ReligionWise

From Theory to Practice: Academic Expertise and Counter-Extremism - Damon Berry

• Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding • Season 5 • Episode 1

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Dr. Damon Berry, associate professor of religious studies at St. Lawrence University, regularly consults with federal law enforcement agencies including the  FBI and FBI’s BAU-1 (Behavioral Analysis Unit One) on cases involving religious extremism and alt-right movements. In this conversation, we explore the challenges of translating academic research into practical guidance for investigators, including the difficult work of understanding belief systems and worldviews that are dangerous and toxic to pluralistic society. Berry discusses what law enforcement agencies understand well about these movements and how empathetic scholarship can inform counter-extremism efforts.

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Chip Gruen:

Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host, Chip Gruen. Today we welcome back a guest who appeared about a year ago to talk about religion and the alt right. Damon Berry, who's associate professor of religious studies at St Lawrence University, came on in season four, episode one, to talk about the groups that we're talking about when we talk about the alt right, some of the religious diversity that exists within those groups, the complexity of dealing with them as they exist in communities and also as individuals, operating independently from one another. Dr Berry studies these groups, and I think, more importantly, for his work, how people are attracted to and find themselves in communities that are based on an ideology of exclusion and hate. Obviously, this is a really important topic right now, all more more important all the time, as these groups are increasingly getting a seat at the table and feel as if their message is gaining traction, both in political circles and on the national stage. Dr Berry's work focuses, like I said, not only on the radicalization process, but wants to think about deradicalization as well, so that the hate speech and the crimes that these individuals and groups perpetrate can be either thwarted beforehand or at least confronted appropriately after the fact. And I think that that leads to our conversation today. We didn't talk about it in that previous episode, but based on the strength of his work and his monographs on these groups, the FBI, including their behavioral analysis unit one has reached out to Dr Berry over the course of the last decade and more to consult about understanding these groups and what makes them tick and how to effectively deal with them. And so I thought it would be super useful to have him back on to talk particularly about that, because, as you know in the ReligionWise podcast, what we're interested in is the intersection of religion and public life, and how we think about religion and public life. And so the governmental agencies, including the FBI, have to understand something about religion in order to deal with these groups, and so it's edifying, at least for me, to know that they are reaching out to people with expertise like Dr Berry in order to sort of strengthen their ability to deal with these threats and to think about these groups, not only from a political lens or a psychological lens, but also that there are these deep cultural and religious forces that might be affecting their behavior. So with that being said, I'm very happy to welcome Dr Berry to the podcast. Damon Berry, thanks for coming back on ReligionWise.

Damon Berry:

Oh, my pleasure.

Chip Gruen:

So last time we talked we we talked a lot about the groups that you study, what is sometimes referred to as the alt right, although that's a kind of singularity that that belies the complexity of these groups and their various worldviews and the organizations that they they form or or how they act as individuals. And I really wanted to have you back on today, because I learned that you actually have done some consulting work with federal agencies, in particular the FBI, and sub unit of the FBI that I'll let you talk about more to sort of help fill that literacy gap and develop strategies for dealing with these kinds of groups. So I think I'm not alone in thinking that just sounds fascinating, right? To think about the way that those interactions work, it's not actually something I've thought a lot about. You know, where that information comes from right that then is is acted on by those agencies. So can you describe how you first became involved in this work, these involvements with the federal federal law enforcement? Was this something you sought out? Did they approach you based on your work? What did that look like?

Damon Berry:

