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leverage88 · 5 years

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Annotated Bibliography

Karim Harouni

English 2010

Fish Burton

28 October 2019

Annotated Bibliography

Klein, David. “The US Doesn't Have a Student Debt Problem. It Has a College Tuition Crisis.” Quartz, Quartz, 12 Sept. 2019, qz.com/1707593/were-thinking-about-the-student-debt-crisis-all-wrong/.

David Klein is the CEO and co-founder of CommonBond, a financial technology company on a mission to give students and graduates more affordable, transparent, and simple ways to pay for higher education” and in his article, he begins to explain that the student loan crisis is not the real problem. It is instead the price of tuition that is the root of this predicament. He briefly mentions how comedian, Hasan Minhaj, covered this topic on his show via Netflix and then leads to how they both share a common idea that “Some students are able to land jobs after graduation with salaries that justify the monthly student loan payments, but others are not able to do so, rendering their student loans a particularly heavy burden.” Hasan has even stated that “Imagine starting a race and then the guy with the starter pistol uses the gun to shoot you in the leg” This connects to my topic as I want to first clarify the situation so my audience can steer my audience towards my conclusion that there are solutions to this tense topic and if we are going to solve the situation, we are going to have to start at the root of it. We also need to think of things as long term and short term solutions. It seems to me that lowering college tuition is an idea that I feel will involve a process that can most likely span over multiple years, thus making this a long-term goal. I want this article to really show a possible solution and to show that this crisis is so big that people are creating businesses to address the problem.

Friedman, Zack. “Why 100,000 Borrowers Were Rejected For Student Loan Forgiveness.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 23 Sept. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/09/23/why-99-of-borrowers-were-rejected-for-student-loan-forgiveness/#51c3dc573d57.

This is a prime example of a source that is filled with statistics. Zack Friedman stats the latest information from the U.S.department of education that states “As of June 30, 2019, 90,962 student loan borrowers submitted 110,729 applications for public service loan forgiveness. Of that total, approximately 102,051 applications have been processed. Another 8,677 applications are pending. Of all the applications processed together, 1,216 have been approved and 100,835 have been rejected” That means less than 2% of applications submitted for loan forgiveness have been approved, but the reason why more than half of these applications were rejected because they did not make qualifying payments while nearly a quarter were rejected due to missing information. This shows that the issue here is not necessarily that there is no forgiveness for certain people, as this program is only for employees in public service position, but the problem is a lack of education on how to best work the system in order to survive their debts. While there are students who are willing to take the time to research and work on receiving financial aid and debt forgiveness but they do not know necessarily how to get the most out of it. This could lead to another possible solution that students should be receiving assistance on receiving financial aid, like how most universities have a financial office that offers assistance to a certain degree, but maybe the solution is to take this concept to a whole nother level. Schools could be further enforced to properly educate students on how to receive financial aid, and actually make students apply for financial aid.

Hsu, Hua. “Student Debt Is Transforming the American Family.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 5 Sept. 2019, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/09/student-debt-is-transforming-the-american-family.

I chose this article to better demonstrate the emotional and physical effects of the student debt crisis by telling the true story of Kimberly, a student at New York University, and her family dealing with this crisis first hand. Kimberly grew up in Philadelphia alongside her middle-class family. She always had dreams of studying in New York and her mother kept encouraging her to go while her father had argued for going to a much more affordable college instate. Kimberly chose NYU and studied diligently while her parents gave financial support. The article then starts to state how different was the college experience of Kimberly’s parents. College has only gotten more expensive as it is directly explained in the article “From the late nineteen-eighties to the present, college tuition has increased at a rate four times that of inflation, and eight times that of household income. It has been estimated that forty-five million people in the United States hold educational debt totaling roughly $1.5 trillion—more than what Americans owe on their credit cards or auto loans.” This quote alone works well with all my other resources above as it not only shows that the issue is caused by tuition, but goes into the real-life experience of a young girl’s college education and how it is even harder financially for her than it was for her parents and they, along with the rest of the nation, is stuck trying to maneuver around it. I like this article helps humanize my topic so that it can better connect with the reader, especially if they don’t feel affected by the student debt crisis. A lot of the time, we can get lost in the numbers and statistics of a situation, that we need to understand that beyond every bit of data is real people like the rest of us and their stories are just as real as our own. It helps connect with my overall theme that the student debt crisis is only getting worse and that we as a nation need to unite to find an overall solution.

“Student Loans.” Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj. Netflix, Manhattan. 24 February 2019. Web Television

The article by David Klein referenced an episode of the Netflix web-series, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, which is an American comedy web television talk show that covers multiple current issues similar to “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and in its second season, Hasan chose to speak about student loans and the rising debt issues. This resource explains a lot about student loans. He describes how government-sponsored loans started to spurt when the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik, and the U.S. was in a panic. Since the U.S. was losing the Space Race, the government passed the “National Defense Education Act” The episode also helps to further emphasize once again that student debt is a serious issue, as they show a segment from actual TV program called "Paid Off with Michael Torpey" where the host, Michael Torpey, gives three college graduates, all of whom have outstanding student debts, the opportunity to have their debts paid if they answer correctly. Minhaj himself is surprised that a show like Paid Off even exists. The show also explains that one of the scariest things about student loans is that there is very little room for error, as a segment on Patriot act give clips of news broadcasts from different parts of the U.S that demonstrates possible consequence of having students loans, with one clip, in particular, stating that over a thousand healthcare workers got their licenses suspended just for being behind on their loan payments. Everything Hasan talks about in the episode are real problems that our nation is facing right now. I hope to show how harmful the student debt crisis is with these examples and have it stir the emotions in my readers which can lead people to act.

Friedman, Zack. “How This New Navient Lawsuit Affects Your Student Loans: Q&A.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 Oct. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/10/11/student-loan-forgiveness-navient-questions/#6f365e262a07.

This article focuses on a completely different aspect of the student loan crisis which would be loan servicers which was mentioned in the same episode of “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj” listed above. The government hires Loan Servicers to manage federal loans by collecting money, making sure debts are paid on time, and they explain all the available payment options. However, many loan servicers have been accused of taking advantage of their clients, the worst loan servicer is Navient, as this article explained that almost a year ago, members of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers union in the nation, had filed a lawsuit against Navient, where they were accused of systematically misdirecting borrowers into types of forbearance, which do not qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which is a program that offers public servants to have their outstanding federal student loans forgiven if they meet the requirements. The article then gives advice for others being affected by Loan Servicers and they stated that the best way to work with these companies is to get everything from agreements or changes to the account, in writing as they don’t always follow through on spoken word alone. I can use this article to magnify my opinion that this crisis is so out of line that people can’t trust their loan servicers to keep their word. This article shows that the issue is not only in a lack of common knowledge as borrowers were misled into losing their loan forgiveness, but that the government is hiring shady companies and they are not properly regulating them, so as a result, we the people have to take action. I mainly want to use this article when I talk about how the student debt crisis affects us as a nation and further explain that companies like Navient are the direct results of the student debt crisis.

