Frank Meeink’s story is one of fear, hate and finding forgiveness. The former Neo Nazi shared his story at UM’s Braman Miller Student Center for Jewish Life on Monday. Meeink described himself as a former skinhead. After a childhood full of fear, loneliness and abuse from his stepfather, Meeink was desperate to find acceptance somewhere. He described himself as a “scared little kid.” He found solace in the Neo Nazi movement introduced to him by his cousin.
“They said, God is telling you the truth now,” Meeink said to the crowd. “God is revealing the truth to you now, he needs you. He needs you to be one of his angels. So, you’re telling me God wants this f**king welfare kid from South Philly to be on his team? F**k, yeah, I’m down.”
Meeink described the next years of his life as a skinhead. He spewed hateful speech and threatened violence against non-whites. Meeink recalled one day on a school campus where the movement had been recruiting. The “emo/skater kids” as Meeink described them, were sitting under a row of trees so when the more popular kids threw things toward them, they had a warning. Suddenly, someone threw a D-size battery through the trees. Meeink walked up to the largest in the group and assumed a fighting stance.
“I seen it. I f**king loved it. Fear. He feared me,” Meeink said. “It’s the same feeling every gangster gets, every bully gets, every thug gets, every car jacker gets. Every person I just talked about loves that look, we all love it.”
Meeink turned his life around after he was hired by a Jewish man to work in a furniture store. One day, Meeink went to lift a table with a slab of marble. It was Friday and he was pumped for the weekend. Instead of moving the marble and table separately, he tried to do it all at once. The marble slipped off the top of the table and broke in front of the customer. He started to call himself “stupid” and apologize. His boss told him to get it together and asked if he needed a ride home. Convinced he was going to be fired, Meeink was silent the whole way home. However, when his boss dropped him off, not only did he pay him, but he gave him a bonus and said, “See you on Monday.” From that moment on, Meeink vowed to get out of the Neo Nazi movement.
Meeink has written about his experience in a newly published book, “Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead – The Story of Frank Meeink.” Meeink hopes that by sharing his story of overcoming prejudice and finding forgiveness, he will help others understand how people end up in situations like his.
“We’re the only ones that have empathy,” said Meeink. “Only we have that. We’re the only creatures on the f**king planet that have that. I didn’t lose it when I joined the Neo-Nazis. I didn’t lose it. I had empathy when I was a kid, I had humanity. I traded it for acceptance.”