Yeah, well, my engagement with these topics that are relevant to law enforcement actually goes back to my undergraduate studies, which began in earnest, really at the time 9/11 happened, so I became intensely interested in the relationships between violence, specifically, politically motivated violence and religious discourses, but I was more interested in domestic groups, whereas that time everybody was, I guess, understandably preoccupied with foreign terrorist organizations. So in a sense, I had kind of put myself in that stream of studying domestic terrorism for a long time, but my direct engagement really begins about 2017 about the time my first book was published, which was based on my dissertation, and it was actually the American Academy of Religion that put us together, so the FBI, Federal Bureau of Prisons, both of whom I've spoken to through the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting, asked to speak with me because of my published work and its relevance to domestic terrorist behavior, but also prison gangs, that sort of thing. So but my first conversation with the FBI was in about 2017 with two other scholars. I'm not sure I'm allowed to tell you who was there, so I'll just defer and just say it was two other scholars who study similar movements, and they asked us questions. And I thought that was going to be a one off, interesting experience. The conversations were certainly enlightening. The differences of opinion in the room were enlightening, but I didn't give it any more thought than that, and then shortly thereafter, the Behavioral Analysis Unit was putting together the conference and thinking more seriously about the kind of topics that eventually end up in that document, and I'll give the title for the audience "Beyond Belief - Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism in America" And it was put together by the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit One, which focuses on counter extremism, and particularly learning about extremism from all kinds of points of view, psychology, sociology, and then, of course, the odd person out me, the historian of religions, but also the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. And so this was a long project that was put together over several years. The eventual document wasn't written by any of us, in particular, the Department of Justice and the FBI, and under new leadership, the BAU had decided to take more of a direct control over the finished product, whereas initially it was thought that we would break up into teams and write chapters on our own, and they, they change their mind about that, but after that, more regional offices have kept contact with me. So it's it's because of the kind of stuff that I focus on and think about, and they are actually very eager to reach out and learn from people who have information that might be useful in preventing and encountering extremism, but also learning how to better handle individuals who are perhaps, perhaps on the road to radicalization. And the eventual goal is to develop processes, procedures, you know, ways of getting what we call a left of bang, right. So if we can interfere in someone's radicalization process, get them perhaps the help they need psychologically, or what have you, and prevent, uh, instances of violence, that's really the goal. So, and then, you know, so, from the perspective of a historian of religion, right? You got history as the method, and religion is the object, as Bruce Lincoln stated. And so, you know, I, I think that's a unique thing for a historian of religion to have that kind of understanding of particular movements and groups that are active. And so they seek people like that out.

Chip Gruen:

So, just from a historical perspective, and I can't imagine this was named, but you know, the poster child for the lack of literacy and lack of understanding is the Waco. You know, the events at Waco...

Damon Berry:

Absolutely.

Chip Gruen:

...and the Branch Davidians. I mean, is that? I mean, how do you do you see this process as sort of growing directly out of that was that ever named? How do they think about those events?

Damon Berry:

Well, the Waco incident is, well, Ruby Ridge and Waco together sort of form this moment. And I don't get this from the FBI themselves as much as just basic historical research as best as I understand it. So with Ruby Ridge and Waco together, the FBI and ATF began thinking more seriously about the way they do business, these were rather public debacles that definitely made the situation worse and and I teach about Waco, in my new religious movements class, and I have my students do a project where they learn as much as we can with the time allotted about Waco, about the Davidians, about the actual claims, but also the media and press events that FBI and ATF were doing and how that maybe contributed to the tragedy. And then I have them write up an exercise where they work in teams as advisors to federal law enforcement of like, if another Waco should happen, what could we do differently? Well, the FBI had been thinking about that for a while, and a part of what the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit One is about is trying to be smarter about these approaches. So how do you get into a situation and use the experts available, which they did have religion experts available, but they didn't pay them much mind from those who were present, saying basically that we were ignored. We warned them about this apocalyptic ideology that they were playing right into the narrative that tragedy was was going to happen if they didn't approach this differently, and they were summarily ignored. So again, my best understanding of the internal changes that took place was learning that these experts that can be accessed at the AAR, for example, actually do have something to offer. And so yeah, there were significant changes, and especially around 2017 this is about the time that Charlottesville was happening, and the FBI is starting to refocus, I won't say focus for the first time, but refocus in a specific way on white supremacist and white nationalist domestic terrorism or domestic violent extremism is the specific term that's used. So, so yeah, they they definitely Waco and Ruby Ridge together contributed to a shift in the approach to groups like this.

Chip Gruen:

Well, while we're in the specific timeline and thinking historically here, I wonder, you know, when you were getting into this work in 2017 I mean, there's obviously a big change afoot in the federal administration, you know, in the executive branch of the United States government that has direct, well maybe now, more direct control over the FBI than they did now. But how do you find your interactions, you know, in the last eight years or so? I mean, do they change? Do they ebb and flow depending on on what that executive looks like, or is there more of a persistent bureaucratic drive right to do this work?