Mitchell, Josh. “The Long Road to the Student Debt Crisis.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 7 June 2019, www.wsj.com/articles/the-long-road-to-the-student-debt-crisis-11559923730.

Josh Mitchell is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, who mainly covers news on the U.S. economy. In this article the overall tone Mitchell conveys is serious and blunt. This is shown in the opening line of the article where it states “The U.S. student loan system is broken” and Mitchell continues to explain that in four out of 10 recent college graduates now have jobs that don’t even require a college degree. He then states that colleges are so insufficient and popularly disliked that they might as well be “dropout factories.” This is further backed up as Mitchell cites that a nonprofit organization by the name of “Third Way” reported that more than a third of colleges have less than half of their students who enrolled actually earns any credential within eight years. Mitchell then shows the readers that the U.S. spends more on higher education than most developed countries with exceptions like Luxembourg. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is stated in the article as well saying that the U.S. is spending about $30,000 per student. As the U.S.spends more in student debt, there are college presidents earning over a million a year. This article gives the readers an understanding of our nation's current status and it also gives a brief idea of how other first-world countries are fairing with the same issue situation. I can use this in my research paper, since I plan on showing my readers how poorly the U.S. is handling the student debt crisis and then compare it to how other developed countries are dealing with student debt in their own nations.

Jackson, Abby. “'Free' College in Europe Isn't Really Free.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 17 Apr. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/how-do-european-countries-afford-free-college-2017-4.

To better show my readers how other nations are handling higher education, I turned to this article written by former JPMorgan chief investment and treasury officer, Abby Jackson, who writes that many countries such as Germany are offering free college for students from any financial background. She explains that this is done through the taxes. She claims that Europe has higher taxes than the U.S. and she uses a report on the tax burden on earnings among other countries, which was released by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Jackson explains that the tax wedge is “the dollar measure of the income tax rate” and in a graphic used in the article, it shows that just under Belgium, Germany has one of the highest tax wedges while the U.S. is fifteen places behind Germany and under. Jackson does state that the tax wedges are not solely caused by education, but she does make the connection that Germany still has the highest tax wedge, as well as one of the largest inclusive debt-free college programs in the world and she predict that if the U.S. were to introduce similar programs, it will follow this trend as well. I plan to use this article to show the fear that we have as a nation when it comes to adopting education programs like the ones used in other first-world countries. I can understand if a reader feels skeptical about Jackson's overall conclusion since she even states that the rankings she uses are not purely based on education programs as it is still a guess. It is possible that taxes would rise, but wouldn't it be worth it if the debt drops? There will always be a give-and-take in every relation and most of the time it seems like we are usually weighing out the pros and cons. I want readers to be able to weigh the pros and cons themselves and form their own opinions.

Delisle, Jason, and Alex Usher. “Australia's Student Loan Problem Is a Teachable Moment for the U.S.” Brookings, Brookings, 1 Mar. 2018, www.brookings.edu/research/australias-student-loan-problem-is-a-teachable-moment-for-the-u-s/.

The Brookings Institution is a non-profit organization located in Washington D.C.that is dedicated to policy research. Their website states that their mission is to conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national and global level. This article is supposed to help the readers understand that while Australia’s loan program has an example for the U.S for years, they are at risk of surpassing their limits. To give context, Australia created its loan program in 1989 to help charge tuition for public universities. The article says that the program is meant to have the borrowers pay a low-interest rate equal to inflation and they don’t have to make payments until the borrower starts earning a set amount and as they continue to earn more the rate rises. This makes the structure for paying back loans more progressive. This system was working well until Australia made two policy changes where they took off the caps on how many students could enter universities and giving loan access to vocational students like nurses, dental hygienists, and so on. These changes have lead to shady borrowers like Navient entering the market and since most vocational and undergrad students work part-time and they don't earn enough since the payment program starts when students begin to earn a certain amount. This can lead to a blowout. This article allows me to explain that the reason why debt repayment has worked for Australia is because they had restrictions on how many went to college and who received financial aid. I can use this article to explain while there are other nations that have successful programs to face student debt, they do come at a price and the important question we will have to ask as a nation is whether we are willing to pay it. The overall theme I plan to use in this article is that there is a price to pay no matter what option we choose, and we must be willing to follow through with it.

College for All Act of 2017, S.806, 115th Cong. (2017)

Vermont senator and Democratic presidential nominee, Bernie Sanders, has made a name for himself for his socialistic policies during his time on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Some of these policies are about access to affordable healthcare for all and improved education programs. It is common to see Sanders on the debate stage or in interviews exclaiming that the student debt crisis is out of control. In April, 2017 Sen. Sanders introduced a bill called the College for All Act of 2017, where Sanders proposes not one but multiple solutions to the crisis which includes; eliminating tuition for household that makes less than $125,000, lowering the interest rates for those who still need financial aid and keep them on a fixed loan rate, preventing the federal government from profiting off of student loans, and even a dollar for dollar match for states “that provide extra funding to reduce the cost of college beyond eliminating tuition and fees.” I want to use this bill to help my readers understand that members of our government are trying to resolve this issue and here are only some of their ideas to do so. I plan to further explain that the student debt crisis is so bad, that our elected government officials are trying to pass laws in order to make a change. I feel like this can bring a sense of hope to the reader as I know that being in a difficult situation like student debt can be very depressing, but we can make a change as there are many other people working to make changes as well.

ONeal, Anthony. “Overcoming the Student Loan Crisis.” Daveramsey.com, Dave Ramsey, 23 Sept. 2019, www.daveramsey.com/blog/student-loan-crisis.

