, you know, whatever you would do in, you know, Nazi Germany, what you're doing now is what you would have done.
00:14:33.420right? Like whatever you would have done, like when you think of like the civil rights movement,
00:14:36.700whatever you're doing now is what you would have done. And I feel like that line of thinking has
00:14:41.460really created some urgency in me to not just sit back and be like, oh, I support what they're
00:14:46.620doing, but I support it, you know, just in my heart, I'm doing nothing in terms of actually
00:14:52.460meaningfully supporting it. And it sounds like that was a motivating factor for you as well.
00:14:57.320Totally, totally. I think, you know, I spent a lot of that year traveling Europe and visiting
00:15:02.520sites of horrors throughout 20th century history, memorials to the victims of the Nazis and
00:15:10.440memorials to people like Jan Palach, who was a Czech activist, who self-immolated at the end of
00:15:19.200Prague Spring in 1969 to protest the oppressive invasion of the Soviet Union, of Czechoslovakia
00:15:26.620at the time and thinking of like you know what is it what must it have been like to be in that
00:15:33.360position right how must it have felt when you don't have these choices and trying to understand
00:15:42.460um you know shaping my own perception to understand that we look at history and we
00:15:51.600We assume that there were there was like clear black and white morals, you know, all throughout the time, like that there was, you know, things were fine and then bad things were coming.
00:16:02.060And it was like clear what side you should be on.0.62
00:16:03.980And it was clear what you should have done.
00:16:46.280I don't think that's true. I think that it actually has to be nasty. And it's up to us to control how nasty it is. And if we don't want it to be really, really nasty, then we have to deal with a little bit of nasty. But there's no easy way out. And for me, that's like, you know, you just have to have a clear conscience about what you're going to do and what your boundary is, what your threshold is, and then, you know, make that decision and act.
00:17:12.100So do you think that's necessary to get to a place where we won't have Nazis, you know, marching in the streets, that we have to get comfortable with some level of personal risk? Is that what it's going to take?0.71
00:17:22.100I think yes. But I think that the more people who are comfortable with personal risk, the less risk it is, right? The more people who can do what I'm doing, the better it is for all of us, right?
00:17:33.500And this is definitely one of those things where there's a finite amount of energy that these fascists have.
00:17:40.260And if we distribute that load, it becomes much easier to bear.
00:17:44.720You know, I think that this is a cost.
00:22:19.040So when white supremacists and Nazis harass her, they do so by weaponizing her identity.
00:22:24.420And people, even those who are ostensibly on her side, don't always speak up about it.
00:22:30.040I mean, something else that I noticed in your situation is, you know, you talked about assuming risk and harm.
00:22:37.220I do feel that a disproportionate amount of that risk and harm falls on people who are the most marginalized. And for you, you know, in this case with this white supremacist, both he and his lawyer continuously misgendered you. They filed a petition to use your dead name in the proceedings.
00:22:53.780It's like I almost feel as if even from folks on the left, we don't talk about the specific ways that people's identities are weaponized by, you know, white supremacists, bad people.
00:23:07.840And it makes it gives the impression that people are all absorbing the same level of risk when in your case, you clearly are not.
00:23:17.060Yeah, I think it's it's a shame that we fail to do that on the left.
00:23:21.760And this is one of the things that, you know, I didn't really account for.
00:23:24.960I thought I would have had a little bit more support in those matters.
00:23:28.060And it's frustrating at times when I see things like, you know, a right-wing author writing about me using my dead name and transphobic commentary.
00:23:37.100That has nothing to do with the book, but he's doing it because he knows that he can hurt me.
00:23:42.080That's one thing, you know, and that sucks.
