Xaviaer DuRousseau went from BLM activist to conservative influencer

He drinks Erewhon smoothies, invitations viewers to “stroll with me” round Los Angeles, and information movies dissecting politics and tradition for thousands and thousands of individuals on-line. Xaviaer DuRousseau is a conservative content material creator and on-air character for PragerU.

DuRousseau was not all the time a conservative rabble-rouser. He was as soon as a progressive. In actual fact, he used to march in assist of Black Lives Matter.

The 29-year-old host of “Respectfully, Xaviaer” spoke with Fox Information Digital in an unique interview about how he went from BLM marches to one of many largest conservative influencers.

“Even to at the present time, I nonetheless cringe once I hear about my BLM protest days. It was the most important ghetto mess I ever participated in,” he mentioned.

DuRousseau was born and raised in “the trenches” of Southside Chicago, in a progressive household, a few of whom he mentioned had “Marxist” views.

Then he moved from the Southside to “the center of nowhere,” surrounded by Illinois cornfields in a predominantly white neighborhood, and was all the time advised rising up that he was totally different and needed to “view every thing by the lens of race.”

As soon as he went to varsity, DuRousseau turned much more progressive and “much more conscious of racial points and social justice points.”

He turned an activist and joined Black Lives Matt protests.

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Xaviaer DuRousseau developed from BLM activist to conservative content material creator (Xavier DuRousseau)

“I used to be posting a whole lot of racist stuff on-line, about microaggressions and oppression and all these loopy tales, method earlier than the George Floyd Palooza even began.”

In 2020, a dare modified his trajectory.

DuRousseau had utilized for the Netflix present “The Circle,” a actuality competitors the place remoted contestants talk solely by a social media platform, strategically judging and eliminating one another, generally whereas pretending to be another person, and was chosen out of 25,000 folks as a social justice activist.

In preparation for the present, DuRousseau researched and had a plan to go after conservative voices like Charlie Kirk and debunk PragerU movies; then he had a fantastic awakening.

“I by accident gave myself a crimson tablet,” he mentioned.

The expertise made DuRousseau notice that he aligned himself extra with the best.

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PragerU character and content material creator Xaviaer DuRousseau was as soon as a liberal activist. (Xavier DuRousseau)

“I finally realized I used to be improper about a whole lot of these social points,” he mentioned. “I realized extra about historical past than I had ever seen earlier than. And I spotted that this was the primary time I had ever achieved analysis with out affirmation bias, to the purpose the place I lastly stopped filming the truth present in October 2020. And some months later I made a decision that I used to be going to discuss the brand new values ​​and the brand new issues I had realized, and the remainder was historical past.”

As a substitute of a crimson tablet second, DuRousseau mentioned he served himself a prescription bottle stuffed with crimson capsules.

“If I needed to decide one thing that was just like the straw that broke the camel’s again, it was once I began trying into BLM funds.”

Throughout his time as a BLM activist, he puzzled the place the cash was going and even seen Breonna Taylor’s mom talking out concerning the BLM funds.

“Each time I requested these questions, folks advised me I had misplaced the plot or that I ought to thoughts my enterprise and keep on my path.”

DuRousseau mentioned by monitoring the cash you possibly can see a corporation’s priorities.

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“I began seeing BLM taking their cash by ActBlue and directing it in the direction of these progressive activists and these progressive causes and politicians. And these politicians had been doing completely nothing within the black neighborhood.”

Federal prosecutors are investigating Whether or not senior leaders of the Black Lives Matter group defrauded donors who contributed tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} through the 2020 protests, two sources conversant in the investigation advised Fox Information.

The Related Press first reported that the Justice Division’s ongoing investigation focuses on the muse’s dealing with of donations raised within the aftermath of the catastrophe. George Floyd homicide, when the group noticed a rise of greater than $90 million in contributions.

DuRousseau mentioned, “It wasn’t towards police reform or something like that. So once I realized how fraudulent that was, it was like a domino impact the place I spotted, ‘Oh, BLM, it is not only a rip-off of a motion, it is a rip-off as a corporation and the left is 100% a part of it.'”

As a conservative content material creator, DuRousseau now needs folks to suppose and never be afraid to suppose outdoors the field.

“My purpose is just to get folks to suppose critically once more, as a result of we’re at some extent the place so many individuals are afraid to ask questions or afraid to be sincere or afraid to have a thought that deviates from the containers they have been advised to suppose inside.”

DuRousseau mentioned this led to household tensions.

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“Lots of people in my circle of relatives needed completely nothing to do with me,” he mentioned. “I did not communicate to my very own father for a number of years. My oldest brother – it has been 5 years – and he nonetheless thinks I am a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and nonetheless tries to grasp what it will be like for me to be a white supremacist. However based on them, that is what they suppose.”

He mentioned some have been added through the years.

“Over time, some relations have come to understand I used to be proper,” he mentioned. “And I’ve had increasingly more mates through the years who’ve come ahead from the previous. And even when they do not utterly agree with me now, they a minimum of apologize for a way emotional they had been of their response to every thing that occurred in 2020 and 2021 once I began talking out.”

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DuRousseau mentioned of his fashionable “Stroll With Me” movies, “Here is a man along with his $25 smoothie, happening probably the most unhinged tirade you have ever seen on the best way to the gymnasium.”

He mentioned the format is meant to get folks’s consideration by different avenues.

“It causes individuals who aren’t essentially listening to politics and what’s occurring in our world at this time to by accident take heed to real-world points.”

Essentially the most distinguished nonprofit Black Lives Matter has disbursed solely a few third of its latest funding to different charities.

The BLM International Community Basisthe motion’s flagship nonprofit, raised roughly $87 million in contributions between mid-2020 and mid-2022. Nevertheless, the majority of the cash got here between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021, through the top of the motion and earlier than the once-prominent group noticed a drastic collapse in donations.

Black Lives Matter didn’t instantly reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark.

Greg Wehner and David Spunt of Fox Information contributed to this report.