Anthony ONeal is an author and speaker who dedicates himself to properly educating young adults to make smart decisions with their money, in their relationships and education. ONeal himself was homeless and deep in debt at the age of nineteen, but after making changes to his life and writing a few bestselling books like “ Graduate Survival Guide: 5 Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make in College”, he wrote an article on, famed economic radio show host, author and businessman, Dave Ramsey’s website. In the article, ONeal states that “the Student loan debt has seen almost 157% growth since the Great Recession and is the fastest-growing portion of the total household debt in the U.S” which shows how the student crisis has grown exponentially in such little time. An interesting aspect of the article is when ONeal hypothetically gives the scenario where the reader imagines if “ a 21-year-old graduate started investing $250 per month with a 10% return instead of putting that money toward a payment. They’d have $2,612,924 by the time they retire at the age of 67.“ ONeil also tells the reader that in a recent poll by the National Association of Realtors 41% of millennials said they want to get married but can’t because of their student loan debt and over 50% of them said they’re waiting to start a family for the exact same reason. The article also gives advice to readers to attend cheaper schools, Another aspect of the article that I would like to incorporate into my research paper is the author and other people like him. The student debt crisis has grown so severe that more and more economists, authors, entrepreneurs, and politicians continue to write books on the topic and they become bestsellers while the crisis only continues to grow. I want to educate my readers that while there are people who are trying to help solve the debt crisis by informing the population, nothing can be done until we take action.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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How White Noise Exposes the Empty Lies of the Alt-Right

https://ift.tt/2ZPmb1K

Rabbit holes have been on Daniel Lombroso’s mind during the last four years. Perhaps they’ve been there longer since his awareness of the alt-right predates his work on the new documentary White Noise. Yet ever since a fateful day in 2016, when he pointed a camera at a band of young white American men offering up their arms in a Nazi salute, he’s thoroughly explored one of the darkest rabbit holes in 21st century Western culture—and he’s shined a light on how so many got there, only to spread more hate out of it.

A perfect example comes midway through White Noise. Using what Lombroso cites as a strong tool for any cinema vérité documentarian, the montage, he tracks how one of the movie’s primary subjects, alt-right personality Mike Cernovich, spent the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign tweeting across the internet an erroneous smear about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Cernovich falsely claimed she had covered up a series of seizures, including on Sept. 11 of that year during a visit to the site of the World Trade Center attack, and was quietly suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.

“It takes off enough that a few days later it’s on Hannity, and a few days later it’s coming out of the president’s mouth,” Lombroso tells us over Zoom on a late October afternoon. “I mean, the notion that messaging from the President of the United States can begin with the conspiratorial snake oil salesman in California, and ends up in a president’s mouth, it’s just totally astounding.”

It’s also just one of the more overt ways White Noise explores the menace, as well as the shallow initial appeals, of the alt-right movement in the United States.

Produced by The Atlantic, White Noise is a documentary that’s been four years in the making for Lombroso. He’s keen to admit that he didn’t intend for the process to take the entire length of President Donald Trump’s presidential term. But then that may be serendipitous. For unlike other documentaries that study the modern far-right in American life from a distance, Lombroso’s film is the only one doing it from the inside looking out.

With remarkable access to three of the (once) most popular voices in the alt-right movement, Lombroso took a fly on the wall vantage for years as he traveled the world with Cernovich, Lauren Southern, a Canadian white supremacist on YouTube, and American neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. And over the course of White Noise’s 90 minutes, years of interviews, and silent observations, the emptiness of all three’s snake oil becomes overbearing.

Of course they would disagree; Spencer even takes umbrage any time he is called a Nazi. And yet, it was a Spencer-led event in November 2016 that brought White Noise into being. Years before he headlined at the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—which led to the murder of anti-racist protestor Heather Heyer—Spencer was jubilant in the heady days following Donald Trump’s surprise electoral victory.

“I started covering the alt-right as a reporter at The Atlantic in about July of 2016, four or five months before the event,” Lombroso says. “I saw just really repulsive stuff bubbling up online, in chat forums, but also on college campuses. I only graduated a couple of years before from school, so I actually brought coverage of the alt-right to The Atlantic.” And among the filmmaker’s ideas that autumn was a profile of Spencer, whom Lombroso views as a modern day equivalent of former grand wizard of the KKK, David Duke.

Even so, the filmmaker was somewhat taken aback when he followed Spencer and a litany of believers into a Washington D.C. ballroom just days after Trump’s election. There Spencer referred to the media as Lügenpresse, the German phrase for “Press of Lies,” which was utilized by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Spencer’s followers then chanted, “Hail Trump!” and “Hail our people!”

Reflects Lombroso, “At the time, alt-right was used as a fun way for them to rebrand, and it was total bullshit. I mean, they’re Nazis, they’re white supremacists, they’re fascist and that clip was really important in clarifying what they were about.” It went viral and became the launching pad of Lombroso’s first feature film—a film he believes to have crucial historical significance.

“I think seeing them on the rise and seeing how much Trump had empowered them was just completely shocking to them,” Lombroso considers. “I don’t think Trump would exist and be where he is without the alt-right, and the alt-right also wouldn’t exist without Trump. I mean, it’s a really terrifying symbiotic relationship.”

Its historical importance was also only heightened by Lombroso’s own personal background as a Jewish man who has spent a lifetime living with the dangers of far-right extremism.

“Both of my grandmothers are Holocaust survivors, and I grew up very close to them, learning their stories,” says the director. “One of them lost her entire family, except for a brother, and the other one lost her sister in the war. So those were fundamental memories and legacies that I grew up with.”

Given this personal history, it is perhaps surprising so many alt-right personalities would welcome Lombroso and his camera within their ranks. And with the exception of Spencer, it was a challenge gaining access.

“Spencer is the easiest because he’s willing to do almost anything,” Lombroso says. “[But] once he understood that this was kind of an unvarnished vérité film—I think he didn’t totally grasp that—and the more frankly embarrassing moments I caught of him, the more he tried to back off. But Cernovich was difficult, and then Lauren… was next to impossible. It took eight months to convince her to participate in the project. She doesn’t do any press.”

Nevertheless, they all wound up becoming protagonists in the film. Lombroso credits this to each thinking they could “outsmart” him, and that they were all narcissistic enough in their own way to fail to grasp how they would appear on screen. With a vérité approach, the three minor celebrities could only see plenty of floor space to hock their soundbite-deep ideology. But when captured in full context, they were each given enough proverbial rope.

Even so, the filmmaker cultivated complicated relationships with each of them, particularly Southern, whom he describes as “the key to the film.”

“I just built this really interesting kind of journalistic relationship with her where I just kept coming back and trying to convince her that I was sincere in wanting to understand her story,” Lombroso says. “She’s a little bit younger than me, but we’re around the same age and I think that helped. If I was a 60-year-old white dude director, it would have been a lot harder. But even though I find her views totally abhorrent, we had at least some references growing up and watching the same things, listening to the same things.”

