+
More

He was born into the KKK, never questioning it. Until someone else questioned it for him.

He's living proof that anyone can change.

Shane Johnson, 26, was practically born into the Ku Klux Klan — and his body had the tattoos to prove it.

After growing up with pro-KKK uncles and cousins, along with a dad who served as the Imperial Nighthawk (or lead enforcer) of his local Indiana chapter, Shane's skin was covered in racist and gang-affiliated graffiti.

Then he had a change of heart, and he wanted to make sure his exterior matched his interior.


Image via GoFundMe Studios, used with permission.

Shane first noticed his feelings were starting to change a few years ago when he met Tiffany.

Tiffany, who Shane would eventually marry and start a family with, would ask him questions that challenged his belief system and how they didn’t match up with the man she had met and fallen in love with.

"The main one stuck in my head was, 'Could I kill an innocent black child?'" he tells me in an email. "At the time, I answered yes to her, but in my mind, and heart, I knew the answer was no. And if the answer is no, then there is an obvious flaw with what I believe. Why do I have empathy for these people I am supposed to hate?"

Image via GoFundMe Studios, used with permission.

White supremacy is one of the oldest skeletons in America’s closet.

And after the protests during the summer of 2017 in Charlottesville, its specter is back under the spotlight. But there are signs of change.

"We believed we were the superior race," Shane says. "But in reality, we were just … pushing the blame of us being failures onto others."

Once his personal awakening began, Shane and Tiffany fled his hometown to start a new life together.

Finally free of generations of hate, it would be easy for Shane to quietly move away and forever deny the shameful legacy he was born into.

Instead, knowing it could take years and thousands of dollars to cover his tattoos, Shane decided his "path of self-discovery" would involve speaking publicly about putting his racist days behind him, even if it made him a target of those still practicing hate.

"My once most-prized possession was now the biggest burden ever," he says. "It's my dream to travel, speaking to kids and others exposing the white power movement," he explains, to help them move past the hate.

Image via GoFundMe Studios, used with permission.

When Shane heard about a nonprofit group that offers to remove racist and gang tattoos for free, he connected with them.

He is now helping the company, Southside Tattoo, raise money and awareness.

"I started with his neck, replacing a swastika with roses," Dave Cutlip, co-founder of Southside Tattoo, tells me in an interview. "There's still a lot of work to do, but we're hoping to just get it to where he can wear a regular shirt in public."

Shane also was contacted by GoFundMe Studios, which produced a short film about his change of heart and public outreach efforts.

As his personal transformation continues, Shane has decided to become an activist and hopefully an inspiration for others against hate.

He's been speaking out and appearing in local TV interviews to show that people can have a second chance at a better life if they choose to let go of their hate. In fact, he's become the poster model for a fundraising campaign to help other people cover up their racist and gang ink.

Along with enjoying a renewed life with his wife and son, Shane is trying out other new experiences. Dave says after one of the re-inking sessions, he told Shane to try créme brûlée. When Shane marveled over it, Dave says he told him, "Dude, this is what life is!"

A size 21 Nike shoe made for Tacko Fall.

A local reporter at Hometown Life shared a unique and heartfelt story on March 16 about a mother struggling to find shoes that fit her 14-year-old son. The story resonated with parents everywhere; now, her son is getting the help he desperately needs. It's a wonderful example of people helping a family that thought they had nowhere to turn.

When Eric Kilburn Jr. was born, his mother, Rebecca’s OBGYN, told her that he had the “biggest feet I’ve ever seen in my life. Do not go out and buy baby shoes because they’re not gonna fit,’” Rebecca told Today.com. Fourteen years later, it’s almost impossible to find shoes that fit the 6’10” freshman—he needs a size 23.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

10 things that made us smile this week

Did someone order some mood-boosting serotonin?

Upworthy's weekly roundup of joy

Spring has sprung, y'all! Officially on paper, at least. It's still flippin' cold and brown where I live, but we can see the daffodils stretching their way out of the ground and it won't be long before everything bursts into bloom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Earth laughs in flowers." That feels true, doesn't it? These early days of spring are a bit like preparing to watch your favorite comedy, snuggled up on the couch with your people (or your cat), nummy snacks and comfy pants, smiling in anticipation because you know you're about to have some big laughs.

Hopefully, that's also how you feel jumping into these weekly roundups of joy, knowing you're about to get hit with some mood-boosting serotonin and cant-help-but-smile goodness. (That's how I feel each week pulling these lists together–it's like a little weekly smile therapy.)

Keep ReadingShow less

A Korean mother and her son

A recently posted story on Reddit shows a mother confidently standing up for her family after being bullied by a teacher for her culture. Reddit user Flowergardens0 posted the story to the AITA forum, where people ask whether they are wrong in a specific situation.

Over 5,600 people commented on the story, and an overwhelming majority thought the mother was right. Here’s what went down:

“I (34F) have a (5M) son who attends preschool. A few hours after I picked him up from school today, I got a phone call from his teacher,” Flowergardens0 wrote. “She made absolutely no effort to sound kind when she, in an extremely rude and annoyed tone, told me to stop packing my son such ‘disgusting and inappropriate’ lunches."

Keep ReadingShow less

Grandpa, dad and son take a funny photo.

What’s brown and sticky? A stick.

How do you get a country girl’s attention? A tractor.

My wife asked me to stop singing “Wonderwall” to her. I said maybe…

Dad jokes tend to be simple, inoffensive attempts at humor that are often puns and never funny. Except, of course, to the dad who tells them. But he usually gets more of a kick out of the embarrassment it caused his children than the joke itself.

According to a new essay, that’s the exact point.

Keep ReadingShow less

Dog does the 'pick a card' challenge and it's adorable.

There are a few kinds of dog parents: ones that only have outside dogs, those who have inside dogs but they're absolutely not allowed on the furniture and dog parents who treat their dog as if they birthed them themselves and give them every luxury invented for four-legged fur children.

Clearly, people are going to have feelings one way or the other about dogs and their place within a household, but I think everyone can agree that seeing a dog be pampered will always be adorable. Opie the Pit Bully is one of those lucky doggos who wound up living in the lap of luxury, and the pooch got to do a "pick a card" day to showcase that his owner loves him the mostest.

In a video uploaded to TikTok by Opie's owner because...ya know, opposable thumbs and all…Opie is faced with two cards that he can't read: 1) because he's a dog, and 2) because the cards are facing toward the camera. That doesn't stop the sweet puppers from playing along, though.

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo by David Cadenas on Unsplash

What we imagine the look on Mr/ Pickles' face to be after becoming a dad.

It’s been an exciting time for a couple of tortoises at the Houston Zoo—and really, for tortoises everywhere.

The zoo announced on its blog that their oldest resident, Mr. Pickles, a 90-year-old radiated tortoise, and his 53-year-old companion Mrs. Pickles (that’s quite an age gap there sir, but no judgment) recently welcomed three new hatchlings.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better, here are the new baby names: Dill, Gherkin and Jalapeño.

Clearly, Jalepeño is the spicy one of the bunch.

While this news is certainly momentous for Mr. and Mrs. Pickles, it’s also a huge achievement for the entire species, which is currently critically endangered.
Keep ReadingShow less