The Source Exclusive: "I fell down the alt-right pipeline but after discovering feminist literature and finding community, I learned to love my Blackness"
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Exclusive: "I fell down the alt-right pipeline but after discovering feminist literature and finding community, I learned to love my Blackness"
Kelvin Frimpong, 22, says he was one of three Black children at his school where he was tormented by racists but found protection by spouting alt-right views centered on ideas of white supremacy.
Story by Melissa Sigodo
May 6, 2025
A Black man who adopted alt-right white nationalist views says that after discovering feminist literature and finding community, he finally learned to ‘love his Blackness.’
Kelvin Frimpong, 22, from Rugby, Warwickshire, who was raised in a Catholic household says he began heading towards the alt-right after realising that his then-homophobic views could help him be accepted by racists in a predominantly white town.
As one of three Black people at his school, Kelvin who arrived in the UK from Ghana in 2016, says he experienced racial abuse from students including one who whipped him using a tie and told him to pick cotton while his teachers stood back and ‘did nothing.’
Feeling defeated by the constant attacks, the then-Year 9 pupil says that by expressing bigoted beliefs - he found common ground with the racist bullies.
Speaking to The Source, Kelvin said: “I was a very friendly kid because I was new in the UK, so I was trying my best to fit in and be friendly to everyone. My mum told me what it meant if someone calls you the N-word.
“I went to school and this other kid; he just called me the N-word. I was like, ‘what?!’
“It made me feel like a certain way because you just feel degraded. I'm looking at the teacher like, ‘you're not going to do anything?’, and they’re just looking at me like, ‘oh, yeah, sorry you have to go through that’, and just left it. It was so upsetting.
“After that kid said it and obviously got away with it, a lot more people started saying it.”
Kelvin says as the racial abuse persisted, he finally ‘snapped’ but found himself receiving punishment despite being the victim.
He said: “Where I played rugby, the kids were just being insanely mean to me. So, I went to change and I said, ‘I'm just going to go home at end of the day’, and some other kid comes with a school tie and starts whipping me with it and starts saying, 'pick up, pick up, pick up the cotton.’
“I snapped.
“The teacher gave me detention but not the kid who was mocking me.”
As fighting the students’ racism proved futile, Kelvin says he decided to simply go along with the abuse in order to survive.
He said: “It's like a hundred students against me. Because they're all white, I just found it easier to just not say anything or just say, ‘ha, ha, that's so funny’, and just go along with the jokes. I do think it had a massive effect on my self-esteem.”
However, Kelvin says he progressed from laughing along with the abuse to spouting his own then-bigoted views which got him somewhat accepted by the racists.
He said: “We were in a religious studies lesson talking about being gay in the world today, and there’s this argument we used to hear a lot in Ghana, and we used to think we ate with that.
“We would be like, ‘God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve’, and people were like, ‘that’s so true!’ Obviously, there were people who were visibly upset as they should be.
“I found a link there where I thought, ‘they share these views, they go to church so they must be talking some facts’, and I thought we could share a link over our bigotry.”
As a result, Kelvin says people treated him better and he was accepted as “one of the good ones.”
Kelvin said: “People were nicer to me, but they were still saying racist stuff. I went to this rugby event and one of the older people there he used to play rugby and was like, ‘oh my God, I love watching you play. You play exactly like how I did back in the day. You know what? You're one of the good ones.’”
Forced to stand alone as a Black man in a white town, Kelvin says he believes the lack of community further led him towards the alt-right.
He said: “I had to be individualistic because I was one of the only Black people there, so there wasn't much of a community outside of me playing sports.
“I had to learn how to be individualistic as a form of protection and from the outside noise. So, I was like, ‘I don't know why people are always complaining about the systemic racism. We all can get jobs, you know.’
“That's exactly how I really believed in very individualistic stuff. Just ignoring the fact that a lot of outside factors play a big role in our daily lives.”
But after years of absorbing alt-right beliefs and having little interaction with the outside world, Kelvin says he became ‘full of hatred’, spending his time gaming and streaming with players who spouted racism and Holocaust conspiracy theories.
Fortunately, a turning point came when Kelvin attended college where he met other Black students and found there was “nothing wrong” with being Black.
He said: “Once I went to college and I was introduced to kids from London, Birmingham, Coventry, and I was like, ‘oh, my God, like, there are actual kids out there’, you know, there's nothing wrong with me [being] Black.”
The 22-year-old added that discovering feminist literature and meeting his girlfriend taught him to love himself after years of being fetishised as one of the few Black men in his town.
The artist said: “I stumbled across bell hooks. I was reading all about love and it was telling me how you should learn how to love yourself.
“I was like, ‘how do I even love myself? How does that work?’, and part of loving yourself is literally loving your Blackness and accepting your Blackness.
“When I met my girlfriend, we were talking a lot about politics, and she just kind of educated me a lot.”
Kelvin says he hopes more people will question what they read online and who they listen to, in order to avoid becoming part of the alt-right.
He said: “I think the way we view religion in African and Caribbean households is the biggest factor in [luring people].
“I listened to Ben Shapiro and I was like, ‘this guy is debating atheist and owning these atheists’. I was like, ‘oh my God, this is this is something to like.’
“And then, that's what draws you in, where, at first I started watching because he was owning atheists but then he starts spreading his misinformation and because you trusts him so much, you start listening to what he says, I mean, if he's saying, it must be true.”
Kelvin started making TikTok videos about his experience to help ‘enlighten people’ as he hopes that they won’t go down the same path.
He said: “It doesn't just start with people saying, ‘oh, I hate Black people, I hate this.’ It just starts with people making observations that they think are quirky.
“The way that they get you is really ignorance, so question things. Question the research you're paying attention to.
“A lot of the things they say is false or just magnified to a certain level just to fit their agenda.
“Question why is it being used to justify bigotry? Because hating someone is never a good thing. You can never be in the right part of history by being a hateful person.”
You can also check out Kelvin’s TikTok page @kfrimpongart