And listen to Lauren, Lombrsoso did. Extensively. Over the course of several years, the documentarian traveled with her across the globe as her YouTube celebrity grew. On that video-sharing site, she posted alleged makeup tutorials where she would write the words “Fuck Islam” across her cheeks; and she’d fly to Russia in order to prove there is no “collusion” while wearing Soviet styled military caps. With several years’ reflection, she later tells Lombroso in the film that these were “trolling politics.” She sold them with a chirping smile.

That is of course the danger. As Lombroso recalls, when he followed Southern all the way to the European Parliament, Janice Atkinson, a former British member of the EU legislative branch, cooed, “She can sell it to my sons better than I can sell it.” Or, as Lombroso clarifies, “She’s young, obviously part of her package is that she’s attractive and she uses it to radicalize people.”

At the same time, during the course of making White Noise, Southern showed the most potential for change. The filmmaker caught on camera what appeared to be far-right radio host, and Proud Boys founder, Gavin McInnes sexually propositioning Lauren over the phone (McInnes is married and denied that he actually did so). And Lombroso was able to document Southern’s growing weariness with this kind of gross, leering attention.

“With Richard and Mike, no, there’s very little regret, there’s very little self-awareness,” Lombroso says. “With Lauren, dealing with a lot of the sexual harassment and abuse from men… I think there was a moment, it’s act two in the film, which was about a year and a half ago filming, when she was dealing with it so dramatically and nonstop. It was just a never ending torrent of shit from these guys that there was a chance or a hope that she might change.”

But one of the most telling things about White Noise is it’s not a reclamation story or the “Hollywood narrative,” as Lombroso shrugs.

“In pitch meetings, everyone was looking for the hallmark story of the Nazi who reformed. There’s a few amazing examples like Derek Black, but it’s so rare. The hundreds of people I interviewed and spent time with, I can count on one hand the number of people who reformed and owned up.”

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So even as Southern took a year off from the alt-right rat race, and had a child with a man who was not white, her views never changed. In fact, they hardened. Which makes her desire in White Noise to not talk about the ethnicity of her child’s father all the more striking.

“I think Lauren’s omission of her boyfriend [and] now husband is intentional,” Lombroso says. “I think she’s potentially embarrassed. She wants to minimize as much as possible how much of a blatant contradiction that is. I mean, she is the avatar for white femininity, for white baby-making, and for the preservation of the white race.” And she’s doubled down on that line of thinking, if not in the specific gender dynamics, after taking a year off.

More insidious still is how figures like Southern can trade in their YouTube hate-mongering for the prestige of establishment notoriety. After going to Paris and filming Middle Eastern refugees left to live in tents, she and alt-right filmmaker Caolan Robertson created a repugnant piece of propaganda called Borderless. It was screened for European policymakers.

“She was invited to the European Parliament,” Lombroso remarks. “She met her partner, and with the benefits of her privilege as a young white person could just wipe that stuff away. So yeah, the EU speech gave her a tremendous amount of credibility, a stunning amount. And she’s really not sorry about anything.”

As the toast of far-right European Parliament members’ staffs—with 10 percent of elected members currently belonging to the anti-immigrant and extremist Identity and Democracy group—Southern screened Borderless. The documentary pivots on a misleading montage where a series of refugees say they wish they stayed in their native countries. Out of context, Southern and Robertson present this with goofy inspirational music.

In White Noise, Lombroso provides context. In tent cities beneath highway overpasses, Southern lies and manipulates refugees to get the soundbites she desires.

“It’s terrible and terrifying,” Lombroso says. “Coming from The Atlantic, we just had the most careful, rigorous journalistic standards. Everyone had to sign a release form. Everyone knew my name and how I worked. If they asked about my background, I’d say I’m Jewish. Nothing was a lie. And in that scene, you see on camera Lauren give a fake name. She says, ‘My name is Alex.’ To give you context beyond [White Noise], she would represent herself all sorts of ways, most often as a journalist who was very favorable to refugees and wanted to hear their story and spread the word. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into.”

Yet Lombroso’s instinct to maintain the vérité approach of bearing witness to this sinister manipulation could create an ethical dilemma. These are people in the worst situation imaginable, living in tents and unable to get a job because the EU will not give them work permits no matter what they do.

Says Lombroso, “For me, it just became about exposing how horrible her treatment was and how inconsistent it was with what we saw.”

Such instances demonstrate the inherent challenge of Lombroso’s approach, but also the reason he felt compelled to present White Noise as a documentary that follows three alt-right celebrities to a bitter end. Unlike so many other political documentaries, there are no talking heads drawing direct comparisons to the 1930s, as Lombroso might do in a Zoom conversation, nor is there a voiceover narration or heavy-handed musical score, asking the viewer to feel a certain way.

Lombroso is acutely sensitive to criticism that his film would become a platform or amplifier for the subjects’ hateful rhetoric. Instead of presenting their talking points without context, Lombroso argues, he is drowning them in excessive context.

“I think our realization is that these folks have followings in the millions, and a huge amount of influence already,” Lombroso says. “So it was on me as a filmmaker and journalist to take their ideas seriously, but slowly dismantle them. I think the vérité format does that extremely well… you’re able to tie someone up in his loops, prove them wrong, expose their psychology and just how abhorrent they are in a way that’s much more revealing, I believe, than any expert at the Brookings Institution could ever do.”

Lombroso views the intimate access he had with these figures a unique opportunity and his biggest asset. By stepping back, he could capture the whole alt-right landscape in the age of Trump with a single snapshot of historic value.

“The way the alt-right recruits is by telling the story that we’re the descendants of Greeks and Romans,” says the filmmaker. “That we are strong men and that if you follow us, you’ll be happy, you’ll be confident, and you’ll feel better. And the real way to dismantle that isn’t for an expert to tell you it’s not true; it’s to really just show how empty it is.”

It’s also what the finished film conveys in 2020. Over recent months, Lombroso and The Atlantic have screened White Noise for a variety of audiences, and all of them, including conservative ones, had the same reaction of revulsion toward these people and where they end up.

By the time White Noise’s credits roll, each of the three subjects—Spencer, Cernovich, and Southern—have been left behind by their movement. Cernovich and Southern chose to step away, somewhat weary of the mess they helped create, though each has tried to circle back. In the case of Southern, it is continuing her online activism in Australia after Borderless’ warm reception among the far-right; Cernovich, meanwhile, contemplates a run for Congress after transitioning to selling skin care products and other seeming grifts.

And Spencer? At picture’s end, he is divorced and living back home in his mother’s extravagant Montana house, playing the piano and riding ski lifts alone while fantasizing about there one day being a Richard Spencer Boulevard.