Damon Berry:

Well, yeah, I mean absolutely. The political priorities shift, the ground shifts. And you know when people say the government you should never imagine and that's a singular entity, except now that the DOJ's independence, which was always sort of understood that that was going to be the case, that the FBI's independence, that that was always understood to be the case. That's no longer exactly the way things are, though it's more complicated than that, right? But in the context of 2017 you still had, and through 2020 you had, you know professionals who were not very interested in the political gamesmanship that were concerned about the violence. So you get Christopher Ray testifying even when at the tail end of Trump's first administration that that no these domestic violent extremist groups are the most significant terrorism threat the homeland faces, and that's needs to be our focus. Homeland Security is another matter. That's another conversation. But, but for the FBI and the DOJ, they're supposed to be independent. And you know, for those who perhaps have lived long enough or know their history, you know, this is the kinds of shifts that we're seeing right now in the DOJ and the FBI is exactly what Nixon tried to do. But that's where Deep Throat comes in. And so, you know, there was a resistance, always resistance, and there may yet still be resistance that we don't know about but, but, yeah, always the political winds shift, and, and we're one sort of cataclysmic attack away from a major, potentially major shift in national priorities. And, and this, this kind of work, ideally is, is being done by people who are dedicated professionals, who have no interest in the political gamesmanship. But the reality is is the priority is set by elected officials who put people into office, and those people in those offices make decisions about what resources are spent, where and how and for what reason. So, yeah, you're always I mean, one of the reasons I like doing what I'm doing is I get to contribute where I can but I don't have to worry about those strengths quite so much as if I were working for them, if that makes sense, right?

Chip Gruen:

So to get back to a more general conversation about the kinds of interactions you have. So you mentioned this report, this Beyond Belief report, which we might have occasion to come back to and talk a little bit more specifically, but beyond that, and you talk about regional offices, what kind of situations are you dealing with? Is it active investigations, training purposes, or something that I'm not imagining? Like when they reach out to you, what is the sort of the level of urgency and the character of those conversations?

Damon Berry:

Yeah, so again, to some degree, it has to do with jurisdiction. So you have the FBI journals jurisdiction and their their view and look at things is going to be different in many ways, from, let's say, a local law enforcement or bureau of prisons and those interests and the way that they work together, even with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes military investigators like sometimes this stuff can be overlapping, depending on the kind of cases you're dealing with, BAU is mainly for background and general intelligence purposes. So you wouldn't be, and of course, I haven't been read into any particular active cases that would be, that would be something else. Usually, what I ended up doing, and have done pretty consistently, is just give background, general information, a general understanding with the local office, you know, thinking about the region and sort of who's active in the region, is there a way to know through open intelligence sources, which means, like, you know, any publications or online posts, or you know, what have you, any anything that is accessible without a warrant, that that a researcher can get a hold of. So that's usually the kind of stuff I do. Being read in on a specific case would be different, and I haven't yet, and that's probably not, especially now, it's probably not something that's going to happen, particularly if, if you know there might be reason that if I were to be called to testify as an expert witness or as a witness for the prosecutor, they may or may not want me to be in the middle of all that, right? Because you know my role for them is not as an investigator. That's not what I do. My role for them is to provide that background information so that they can conduct their investigations more, hopefully more effectively.

Chip Gruen:

So when you're giving these, I don't know, these briefings, or you're, you're, you know, reading them in on the background and the history. I imagine that this is a two way street, and you can glean a little bit about where their holes are, like where you know things that that they don't know, that they really need to know, or even things that they think they know that they need to be disabused of. What is the character of that knowledge when you walk into the room, what have you been able to read about that?

