- There was a moment of, I was going unconscious,
and there was just sort of lack of concern
about the life they left laying in that alley.
- My brother was shot by an African-American
when I was a young kid.
And so I had that fear of African-Americans.
Fear of anybody, pretty much, who wasn't like me.
And the anger during my adolescent years and into my 20s
was just over the top.
- I just was one of those kids that never felt
there was ever any issue or problem with who I was.
It wasn't until I was 13 and sort of made that clear.
And the reaction of my family was,
I was thrown out.
- For me, you know, a lot of times, to escape the suburbs,
we were being picked on by the jocks or the football players
or the popular kids or whatever we, you know,
in the late 70's, early 1980's, punk rockers were freaks.
We would go into Hollywood and we were on the rampage.
The police didn't like us, nobody liked us.
I liked that negative attention.
Ooh, these people are weird, these people are scary.
After concerts, we would hang out at this hot dog stand
called Oaky Dogs.
There were little pockets of individual groups
within the larger tribe,
who were more violent than others.
- When my mom threw me out,
because of the fact that I was gay,
I figured well, I'll show her.
I'm gonna go to Hollywood, become a successful actor,
and then I'll just be like hey, whatever.
I ended up, you know, living in a park
directly across the street from
the very same hamburger stand that Tim and
a lot of his crew hung out at as well.
Except that I had never seen them there until
that one night that I was there,
hanging out like I normally do, playing video games.
So as I looked up and saw them sort of,
kinda coming across the street,
being very loud and boisterous,
there was absolutely no concern.
It wasn't until, whether it was Tim or someone else,
yelled--
- "Let's kill the faggots!"
- And what ended up happening is, all that energy
from all of, however many there were,
was, descended upon me.
In what was a very brutal attack.
- Matthew, um, was being kicked on the ground
and he was still moving around.
And there was like, several people.
I came up to them, I said, "What's," you know,
"come on, do what you're supposed to do.
"What's takin' so long?"
And I'd actually kicked Matthew in the head.
And there was high-fives, and then it was like,
there was a girl with us who screamed,
"You guys are so messed up!"
And then we said "Oh wow," you know,
"Maybe we killed this guy."
And so we got in our cars and we left.
- And when I come to, nobody was there.
Everybody had left the hamburger stand.
Nobody was there putting their hand on my shoulder,
nobody was saying, "I'm calling the police."
Nobody was tellin' me it was gonna be okay.
Nobody was like, "I'll take you to the hospital,"
throwing me in the car.
There's a moment of, this violent attack,
based in hatred and fear, and then,
absolutely being invisible.
There was murder that took place in this country
that, to me, like, ripped a hole in the soul of this country
and brought a nation together.
The connection I have with him
is that I survived, and he didn't.
And I remember a client saying to me,
"If you're so bothered by it, what have you done about it?"
I said, "Well, nothing, I don't know what I can do."
And she goes, "Well then stop complaining to me about it.
"You can either sit back and be complacent,
"and accept what you see in the news,
"or you can take part, and be something that
"is an instrument of change."
And I ended up, believe it or not, leaving that career.
And moving on to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles,
just to volunteer, and ended up becoming
the manager of that museum.
- I actually ended up getting involved with a
rather large organized national hate group.
Moved up the ranks, and then I met a young lady
and had a child.
And things started to change.
Eventually, I did make it out
of the white racialist movement.
I said that I was moving out of Southern California,
I was gonna get out of the cesspool of Los Angeles,
raise my family in a whiter, brighter world.
And was no longer compatible with my son's mother.
I was watching my son being influenced
by the politics and by the propaganda.
And I ended up marrying a Jewish woman,
moved back to southern California,
and went to go see TJ Liden speak at a church.
And he said that he was leaving the Museum of Tolerance
to go do his own thing.
And I asked him, "Do you think
"they would let me, you know, take over?"
He gave me a card, I called the museum,
and I've been there for over a decade as a result.
And that's where I met Matthew.
- A teacher called, she had a group of students
that she was bringing, and they wanted
a powerful speaker to address.
I invited Tim, or asked him to go to have coffee,
so I could ask him, get his opinion.
Because the issue happened to be
dealing with white supremacy in this specific community
and at this school.
So what ended up happening is, Tim was talking to me,
completely off-topic, I was like, you know,
"What part of southern California did you grow up in?
"You know, I've never asked you that."
And the subject came up about
the hamburger stand, Oaky Dogs.
It comes out that we both realized,
almost within seconds of each other,
who the other one was talking to.
There was a surge of emotion,
but not the ones you would think.
It wasn't anger, it wasn't like
I wanted to throw something at him,
there was just a surge of emotions of,
there was almost a fear, I was scared,
I was nervous, and the only thing I knew how to do
was to leave.
My best thinking was, alright, I'm going to
try to have conversations with Tim.
Really, the answer I wanted was why?
- I went over and over and over and over in my mind
trying to minimize my part.
Trying to blame Matthew.
Trying to blame, you know, the people I was with,
well somebody said to do it, or you know, just
tryin' to come up with an excuse.
And at the end of the day, there is no excuse.
You know I wasn't planning on apologizing at that moment,
it just sorta came out.
We were asked by the museum to
start doing presentations together.
- My first thought was, well, no.
I haven't processed this enough to
sit on a stage in a room full of 300 people.
There was still a part of me that saw
the Tim I knew the eight months before realizing who he was
and yes he was this incredible person who had
changed his life, and I have always admired people
who are able to do that.
Especially if you're in so deep and then you
take the courage and the stand.
The level of honesty and willingness
to share and spend time with me was a
huge part of me being able to let go,
not forget,
and be able to see him as a person and a human being
and then being able to forgive him
completely and entirely.
And it never was a friendship of, let's go to the movies,
let's have dinner, let's hang out with each other's family.
It was more of, we shared a common bond,
and as difficult as it can be at times,
the common goal is to share this story
in order to reach out and reach people.
That change is possible.
Not only is change possible, but forgiveness is possible,
healing is possible.
- The world, but especially this nation,
it has this wound that has never been healed.
And recent activities that have happened,
it's like tearing that wound open
and sticking your finger in it.
And until that wound can be truly healed,
through knowing one another,
really, really knowing one another,
not oh, I have a black friend or I have a white friend,
do you know them?
Do you know their middle name?
Do you know their parents?
Have you ever been in their house?
- I do believe that
it is progressing forward and it is becoming better.
I just think it's taking much longer than it needs to.
- If Matthew and I can heal through forgiveness,
I think other people can as well.