Muses Lombroso, “Richard is an ideologue. Richard believes it, but even with him, he’s intoxicated by the fame. So I think it’s sort of a spectrum. Richard is a true believer. Mike believes next to nothing, but all of the motivations are mixed.”

What all three have in common, however, is an indignation at how they appear in White Noise.

“There’s a reason they despise the film,” Lombroso tells me. “They’re all very unhappy with the way it came out, because I think in their minds they’re the heroes of their own story. And now they’re looking in the mirror and seeing that for most people, it just doesn’t look that way.”

He goes on to add, “The New York Times just wrote a review and said the three must be so excited about this film. And if only the reviewer at The Times knew what my inbox looked like for the past two months in my phone. I mean, they’re furious because they know that this film just dismantles their ideology and their ability to recruit. It makes them look like fools.”

The alt-right, at least as how Cernovich, Spencer, and Southern, conceived of it, is effectively dead. But its ideology and aspirations live happily on in the mainstream every time Fox News hosts spread conspiracy theories that sound only slightly removed from the most heinous rhetoric Cernovich propagated on Twitter; and it breathes deeply each instance President Trump refuses to denounce a QAnon conspiracy theory that has morphed into the new faceless leader of far-right propaganda online.

The rabbit hole still exists, just one click away. But at least with White Noise, some younger minds might see the ugly reality such blind hate leaves in its wake.White Noise is available on VOD now.

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30 Children of Anti-Vaxxers Tell Their Stories

At this point, it’s common knowledge that vaccines haven’t been linked with autism. Doctors have checked and checked again, but nothing credible has ever come up.

Still, there are people who identify as ‘anti-vaxxers’ and decline to vaccinate their children. Now, in a packed Reddit thread, those peoples’ children have a few things to say about it.

Check out stories from 30 children of anti-vaxxers, who each feel quite different from their parents!

One redditor always thought they had been vaccinated—until their employer discovered otherwise.

I had an idea they were anti-vaxxers, but it was never confirmed.

They mentioned my younger brother wasn’t [vaccinated] but it was “justified” because we were living in the mountains of Montana and it was too far a drive to the Doctor.

I assumed I had been as I was born in civilization and we didn’t move to the hills until I was 3.

We were homeschooled, my older brother had trouble at college with his immunizations and Mom said all the paperwork was lost when they moved.

I was 30 years old and I was offered a job at a university helping train doctors, started getting paperwork asking for proof of vaccinations, I just said test me and give me whatever I need.

But I know I’ve had Chicken Pox.

Turns out I had nothing, no antibodies and I’d never had Chicken Pox either (Mom said I had). Lit up both arms with a run of shots over the next 3 months.

Never forgot telling my boyfriend and he yelled “You’ve been to Mexico, TWICE, and Europe. Oh my god.”

Called my mom and said “Hey I’m getting a job and they say I’ve never been vaccinated. Was I?”

She got very defensive and said no, she hated making us cry as babies and they’re bad for little kids.

Also, did I really need them? She then tried to talk me out of them.

Since I know how they work I felt very okay letting her know I’d already started the process.

I’m so thankful for all of you protecting me until I found out. –sirenssong

This redditor, unfortunately, suffered the consequences of a disease for which a vaccine exists.

via: Getty

Mom got rubella when pregnant with me. As a result, I was born severely deaf so there ya go.

Life’s not the best. –strangeunluckyfetus

This person’s parent had to see them with measles to understand the importance of vaccination.

via: Getty

I got measles, as a 22-year-old, in my first week of moving to London.

I’d previously lived up north, and on my first day of working immediately after finishing uni, I began feeling lethargic. By the second day, I felt pretty bad but soldiered on.

Third day, I began taking (fairly effective) painkillers for the remainder of the week. Saturday, attended a local fair, after taking my morning painkiller.

Had a bottle of beer with my dad and felt very strange afterward, almost floaty but in a kinda bad way.

Decided to stop taking the painkillers, woke up with a raging fever and intense coughing on Sunday.

Hobbled out of bed, feeling dizzy and horrible and noticed in the mirror of the bathroom that I looked like an Oompa Loompa (red splotchy rash all over).

My step mum had been feeling similar symptoms that week, she decided to call an ambulance, who checked both of our conditions and turned out I had a raging (41c) fever and low oxygen.

They took me to A&E and I was given fluids via a drip.

Later, my step mum came in and was given the same treatment; the doctor on call said it’d probably be a general viral infection.

At home, took the week off work and recovered. Step mum took off two weeks. She went back to A&E a couple of days after; the doctor on duty immediately spotted that it was measles.

Thing is, in England if you get it, an organization called Public Health England has to be legally informed by your doctor, which informs your workplace about your illness.

Cue an embarrassing email being sent by your new boss to everyone in your company before you’ve even met most of your colleagues.

Took a while to recover. In a week I felt well enough to be out and about. You’re only infectious when you have the rash (and a little before and after).

I still felt out of whack for several weeks. This happened in July, and I didn’t feel quite fully recovered until October or so.

Obviously, neither myself or my step mum had been vaccinated with the MMR. My dad and sisters had had it as children. We immediately got both jabs, after we were told how painful mumps could be.

Strongly recommend everyone gets the MMR vaccine. It’s straightforward and time-honored.

Measles is unpleasant and can cause complications in adults. My intense coughing almost certainly caused some lung damage, and my hair just kind of… fell out in the months following.

Save yourselves!

My graduation ceremony was a couple of weeks after this. My actual mum saw how ill measles had left me and changed her mind on vaccinations.

Shame it had to be that way, though. –AdamJay26

It’s a good thing medical professionals are often ready to help kids of anti-vaxxers, even later in life than usual.

via: Getty

My parents chose not to vaccinate my sister and me. They have some… unique ideas about science and medicine.

We were also homeschooled if that clarifies anything.

We both wound up volunteering at hospitals at different points in our lives, so we had to get caught up anyway. For me, it was at age 20, for an internship at a mental health facility.

It was a little awkward explaining to the nurse why I had nothing on my record, but she was understanding overall.

My big concern now is what will happen when I get around to having children of my own in a few years.

I think they’ll see me as a bad mother if I get them vaccinated, so I’m anticipating some fireworks. –Arihagne

This redditor’s struggle wasn’t for their own vaccination, but their parents’.

via: Getty

I was vaccinated when I was a baby as part of a mandatory vaccination program in the Soviet Union, but my parents wouldn’t vaccinate/get boosters after we moved to the States.

My family is pathologically distrustful of doctors and medication of any kind and prefers homeopathy and alternative medicines.

I didn’t realize I wasn’t fully vaccinated until I went in for a physical in college.