Damon Berry:

Well, actually, it's very genial, very welcoming, very kind. I've always found the folks, I mean, with rare exception, there is one individual that stands out in my mind early on as not very open to these things. And I never spoke to him again for some reason. So I don't know if they were like, you know, he got reassigned. I don't, I don't know, but, but for the most part, my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. They've come in and just said, Look, you're the expert. We don't know what you know. That's why you're here. So here are our questions, and if there's anything we're missing, please feel free to inform us. I mean, I that's one of the things that really blew me away, is understanding, at least the culture of the folks that I've been privy to, especially in the BAU they're very, very intelligent, very inquisitive people. They do active investigations, but they also spend their days educating themselves on how to do their work better, and they take it. They take prevention very seriously within the bounds of the law, because, of course, the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment prohibits certain kinds of investigative behaviors that may be an asset, particularly for so called lone wolf actors. But you know, within the boundaries of the law, what intelligence can we use? What assets can we use? What knowledge can we use to identify somebody who's on the path to extremist behavior and maybe get in front of that and get them the help they need, the deterrences that they need, and in those cases, I've never dealt with anyone who didn't want to just learn as much as they could. So, so I guess, in one sense, what I've gleaned is the the the culture of of the BAU is one of, I mean, it's definitely a police culture. It's definitely a law enforcement culture. It's the FBI is still very much sort of a gung ho. I mean, a lot of the folks that work there are veterans, not all of them, but a lot of them are but, but they're very they're very intellectually promiscuous, I guess I would say, when it comes to getting the information they need to do their jobs effectively. So and in the questions you can kind of learn, you can kind of read between the lines and figure out what they're trying to get at and what you need to help them understand. And in particularly from my point of view, is that something that you mentioned outside this conversation is that in that report Beyond Belief, religion appears exactly one time, and that's part of the problem is, I think they're a little averse, at least in this moment, to reference religion too much. And certainly some of the conversations have basically said, look, the ideological drives are often not as prominent in extreme in radicalization, as people usually think, right? So I think at this moment, folks are a little averse to bring up religion, particularly when it comes to those who might be Christian oriented and and definitely trying to be careful about sort of feeding into Islamophobic tropes. And I think that's that's some of the information that I've sort of read through the questions and the way that the final product is presented. But in private conversation, they're they're much more engaged with the religion question.

Chip Gruen:

I'm just thinking about the religious diversity question, right? Because if it's mentioned exactly once in the report, then it doesn't show a real keen interest in thinking about the potential differences in religious diversity that might exist like that we've talked about previously.

Damon Berry:

Yeah, well, I would say that no they do care, and they often just don't understand it, right? So just by way of example, I'm doing my global Christianities course, and the first several classes are like everything you thought you knew about the history of Christianity is narrow, but also kind of false, right? Because there's a more complex story here that involves minutia that you would never be exposed to if you didn't seek it out. And so that's kind of the approach that I bring when I talk to them. It's like, I know this seems from an outsider's perspective, it seems like these, many of these differences seem insignificant, but they actually matter quite a bit. And it matters even more when historical differences, and this is mainly my drive in studying religion and the white nationalist movement, it's like the differences are actually the point of strategic negotiation among and between groups. And the whole move to become more secularized at a certain moment, right, to focus on the political goal of white nationalism and not worry about the religious element and leave that, you know, as a as an a topic we don't care about, right? So you don't usually think about religious toleration as a necessary political move among white nationalist groups. And yet, there it was. But this is not something that most people would even know about. And law enforcement, of course, they they work all day. They don't have time to do all this research, right? They have active investigations. So in private conversation, they do get that information. It's just, I don't think they always know exactly what it means when they're writing their final product. Had had the original plan for this project continued because it really matured over several years. Had it continued, we would have been paired up, like I said, and part of that pairing up, at least on my end, would have been having that conversation about the complexity of religious representation and identification among different groups, both foreign and domestic. But that's not the product that we got. So you get more of a slim down document that represents the interests of far fewer people who contributed to that conversation.

Chip Gruen:

So I want to chase that down, that religious diversity of peace piece by thinking about the way that agents and their supervisor deal with religious diversity generally. I mean, given constitutional protections, like there are religious communities and ideologies that we might find abhorrent, but are not extremist, at least in their actions or their activities, so that there's a certain amount of protection that goes on here, but yet you kind of have to know about and monitor those things that might be less practically interested. I'm just thinking about the balance between those two things right, between constitutionally protected religion and, you know, what did you say left of bang, right? You know that the prevention of extremist activities?