00:23:45.340What really sucks is when that gets ignored.0.89
00:23:49.080um and i i see this all the time i see this with you know trans people you know people aren't
00:23:55.660calling out transphobia um and it's it you know people aren't understanding the ways that
00:24:00.960transphobia harms right um and these are leftists who um fancy themselves to be trans allies but
00:24:07.500they still don't understand those harms and you know i'm sure that you know you know it's um we
00:24:12.920see this all the time like black women get attacked and we find the attacks reprehensible
00:24:21.200but somehow we still separate ourselves from like the the anti-blackness of it right and
00:24:29.600you know it's I know it's hard to to understand and to empathize but I think you know we really
00:24:37.140have to do better at seeing these things and understanding what those costs are I mean could
00:24:43.060you imagine what would have happened if the judge allowed that petition for me to be dead named in
00:24:48.380court and misgendered in court like I didn't want to have to fight a battle over basic name you know
00:24:57.440naming rights you know and it could have been that thankfully it wasn't but
00:25:02.240you know these are the like those are the stakes and like that just gets swept under the rug
00:25:08.120was some part of you worried that that proceeding would that that would be allowed that you would
00:25:14.900be that they would officially say yes we're using your dead name um no because i didn't you know i
00:25:21.580didn't even know that it happened until after it was handled by my lawyers um i was on a like a
00:25:26.420work trip i was out in portland oregon i get a call uh you know after work one day and my lawyer
00:25:30.900was like, all right, Emily, I got to tell you something, something really shitty happened,
00:25:34.460but don't worry. It's okay. And I'm like, all right, what's up? And so she told me how she
00:25:38.800had to like go and argue in front of the judge and all of that. And, you know, we could have
00:25:43.020just gone in with my name change form and been like, no, you have to do this. Otherwise it's
00:25:47.520contempt of court. But we actually managed to argue it successfully without needing to go
00:25:52.820and like, like formally do it because I think, you know, not every trans person can afford a
00:26:00.460name changer has access to one, right? So it's actually an important thing to do. So I'm grateful
00:26:06.600that my lawyers were so amazing and that they went to bat for me. But yeah, you know, it's just,
00:26:14.540it's always going to be something, right? And it feels like it's always going to be something that
00:26:19.360follows me for the rest of my life. Yeah. And it's like, you know, it's like one more thing
00:26:24.100you don't fucking need. One more thing to take you away from your work or to take up your energy or0.93
00:26:29.240your time or your capacity, which we know are finite resources. That's part of the plan, right?
00:26:34.920This is a weaponized sort of war of attrition, right? That they do this. Because if they get
00:26:39.360you spending your energy on all of these little things, ultimately, if you needed to swallow it
00:26:44.440to get the job done, you would just swallow it to get the job done. But you want to fight it,
00:26:49.100And so they're trying to distract you. They're trying to steal your energy fighting these pointless battles. And they're not pointless battles, but they're not the main point of battle, right? So it's like death by a thousand paper cuts with all of this stuff. And yeah, I don't know. It just seems like that's part of this fascist strategy is to just keep you constantly occupied so that you can never get ahead.
00:27:13.280Because they know that if you had a moment of peace, right, imagine what we could all do, given that.
00:27:21.860Like, the stuff that I'm accomplishing now, having moved to Germany, having gotten some space between, you know, the trauma and the noise and all of that, and, like, the healing that I've done.
00:27:35.120Like, I'm doing the best work of my life right now, because that's the power that I have.
00:27:39.680and I got that power by having to fight all like by surviving all of these fights for so long
00:27:47.340you know as somebody that's mixed race as somebody that's transgender as somebody that's queer right
00:27:51.920it's just a constant battle well surviving that has given me the tools to to excel but at the
00:27:59.160same time like sometimes I wish I could just be kind of normal and just like exist like everyone
00:28:03.680else and just have a normal life, right? And not everyone gets to make it through all of that
00:28:09.800noise. And they, you know, that's the point. That's how they keep us down. Yeah. I even see it
00:28:16.940in, you know, I feel that a lot of the online conversation around issues impacting the trans0.96
00:28:23.940community, people like bad actors and shitheads have dominated, especially online, dominated those0.94
00:28:31.660conversations and so every conversation is like trans people in sports bathrooms and it's like0.98
00:28:36.280if we if folks did not have to constantly you know contend with these very loud people who
00:28:44.340essentially in my opinion have been able to really own the conversation online like could we actually
00:28:49.720have a a productive conversation that moves us forward but I feel like we can't because we're
00:28:56.380still the people who who want to be flooding every conversation with like a bunch of nonsense
00:29:02.780they they have dominated the online space i feel yeah and it's it's all culture war stuff right
00:29:07.820like this whole thing now it's about trans trans kids in sports right there's no problems with
00:29:13.300trans kids in sports all of these things that they're talking about there's no statistics
00:29:17.360whatsoever that suggests that this is a problem in any any way shape or form if a bunch of trans
00:29:23.700girls were out there winning every sports championship for, you know, in high school0.98
00:29:28.620women's sports and college women's sports, even I would say, like, you know, maybe we need to
00:29:32.800revisit this, right? But that's not happening. There's none. There's none. There are no trans
00:29:39.300women dominating collegiate athletics. There are no trans women dominating high school athletics.