Up till then, I’d just assumed I’d been fully vaccinated in Russia (Because that’s what my parents told me).

I got all my shots up to date and I just never mentioned it to my parents.

Their anti-medicine stance has softened as they age, but I generally avoid the topic because I can’t handle their bullshit and it never goes anywhere anyway.

That said, I had a baby this past December in the middle of a really bad flu season and I told my parents that they weren’t allowed to see the baby until they could produce proof of a flu shot (this is absolutely something they’d lie about, so yes, I demanded written proof).

They both got one as soon as they realized I was serious. –Kookalka

Next up, another redditor gave their parent the same choice…and the answer wasn’t so peaceful.

This person’s mother had a different answer to the ‘get vaccinated for my baby’ ultimatum.

I said the same thing, and my mum opted not to see the baby for 3 months. Bizarre life choices.

Ultimately she hasn’t had a lot to do with raising her grandson, which might be for the best.

To her credit, she is honest. –actuallyarobot2

When in doubt, go with science.

I was not vaccinated as a child because my mother thought vaccines were evil, unchristian, and other ridiculous things.

This was in the early ’80s before all the autism BS, but she had her own unique theories. I got myself vaccinated when I went to university.

My mother was disappointed and wanted to write a letter to the school explaining her religious views on vaccines (as she had done for years to keep me exempt), but I decided to go with science. –squeezymarmite

Even a medical degree didn’t change this redditor’s anti-vaxxer parents.

via: Getty

I didn’t receive any vaccinations through childhood due to my parents’ beliefs.

Once I got to college, I did my own research on them, learned the actual science behind them, and got all vaccinations.

I then went to medical school, and yet they still don’t believe me and my medical degree regarding vaccinations.

Holidays can get awkward. –guardian528

Starting college without your vaccines adds an extra few hurdles.

via: Getty

When I was 19, I had to get some vaccines in order to start college, and my mom was NOT helpful.

First, she tried to get me exempt from the vaccines, and when that didn’t work, she sent me into the clinic (alone) with completely false/outdated info.

I was super embarrassed when the nurses looked at my notes and told me that none of it was correct.

But luckily they helped me figure out what I needed and didn’t shame me too much for not having a previous vaccination record. A couple years later I went back in to get the rest of the recommended vaccines.

My sister had her first kid (and the first grandbaby) last year, and our mom has been pushing her not to vaccinate. Fortunately, my sister has chosen to vaccinate.

She still is trying to get us to watch a documentary about it to change our minds.

Now all us kids just don’t talk to our mom about vaccines because it always turns into an argument. –itsshamefulreally

And the process of applying to college is hard enough without parents interfering.

via: Getty

[My mom] sabotaged me getting into the college I wanted simply because they did not accept religious exemptions and she couldn’t trick any doctors into signing a health exemption.

I wanted to go do it myself, but they were through accepting applications by then, and I was desperate to go to some college, so I found a different one. –eXpialidocious_

On the next page, one child of the anti-vaxxers has a response to an anti-vaccination “documentary” that made the rounds a few years ago.

There’s an anti-vaccination film called ‘Vaxxed’ (made by an ex-doctor whose license was revoked), and these redditors are NOT about it.

via: Getty

We had our first child at the very beginning of the year and had to tell my father that since he won’t get vaccinated, he won’t be able to see his grandbaby until the baby gets their shots.

The baby had their first round of shots a few months ago, and my father can now visit. It pained me to do that, and I know it pained him, but I was not putting my child at risk for his choice.

This last weekend we visited my father. At the end of the visit, he handed me Vaxxed.

He knows our feelings on the matter – preventable diseases should be prevented, herd immunity protects those most at risk, autism is not caused by vaccines.

It’s just… disrespectful.

I know he thinks he’s trying to protect his grandson from harm, but it’s coming from the completely wrong direction, and no one can seem to change his opinion on the matter. –humplick

More often than not, anti-vaxxer parents are trying to protect their kids—until they realize where the real danger is.

via: Getty

My mum didn’t get the measles vaccination because at the time she thought it caused autism; she was kinda one of the first anti-vaxxers, wrote to papers about it everything.

Anyway, a girl in our social group caught meningitis and died, basically freakishly uncommon.

After that, mum was really scared the same thing could happen to me with any disease and basically begged me to get up to date with my shots.

I guess the main takeaway is that when my mum was younger and inexperienced, she thought everything was a danger; she honestly thought she was doing best by me, I guess. –bellend_bellend

This redditor’s mother eventually turned it around herself!

My parents didn’t give us the whooping cough vaccine under the advisement of our pediatrician.

I actually didn’t know this until last year, so I went and got vaccinated on my mom’s recommendation. She wrote my siblings and me the following email to bring it up:

As a parent, you are bound to make many mistakes.

For me, not having the advantage of younger siblings, the internet, or (initially) many friends with babies, I think I learned to parent on the fly.

At the time, there seemed to be a compelling reason not to include the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine along with whatever else was the recommended protocol for infants under the age of one year.

I think we had read that it was one vaccine too many to be included in the series, and our first pediatrician felt strongly that it might have harmful side effects.

Gramps had told me that he remembered having whooping cough as a child, and although it was harrowing, he survived.

Draw your own conclusions here!

However, I would now hope that you all might consider following up with your doctors to see if you should be vaccinated now as adults.

Out of guilt, I’d be willing to sweeten the deal by paying for whatever isn’t covered by your healthcare. (Tetanus shots, flu shots, etc. aren’t a bad idea either, although you’re on your own there!)

Also, I want to apologize to [Sister], [Sister] and [Brother] for the time we went to the geneticist who took punch core samples of your skin for testing.

We had no idea–and there’s no excuse for our ignorance–that it would be a process painfully administered without anesthesia. I feel traumatized to this day, so I can’t imagine how awful it was for you.

I was reminded of those procedures recently when I heard Nobel Prize-winning geneticist, George Church tell his story on The Moth: My Life as a Guinea Pig.

I love you all dearly!

So, I didn’t get them on my own in contradiction to my parents’ decisions, but at their request, after they realized they had made a mistake. –affixqc

Don’t be afraid to ask your doctor about concerns—they’ve done this many times before.

via: Getty

When my daughter was born, we were terrified of the mercury. We asked a doctor, who explained everything to us clearly.

The poor doc had that look though— “Oh shit, not this again”… –cat_of_danzig

In fact, this redditor got an idea of how much doctors have to explain the necessity of vaccinations.

When we had our first kid, we were shopping around for a pediatrician, and I was astounded how many doctors specifically told us they would only be our general doc if the children were vaccinated.