Damon Berry:

Yeah, well, I mean, that's the dance. That's, that's, I mean, honestly, that's the difficulty. So I think the clearest example of this is so after the first assassination attempt against then candidate Trump, the Monday after this, I was already scheduled to meet with a couple of folks from the FBI and to just continue, just as a normal thing that we would do, like we'd meet every so often, And we would have a conversation about whatever is interesting to them, but also things that could come up. So of course, you know, we step in into the room on that Monday, and I said, Well, I guess we don't have much to talk about today, do we fellas? So is that moment of of levity, of just kind of, oh my god, you couldn't, I mean, it's insane, and what I was able to find, what was publicly available about the shooter who was killed was a good point of conversation about the kinds of threats that we're facing and the complexities of the legal boundaries of proper law enforcement, which we definitely want in place, right? So we want First Amendment protections. It is not illegal for someone to say, in my religion, we don't agree with x, and we should do everything we can to stand in the way of that, right? If we want, if we have probable cause or reasonable suspicion, depending on how the courts will view that, when you seek a warrant, you may be able to get access to, you know, surveillance of of their other activities, if there's sufficient legal cause to warrant a warrant, but also Fourth Amendment protections, right? We don't want those warrants to be given willy nilly. We've had this conversation in the context of the war on terror, and we we went in a very dangerous direction with surveillance and basically vacuuming up everybody's information and, you know, having it stored and processed for analysis when it's flagged. So there's all kinds of pitfalls here. But on the other hand, that shooter, and of course, the Buffalo shooter as well, the person who went to a grocery store in Buffalo, New York and killed as many African Americans as he could point his weapon at. He didn't make any notices prior to the action, as I understand it, it was his manifesto, and the things that he was saying he was going to do were found after the fact. You had even less to understand the motive of the Trump's would be assassin. And I made the argument that there was nothing there, even if you had a warrant, there was nothing there to indicate what he was going to do. And so, you know, how do we stop these so called lone wolf? It's not a good term, right? But these individual extremist acts that seem to come out of nowhere, right? Well, there is there, there, more often than not, there is something to indicate that they were doing something or they were planning something. And more often than not, that's information is going to come from people know them, who are close to them, in proximity, but sometimes you won't know and and so it's it's a delicate dance between, how do we prevent acts of violence that seem to be something that you can't predict very easily, and certainly not without treading on First Amendment and Fourth Amendment, basic protections. And honestly, that is, that is a puzzle I still scratch my head about. And of course, I'm not a lawyer, so my view on this is just simply the historical data available seems to indicate that this is the trend. It's a trend that we see. no reason will abate. So, yeah, I don't know. Honestly, the whole point is to prevent. It. But if you can't see it coming, you know, what do you do?

Chip Gruen:

Yeah, I'm just wondering, you know, and I guess I hadn't thought about it this way before, but, but if you have community actors, right, people who are working in concert with one another, like there is much more to be analyzed, right, to be picked up. You have conversations, you have, you know, something that is shared right, that will be on some level. I mean, not public, like in the newspaper, but at least public, like it can be heard and seen, whereas these individual actors, you know, a lot of that is just going on, you know, internally. And so I'm thinking about, like the relative usefulness that the FBI or similar or local law enforcement sees. I mean, I imagine you're leaving and a psychologist is coming in right behind you, right? Like that there's got to be a conversation right about the usefulness, utility, about these things that can be more anthropologically studied or historically studied and understood, versus the individual psychology of what goes behind somebody who's going to perpetrate one of these acts?

