Safran - Murder in Mississippi: the true story of how I met a white supremacist, befriended his black killer and wrote this book

Melbourne

You need to know about my job to understand all this. Im a documentary filmmaker, of sorts. Thats how I pay the bills for the flat where Im typing these words. Thats how I buy the bagels from the bakery one minute from my flat. I say of sorts because theyre not the straightest of documentaries. I often ask dangerous people indelicate questions and try not to get thumped. And I often ask them about race. Im a bit of a Race Trekkie like a sci-fi Trekkie, but with race not space.

This story really begins although I didnt know it at the time about ten years ago. I was filming a segment for a television series called John Safran vs God, in which I tried to join the Ku Klux Klan even though Im Jewish.

My first meeting with the Klan

Im boxed in at the Ku Klux Klan compound in Orange County, California. Swastika flags run along the wall. I sit across the desk from Grand Dragon Chris Johnson. Jesus Christ eyeballs me from the painting hanging behind the Grand Dragon. Four Klansmen stand at attention along the edge of the room.

Im a little confused about who can and cant join the Klan, I tell the Grand Dragon. Are you allowed to join the Klan if youre not American?

Yes, absolutely! he assures me.

And what about if youre Catholic?

You know, Catholics are every bit as Christian as anyone else, he says. Sure.

And what happens, I ask, trying hard not to squirm in my seat, if you were brought up Jewish but you dont do anything Jewish anymore? Because thats where Im at.

The Grand Dragon darts his eyes to his fellow Klansmen.

Was your mother Jewish? he asks.

Yes, I say.

His face sours.

Jewish life flows through Jewish woman, he says, pointing to a Biblical Racial Identity chart pinned up next to his desk. Jews are from their father, the Devil. Theyre from the Synagogue of Satan.

So I cant join the Klan? I ask.

The answer is no.

I lean forward.

I understand if someone came in here wearing a skull cap and said, Hey, can I join the Klan?, that would be ridiculous. But I dont do anything Jewish anymore. I havent stepped in a synagogue since my bar mitzvah.

The Grand Dragon looks like hes about to breathe fire.

I drive on the Sabbath, I say. I eat pork.

Yes, he says, but we believe that Judaism is both a race and religion.

I point to my face.

Im whiter than Hitler. Ive got blond hair and blue eyes. He had brown hair and brown eyes. If I went to school with Hitler Id be the one beating him up for being a wog.

The Grand Dragon asks me to leave.

God and/or fate blows a ripple into the ocean.

Several years later

Several years later the ABC broadcasts another series I pull together, called John Safrans Race Relations. This series pokes its nose into cross-cultural, interracial and interfaith love.

The ABC forbids one story I film from airing. This is the story in which the ripple, from years before, drifted me into the arms of a man named Richard Barrett.

I have to give away a magicians trick to explain this, but so be it.

The unaired story

Rabbis would wag their fingers in front of the class at my all-boys school. They would tell us that if we married a non-Jew our children would not be Jewish.

If you marry a non-Jew youre finishing Hitlers work for him! is how one of them put it.

To be a Jew, according to the rabbis (like the Klan), your mother must be Jewish. And for her to be Jewish her mother had to be Jewish. And for her to be Jewish, her mother had to be too, rolling all the way back to the Hebrews plodding through the desert with Abraham.

DNA testing has made things awkward for the Jewish community. Now its quite simple to check whether your mothers mothers mothers mothers mother was Jewish. Some folk who have lived their lives as Jews have popped off to take a DNA test and found out they are not.

The Race Relations story opens with me stomping out of my bedroom.

Jews make up 0.25 per cent of the worlds population, I lisp aggressively to camera. If Im going to rule out 99.75 per cent of women on the pretext that Jews should only marry Jews, Im going to make damn sure Im actually one.

Cut to my bathroom.

Im staring in the mirror, poking a little plastic rod in and out of my mouth. The rod is for scraping saliva from ones cheek.

Im going to the USA, I say, to Family Tree DNA, the worlds largest genetic testing firm. They send you out this kit.

I snap the head of the rod into a vial and twist on the lid.

Cut to my lounge room. My laptop is throwing blue light on my face.

Now, I say to camera, heres an interesting little sidebar...

I swivel my laptop around to the camera. The masthead across the webpage reads White Pride Worldwide.

Someone sent me a link to the American white pride website Stormfront, I say, where they have an alert.

I read it out:

Alert: John Safran Coming to the USA. I have it on very good authority that the Australian Jewish documentary maker/comedian John Safran will be coming to the United States sometime between now and the middle of the year to film his new show for the ABC, Race Relations.

John Safran was the blond, blue-eyed Jew from Australia who tried to enlist in the Ku Klux Klan in his series John Safran vs God.

I personally felt this episode was in particular poor taste, and would warn white separatists across the States to keep a watchful, close eye out for John Safran attempting to set up other white separatist groups in a similar way.

I stare down the camera, addressing the white supremacists.

Hey, guys, I say. I wasnt even thinking about you. But now that youve brought it up... Seeing as Im going to America for a DNA test why dont I go get a DNA test done on one of you?

I whip out of my pocket another Family Tree DNA kit.

Oh, I dont know, I say, how about the founder of the Nationalist Movement, Richard Barrett?

I make out I know who this guy is, but I dont. Im familiar with the lowercase white nationalist movement, which just includes any group thats proud to be white. As to this specific uppercase Nationalist Movement no idea. The reason Im off to see Richard Barrett specifically is, my researcher shot off emails to a dozen Klan-types and hes the one who got back to us. On his webpage Richard says hes also the founder of the American skinhead movement. Hes sixty-seven years old.

A tiny plane flies on a map from my flat to Mississippi.

The Mississippi State Legislature is bright white and gorgeous,a bit Greek temple, a bit Gone With the Wind mansion. I trot up the steps and between the white pillars. A black senator, Robert Johnson, meets me on one of the marble walkways.

Can you tell us who Richard Barrett is? I ask.

Richard Barrett is an avowed racist, white supremacist, who believes the only true Americans are white Americans, Senator Johnson says, his moustache bouncing up and down. And hes one of the most outspoken white supremacists here in the state.