I had no idea how often they must have that conversation.

Apparently, in some places, the percent of anti-vaxxer parents is as high as 10%.

The number of parents who are reluctant to give their kids vaccines can be as high as 25%. –dsf900

Keep reading for a crazy story of how far one parent went to prevent their child from receiving certain types of medical attention.

Sometimes understanding takes a while, and now this redditor needs all their shots together.

via: Getty

My parents were very against it.

Never particularly vocal about it, but growing up, my schools would organize mass vaccinations for all the kids (MMR, etc.) and I was always mysteriously off sick those days.

My school never noticed, and I was always pretty happy as I have a terrible phobia of needles and never really understood the health implications.

I’ve never had any health problems, but I’ve had partners weirded out by it. I was dating one guy who didn’t want to go near me once he found out I hadn’t had any vaccinations. That felt odd.

Last year there was a measles outbreak at my university, and I was very nervous about it.

Called my parents for advice and their response? “Go get the vaccine.”

Classic.

I’m guessing their opinions have changed over the years, but they’re too proud to say outright that maybe they were wrong and their children’s health could now be at risk.

About time I got the rest of them done! –1742587

This redditor’s mother was not only anti-vaccination, but anti-doctor altogether. It resulted in a medical emergency.

via: Getty

My mother is just plain crazy when it comes to medical topics, and thinks that hospitals and doctors only want your money.

So I was never vaccinated. For a little insight into the craziness, when I was 14, I was a breath away from dying from a burst appendix.

My mother refused to take me to the hospital despite the pain.

It was only when I started urinating blood that my father said he was taking me to the hospital. I was in and out of consciousness while he carried me to the car.

My mom physically fought him as he carried me.

I was medevaced to a larger hospital and had emergency surgery. The doctor told me in recovery that the infection was spreading to other organs, and my body was starting to shut down.

If it had been a couple of hours or more, it would have been too late.

Fast forward four years later when I joined the Army…the gauntlet of shots I received to get all the vaccinations was something else.

I literally walked almost naked down a row with multiple medical staff on each side poking me with needles everywhere as I was told to keep walking forward and not stop.

I am 35 now and feel just as healthy now as I did as a kid.

Never had any other issues except for a hernia from strenuous exercise. Vaccinations do more good than harm. –Kukulcan83

Lack of vaccination lead to a terrible bout of whooping cough for this redditor—and four siblings!

via: Getty

My parents used to not vaccinate me or any of my four siblings, but when I was like three years old me, and my siblings all came down with whooping cough.

It scarred my lungs, and I have yellow stains on my teeth because the high fevers cooked my adult teeth inside my head. My parents vaccinated us after that.

I am not and have never been mad or spiteful toward my parents for not vaccinating me.

They were just naive, and doing what they thought was best for my siblings and me. –Volcano_gurl

Herd immunity is the key to ridding ourselves of dangerous contagious diseases.

What people don’t understand about vaccination is it isn’t just there to protect the vaccinated.

It protects the “herd” (herd immunity); the people who can’t be vaccinated for whatever reason.

This is part of the reason being vaccinated if you’re able to be is so important. You’re not only protecting yourself.

You’re protecting those around you whose immune systems aren’t up to it and could be hugely negatively impacted by their fellow neighbors refusing for their own uneducated reasons. –hihelloneighboroonie

This child of anti-vaxxers has plenty of reason to discontinue tradition.

My dad was the anti-vaxxer, my mom was mostly ambivalent. Neither my brother or I were vaccinated at birth, and I didn’t get my shots until I turned 19.

My brother had to get a tetanus shot once when he was six, due to an injury. It burned my dad up for a while.

His reasoning was typical: he believed that the mercury in the vaccines would cause us to somehow develop autism.

My parents were also pretty hippy-dippy compared to most baby boomers, so they were concerned about chemicals and all that as well.

Jokes on them, though, because both my brother and I have [Aspergers] regardless of being unvaccinated.

It was always a pain in the ass whenever we had to do school-related paperwork or field trip stuff because my parents would have to produce a letter stating that it was their “religious right” to keep us “untainted” by vaccination (we were never a religious family).

I wasn’t a super sickly child (with a few exceptions), but my younger brother suffered a lot.

He got pneumonia when he was little, like 3-4. They had to keep him in the hospital and I remember my dad taking care of me at home while my mom stayed in the room with my brother.

About a year or two after that he got walking pneumonia and again was hospitalized.

He’s also allergic to damn near everything and has bad asthma now. He has epilepsy, and we both have chronic migraines.

I never had anything seriously life-threatening in terms of illness, but there was a nearly yearlong period where I had strep throat almost every other week.

I should have had my tonsils out (they wanted to intubate me at one point but for whatever reason changed their minds?), but my dad threw a fit about having any surgeries performed.

I also developed shingles when I was 13, which my father initially treated as poison ivy and left mostly untreated until my mother intervened.

I still have little to no feeling on swatches of the left side of my body from the blister scars. That sucked.

I did, however, have to get my vaccinations when I turned 18 and enrolled in college. He was not pleased about that, and actually, we didn’t talk for almost a year because of my decision to get vaccinated.

Eventually, we worked things out, but it took a while. I’ll be vaccinating any children I may have in the future, though.

Tl;dr: wasn’t vaccinated until I chose to do so myself as a legal adult bc parents were afraid of autism.

My brother and I were sick a lot as a kid, with some really preventable and stupid illnesses. I plan on vaccinating any children I have. –Larktoothe

Keep reading to see how one member of Reddit shut down their family’s objections like a boss!

Here’s how one redditor put it to their anti-vaxxer grandpa:

My grandpa is convinced on the whole vaccines cause autism thing.

When I was pregnant with my first kid, he harped on it so much until I finally said, “it doesn’t cause autism, but even if it did I would still do it. I’d rather have an autistic kid than a dead one.”

Shut him up fairly well. –HCGB

This child of anti-vaxxers changed their mind about it after seeing the effects first-hand.

My mom is against vaccines, and I grew up in a very anti-vaccine school and was treated by homeopathic and holistic doctors.

I used to believe all that. Then I started med school and changed my mind to “vaccines aren’t bad, but they aren’t necessary.”

Then I did a rotation at a pediatric hospital in the neurological area. That was a huge eye opener!! Meningitis is an awful disease, and anti-vaxxers never talk about it.

The children I saw were the ones that survived and had brain damage afterward.

It was awful to see kids that could have had a perfectly normal life to end up like that. –anesthesiagirl

This redditor got their MMR vaccine in the nick of time.