Damon Berry:

Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. Again, these different areas of specialization that they pick up on both people who are internal to the agency and maybe assigned to that unit, but also the folks that they're going to be, you know, trying to learn about, you know, because, because I've been asked on more than one occasion to say, recommend people who are working on these things in other fields, right? And so they do actively seek out, specifically psychologists, right? Just for a little background, for those who don't know, the Behavioral Analysis Unit used to be called the Behavioral Sciences Unit, and that's where John Douglas and all these profilers start started, you know, a certain kind of conversation about, how do we, how do we learn about the psychological traits of people who are you know, eventually they coined the term serial killers, right? And how that's different from spree spree killing, and how the how these psychological markers can help us see somebody who may be a potential threat, or at least in the context of an active investigation, is it a serial offense? Are there markers that tell us something that we should be looking for as we investigate try to find out who did these crimes. So that's where BAU actually comes from. BAU is a much more expanded understanding of that approach, so it's still very dominated by psychology and criminology, which necessarily involves sociological and to some degree, anthropological approaches and and I gotta say, I think for somebody who does something that is firmly embedded in the humanities, I'm kind of an oddity. It's not true in the context of the entirety of the study of terrorism. So one of the world's leading experts on Incel violence and Incel extremist attacks is actually somebody who has her PhD, I believe, in gender studies. So there is a broader sort of academic world for the study of these, these types of things. But for the most part, the FBI tends to favor psychological and criminological approaches, which makes perfect sense. So, I mean, again, so the way they're going to frame up the conversation for themselves is just going to look very different from the conversations they have with me in that room, which they may or some of that may or may not stick. I mean, if you can imagine somebody who is sort of an average educated, some cases highly educated American, who's relatively secular in their outlook. They're just not going to see religion in the same way as someone who studies it for a living. So just bridging that gap between what are the assumptions when they walk into the room versus what they're prepared to process when you walk out of that room, and you have no control over that.

Chip Gruen:

So thinking about this methodologically, one of the big emphases of your research and teaching, and one of the reasons I enjoy your work so much is because it it really wants to think about ideological empathy, not sympathy, not...

Damon Berry:

Exactly.

Chip Gruen:

Yeah. I don't know how to say it exactly, right?

Damon Berry:

It's difficult. It's a difficult line to walk. Yeah.

Chip Gruen:

But, but the idea that you that in order to counter or understand, or, you know, deal fruitfully, right with these people. If that means, you know, thwarting attacks or bringing people to justice or whatever, you kind of need to know how they tick, right? You kind of need to know what that looks like from the inside. But that seems, it doesn't seem like that kind of empathetic understanding would be sort of the the mark of the FBI. How, I mean, how, when you bring these methods to the fore, how do they respond to that, and how do they think about that? And can they process that kind of way of understanding?

Damon Berry:

And that was certainly my assumption, that they were just interested in getting them, let's just get them. There is an element of that where, like the goal here is to investigate and prosecute successfully criminal behavior, right? And that's an important distinction in and of itself, right? So for something to be a terrorist action, it has to be a criminal act in and of itself. So it's sort of like hate crime in New York State is an enhancer, right? So, like, you're not allowed to assault anyone, right? You're not allowed to like, it is either a high level misdemeanor or a felony to assault somebody on the street, right? But the hate crime enhancer comes in when I say it's because of your identity or what I perceive your identity to be, right? So I identify as a CIS, hetero male and but if somebody perceives that I'm homosexual because of I don't know, a shirt I'm wearing, and indicates that that motivated the assault, that that apparent motivation can be an enhancer on the assault right. And in New York State, you end up on a registry, same as if you were a sex offender, it's a hate crime registry. Terrorism works similarly, and that blowing up a building is a criminal act, but blowing up a building motivated to incite fear, to some political end, right, or to attack a group to gain some political advantage, and that's kind of the more common definition of terrorism, certainly the one the FBI has put out. So it's already illegal, but your motivations and the reasons and the and that and sort of the process of going through that criminal act indicates terroristic intent. So that can that's when it becomes an act of terrorism or extremism. And these terms are really kind of muddy and difficult, but so they need to think about what's motivating people. They need to understand, because that's part of how you're going to investigate, but it's also how you're going to write up eventually at the DOJ, when they when the prosecutor writes up the charges and seeks the indictment and and then prosecutes the case, they need to prove that you were motivated by a certain, I guess, yeah, ideological motivation, so that on one end, they can't as investigators, they can't afford to act like it doesn't matter. But that's not something that is immediately apparent to everyone, but also the thing that blew me away and one of these sessions where it was four days of talking to each other over zoom and interviewing formers, people who have committed acts of extremist violence, but also people who were maybe involved in extremist groups. And there, I mean, that was one of the best learning experiences I have ever had, and that was listening to these formers explain themselves and talk about their experiences and and then also, in some cases, talking with the people who arrested them, who still are in contact with them, and in some cases, the psychologists who work with them and continue to work with them. And that was one of the more enlightening things I've ever experienced, and that is on one end, like the practical use of a former is they have insights that you can never have. They lived a life that you couldn't live, right? So they're going to have things to tell you that are going to be extremely important for understanding how to investigate but also prevent other acts of extremist violence. But on the other hand, too, you learn that ultimately what you're doing is discourse analysis. You're analyzing a narrative because the only way you have access to what they experienced is what they tell you, and so you have to have a sort of literary approach to things so that you can really understand what's what's being communicated to you. I mean, on one hand, you don't want to ever take anybody's word for it. I mean, you know, when we tell stories about ourselves, it's a carefully selected narrative for particular reasons, even if it seems self deprecating. So you have to have, again, some sort of empathy, not exactly sympathy, but empathy, to try to understand what's motivating the particular speech act, but also what the content of the speech act can actually mean, because there's you can read it on its face like a transcript, but then the body language and the way that they communicate, the way they hold their head, that communicates all sorts of subtle cues to what's going on inside their mind as they're narrating their experiences to you. Does that make sense?