00:29:44.340There are no trans women dominating the Olympic, you know, women's competition. There are some
00:29:51.100trans women who are successful in those competitions. But we do not see a wave of,
00:29:57.580you know, cis men trying to pretend that they're trans women so that they can get in a gold medal.
00:30:02.040We don't see that. We don't see trans women, trans girls joining these teams to dominate them.0.55
00:30:09.060This is a completely fabricated issue. And the reason it has been fabricated is in order to
00:30:14.940create this polarization so that the right can stay relevant by creating this cultural division.
00:30:23.080And trans people have been historically used as scapegoats, as just, you know, we are just one
00:30:28.740sort of identity that has been used as scapegoats. You know, three, four years ago, this was all
00:30:33.920about bathroom bills. Okay, well, there was no evidence of any trans women ever sexually
00:30:41.380assaulting anyone in the bathroom or any men trying, you know, cisgender men trying to pretend
00:30:47.820that they are trans women to assault women in bathrooms. There were plenty of cases of cisgender0.51
00:30:53.780men going into women's bathrooms when a cisgender woman who was like a butch lesbian went in there0.99
00:31:00.460and then beat her up. So the actual threat of men, again, you know, men on women violence in0.98
00:31:06.660women's bathrooms was the opposite of this problem, right? It was the thing that they
00:31:11.720were saying was going to happen was the thing that they were doing. All of this is culture war
00:31:15.860stuff. All of this is designed to keep inflated this polarized version of politics and to rally
00:31:27.600people to, you know, the right knows that it is a losing cause, but they create these fake issues
00:31:34.100to mobilize people. And it works because we're left here holding the bag because we have to
00:31:41.880be outraged and we have to fight it. Because if we don't fight it, it's a catastrophe.
00:31:47.340If we do fight it, it becomes this polarization vector. And then all of these talking heads,
00:31:55.280you know, on social media and in the New York Times op-ed and on cable news, they're all
00:32:01.100sitting here going, hmm, is America so polarized? Like, is it really both sides that are bad? And
00:32:07.800like, fuck you, buddy, you're not affected. Like, you're not going to get beat up if you go to try1.00
00:32:13.800to take a leak in the bathroom at a courthouse or a school, right? This is not an issue of
00:32:20.820people becoming polarized. This is an issue of people who have always had a right defending
00:32:27.900against lies that are being used to try to remove that right in order to further a different
00:32:36.580political agenda like we're not a you know we're not a football right we're people and then us
00:32:44.860fighting to retain whatever little dignity we are granted somehow becomes like a both sides issue0.95
00:32:50.840fuck that it's so insulting and I think people forget that these are people that yeah we're0.96
00:32:56.660people, it's like, yeah, you're not, I guess I hate when I see people talking about other human0.99
00:33:03.060beings as if it's some sort of ideological exercise or something, you know, not someone's
00:33:08.400actual life. It's very frustrating. More after a quick break.
00:33:21.880Behind every night spent making the kids lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they
00:33:26.380finally eat the veggies will the pesto survive the first bite will the lunchbox come home empty
00:33:31.460half full or come home at all and will you finish episode eight before you're done slicing the
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00:33:52.300not thinking about podcasting think again more americans listen to podcasts than ad supported
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00:34:45.780Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:34:50.320I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:34:54.880I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:35:02.320They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:35:06.280But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:35:09.720They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:35:12.860Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:35:21.820If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:35:27.740This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:35:40.220I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books,
00:35:43.920the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:35:47.340I'm going to have to look up this story.