My parents were against the MMR vaccination as my older brother was diagnosed with Aspergers shortly after he received it.

I’m the youngest child and so never got the jab, even though mumps actually caused my mum to go half deaf as a teenager.

It always made me uncomfortable knowing I wasn’t protected and I was of a strong mind to do it eventually, but of course it’s hard going against your parents’ beliefs when they felt so strongly at what had happened to them.

To me it felt like a form of denial of the autism in the family, which they see as much worse than it is—my brother is an amazing guy, and they should give him more credit.

Before you go to Uni you have to get a meningitis jab; while I was at the doctor’s, the doctor suggested giving me the MMR.

I told her my parents were against it and she said she’d give it to me now and then in a few months I could tell them and prove that I was absolutely fine. So I did that.

A few months after receiving the full vaccination, my flatmate and close friend got diagnosed with rubella.

It spread all over her body causing glandular and scarlet fever, she spent over a month in the hospital and was in a fatal position.

If I hadn’t done it at that moment, I could’ve been in serious trouble. And rubella isn’t common here at all.

So if in doubt about going behind their backs, do it for yourself and your own safety, and that’s the only excuse you need. –lazyswayz

Pro tip: protect yourself from cancer wherever you can.

via: Getty

When the HPV vaccine came out, there was a bunch of stories on the news about girls having poor reactions to it, getting seizures, comas.

Most of it nonsense, but my mother saw the news stories and chose not to get me vaccinated. But then, right after college I had a brief bout of thyroid cancer and decided I would take every precaution I could to not get more cancer.

So I got the shots. I think at the time I didn’t tell my mom, but afterward, it came up.

She was more huffy than anything else, and defended her thoughts at the time, but accepted my decision and reasoning. –xrf_rcc

This redditor caught three diseases that could have been prevented with one shot.

via: Getty

My parents never explicitly said they were anti-vaccine to me, but I was never vaccinated as a child.

I actually caught Measles, Mumps, and Rubella on separate occasions, luckily diagnosed quickly enough to not cause any major health implications long term, but still a pretty miserable experience each time.

So yeah, thanks for that. –otto82

Finally, read up on the next page about one redditor’s reliance on ‘herd immunity’ (and family troubles because of it), plus an Autistic person’s response to anti-vaxxer concerns.

One redditor can’t even visit the in-laws.

I am immunosuppressed due to transplant, and my husband’s side of the family are anti-vaxxers.

I don’t think they believe I’m serious about not attending family gatherings ever again.

I know I can bump into a nonvaccinated person by just being out in public, but if I can avoid a known risk, I’m going to do it.

Thank you, everyone, who’s had their shots for helping keep me alive and healthy!! –auntiepink

Tragedy turned this redditor’s mom into an anti-vaxxer.

via: Getty

My story is a bit complex. My mother is an avid anti-vaxxer, but didn’t become that way until after my late sister died.

She blamed the vaccines she got a few weeks before her death (she was 3 months old) for it, instead of the SIDS tragedy it was.

My next youngest sibling was ‘allergic’ to eggs, and so didn’t get any vaccines until she was 8, after my parents were divorced and we had to move to a new state with new laws.

My two youngest siblings have never been vaccinated against anything. –MomentoMoriBenn

Even if vaccinations and autism were linked (they aren’t), autistic people are here to tell us it’s not the worst thing that could happen.

As an autistic person here as well it hurts to know that so many parents think it’s the worst possible thing that could happen to their child.

I would think dying of measles ranks a bit higher on that scale. –el1414

This redditor had a scare after a childhood of anti-vaccination rhetoric.

via: Getty

My mom had a child who became brain damaged during birth due to a hole in the umbilical cord.

She became convinced that there was some malpractice cover-up and gradually that all of medicine is one big conspiracy.

I stopped getting vaccines around 10 due to a mysterious ailment I had that turned out to be recurrent benign positional paroxysmal vertigo.

For some reason, doctors couldn’t figure it out and thought I had brain cancer.

My mom became convinced it was vaccine-related, and claimed she “traced my vaccine” and it was a “bad batch” that had killed a boy who got it.

I stopped getting vaccines and turned in forms to school every year claiming “personal objection” exemption from all vaccines from that point on.

I ended up deciding to become a biomedical scientist and enrolled in a Ph.D. program.

The Hep B vaccine was recommended for all students, and I received the first course of the vaccine…and then mentioned it to my mom.

She FLIPPED OUT.

She told me she couldn’t believe I would do something so stupid, and that there were so many bad reactions I could have and they didn’t all happen immediately.

I started reading horror stories online about bad Hep B shot reactions. And I panicked.

I really thought I may have done something really stupid.

This was pretty ironic since I was in a science Ph.D. program, but I was still making sense of what part of my childhood brainwashing was true and still coming to my own belief system.

In my hesitation/uncertainty, I failed to get the next dose of the Hep B shot in the required time window. I did intend to get it, but I forgot about it in the craziness of grad school.

Fast forward to my 3rd year; I was studying liver cancer and working with a liver cancer cell line called Hep3B.

I was reading the literature and stumbled on a paper that said that scientists had found that Hep3B cells are infected…with LIVE HEPATITIS B VIRUS.

That was really terrifying because I had been working with them for months and definitely had not taken the precautions you are supposed would take if you are working with active human pathogens.

The fact that I passed up a free HepB shot and could have stupidly contracted HepB really crystallized the importance of vaccines for me that day.

I didn’t ever have obvious symptoms of HepB, but nonetheless, I worried that I might have it up until I got pregnant with my daughter and tested negative during the prenatal tests.

Needless to say, my daughter has gotten 100% of her vaccines and will continue to. I chose for her a pediatrician who refuses to see patients who don’t get all of their vaccines on schedule.

I don’t even want to share a waiting room with unvaxxed kids. –the_real_dairy_queen

Some parents have selective hearing when it comes to vaccines.

My mum was completely against vaccinations.

I only got the MMR by mistake because they didn’t ask the parents – just lined us up outside the library and we went in one by one.

She was furious when I told her what had happened.

I caught whooping cough at age 34, and it was hell.

My partner hates her for putting me through that. I’ve since had a few vaccinations for travel, as has my younger sister.

Neither of us would ever tell our mother that we have had them though.

There was a slight hint a few years back, and she was already through the roof before my sister corrected herself and lied to cover the mention.

We will never tell her. –realbasilisk

Like this story? Share and spread the word of these redditors’ firsthand accounts of the dangers associated with a lack of vaccinations.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/30-children-of-anti-vaxxers-tell-their-stories/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/176965626227

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allofbeercom · 6 years