Chip Gruen:

Yeah, it does. It makes me think though that you know, given how useful that experience was for you and how much you were able to glean from it. It seems like we have a system right now where there are law enforcement officers who try to get read up on or get educated on, you know, the methods and the context and you know the cultural realities, right that you can offer, religious context that you can offer. I mean, I guess I wonder if there is any movement or desire to have it be the opposite, right? That you get somebody who's a PhD in religion, who gets read up on being a law enforcement officer, as opposed to the other way around, right? I think you hear about things like that with with the CIA and foreign intelligence sometimes, but it seems like it could be useful here as well.

Damon Berry:

Well. I mean, ultimately, I mean, when I was an undergrad, I didn't think I was going to be a professor. I was, you know, kind of stitched together my own degree program of security and intelligence and Religious Studies. And then when I went to graduate school, I was kind of disabused of the idea that I wanted to work with the CIA or some agency like that. I mean, it couldn't be CIA, because I focused on domestic anyway. But I mean, you know, I was kind of, it was in the context of the War on Terror about 2005 through 2007 I was flirting with the idea of going into public service, and I just lost my taste for it, as many people did about that time period, and I just kind of became an academic by default. But that, you know, the idea that I would do full time analytical work for some agency and counter terrorism was always an option for me. In my mind, it still kind of is as I think about things I'm not I'm not necessarily wedded to my identity as an academic. It's just it's what I do and and I feel like it's of use to folks, and so that's enough for me. I don't need a particular identity to feel like my work is worthwhile. So I would say, if somebody is interested in law enforcement or law school or, you know, working in counter extremism, even as at an NGO, I would say, and I have said in many occasions, in these conversations with law enforcement that citizen sleuths, as they came to be called during January 6, right or individual, non government organizations who are able to do things with a level of engagement that law enforcement Just can't do so Life After Hate is one organization, and I'm sure you can link this in the broadcast. They they spend their whole time, and it's a lot of them are formers, if not all of them are formers. They spend their time online, communicating with people who were perhaps radicalizing as Dylann Roof did, online. You know, becoming they have general racist tendencies and that get articulated through this fear of Black crime, which become focused into a grievance where they they think murdering Black people to start a race war is the only way to deal with things right so NGOs can spend their folks working with NGOs, or individual citizens can spend their time using their background and understanding of these movements, of what motivates this behavior, to do all sorts of positive things that law enforcement just can't dedicate the resources to. If that makes sense to you.

Chip Gruen:

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's just a shame, because it seems like, I mean, I guess that we're always running up against limited resources, right? But it seems like the expertise that you, for example, have to offer, would be useful on the other side of that wall in the investigation itself, rather than just as providing context and background.

Damon Berry:

Well, I mean, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that there would be a specific case where they would feel like, we want you read in for x, y purposes. But I understand why they wouldn't necessarily want that, given especially our political environment, one to have a professor, you know, in the current DOJ environment, that would not be very welcome, as you can imagine. So I mean, after all that, the now commander in chief referred to professors as vermin, so I don't imagine that I'll be quite welcome inside of investigation at this point. But also some of the work that I can that I've produced is often misread as mere attacks on the Trump administration, which is definitely not the case. So yeah, I understand why I'm not necessarily an asset to a particular case, that the background information that I provide is probably where I'm best suited. But it's not beyond, beyond the realm of possibility, if someone has specialized, specific knowledge and ability with language, say that they could train for the specific purposes of being directly involved in investigations, whether that is a law enforcement agent or as an investigator or analysis or analyst. And I think you know, as we're thinking about religious studies, and the future of religious studies, which seems bleak indeed, in this moment, those who are in graduate school should be thinking about where they can use their talents, and if you have a particular aversion to law enforcement, which I understand, I would just encourage you that not every agency is the exact same. All of it is complicated, and much of it's very bureaucratic, but there are people who are involved in this work who care very deeply and want to learn and want your expertise, and you shouldn't shy away from giving it because you don't know the kind of a positive effect you can have if we look at just the way that example, you talked about Waco. In the aftermath of Waco, they had a big wake up call about how badly they were doing these things, and that changed the conversation. It took a long time to get to the point where they're actively seeking out people at the AAR to learn more. But nonetheless, you know, if you do nothing, then perhaps nothing changes.

Chip Gruen:

So we are, I mean, it goes without saying that we are living in interesting times where everything is changing so dramatically, whether it be online presences and social media, and I don't know how it would be involved, but artificial intelligence and the political landscape changing and like everything is being thrown up in the air simultaneously. With that being said, I want to kind of end with the question I like to end on, which is, what are we not talking about, right, particularly given this change in context that we really should be or that we might be talking about more in the coming years?

Damon Berry:

Well, I mean, for good or ill, the shape of the presidency has changed dramatically because of Supreme Court decisions, and that means assuming that there are elections in 26 and 28 that the political landscape could change dramatically. And I will warn, again I usually shun predictions, but we've already seen it. If those who are, let's say, dedicated to Trump's vision and agenda. Even if they are a minority, which they are, there's a real reason why they've been quiet since the pardons of the January 6 offenders. There's a real reason why they're quiet militia groups, which I'm working on right now. They had always warned that the government would use federal forces to suppress people in their states treading on state sovereignty. Well, here it is, and not a peep, and there's a reason, and that is because this is what they wanted, and that's not a guess. Elmer Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, one of the things that got him convicted before his sentence was commuted and he was pardoned, was him saying that he wanted to use Oath Keepers and other groups as paramilitaries on in open letters to the President. It's not available anymore, but you know, the internet is the internet. It's never fully gone and to support maintaining his office in 2020 and I would fully expect that once they are no longer able to keep the veneer of legality in their behavior right now, the Trump administration, that we will see a resurgence of that commitment to use extra legal means to maintain power. There's no reason to assume that won't happen. I mean, one of the I don't want to say specifically who it was, because I can't remember who it was that said exactly this, but one of the former, well, I guess currently, high ranking members of the Proud Boys, who was also pardoned for their actions on January 6, said that there's no reason for them to be active right now, because they're getting everything they want. And I think that's a strong indication as things go, if the political winds do change against them. We're going to need people who understand this stuff, because it's not going to just go away. There's no reason to believe that.

Chip Gruen:

All right, as bleak as that is, I think it's a good place to end. I really appreciate your time. Really appreciate your work on this. Thank you, Damon Berry, for coming back on ReligionWise. This has been great.

Damon Berry:

My pleasure, my friend, thank you for having me.

Chip Gruen:

This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced by the Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding of Muhlenberg College. ReligionWise is produced and directed by Christine Flicker. For more information about additional programming, or to make an inquiry about a speaking engagement, please visit our website at religionandculture.com There, you'll find our contact information, links to other programming and have the opportunity to support the work of the Institute. Please subscribe to ReligionWise wherever you get your podcasts, we look forward to seeing you next time.