SPLC Releases Fear-Mongering 'Hate Map' Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
Article by Tyler O'Neil in "PJMedia":
The scandal-plagued Southern
Poverty Law Center (SPLC) decided to release its fear-mongering "hate
map" in the midst of the coronavirus crisis on Wednesday. Rather than
helping in the midst of a crisis, the SPLC aimed to take advantage of
people who are already on edge to push its fundraising scheme and
political attacks.
Ironically,
the SPLC acknowledged the coronavirus in its fundraising email about
the new report. "As the coronavirus continues to spread, we are guided
by our concern for the health and safety of our staff and the
communities we serve, including you," the email reads. "During this
challenging time, we are committed more than ever to continuing our
fight for justice and pushing back against those exploiting this
pandemic to further their radical agenda."
Yet the report
has nothing to do with correcting misinformation on the pandemic and
everything to do with furthering the SPLC's own radical agenda,
fomenting fear and mistrust in an already polarized America. As I
documented in my book Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center, last year former SPLC employee Bob Moser came forward about being complicit in "a highly profitable scam" to bilk donors by exaggerating hate. He spoke out amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that cleared out the SPLC's leadership. The organization has yet to release the internal review it promised amid the scandal.
Instead,
it released an updated version of the map of "hate groups" that
inspired a terrorist attack in Washington, D.C. in 2012.
"It
is appalling that the SPLC would choose this moment of crisis to launch
their divisive and false 'hate report.' Instead, we call on SPLC to
apologize, retract it immediately and join the rest of America in
uniting against this common health threat. They should use their
influence to assist American communities in productive ways, rather than
sow discord and division among them," Jeremy Tedesco, vice president of
U.S. advocacy at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), told PJ Media.
ADF
has played a role in 56 Supreme Court victories (10 in the last decade)
but nonetheless finds itself on the list of "hate groups." ADF's
ideological opponents have condemned the SPLC's false accusation, but the SPLC continued to list ADF as a "hate group" in the report published Wednesday.
The
SPLC's new report — which covers the year 2019 — claims to find 940
"hate groups," far fewer than the 1,020 "hate groups" in the 2018
report. The decline came from a split among neo-Nazi groups, which fell
from 112 to 59. The report claims that white nationalist groups rose as
did "anti-LGBTQ hate groups," which the SPLC dubbed "the fastest-growing
sector of hate."
Amid the scandals last year, Current Affairs Editor Nathan J. Robinson
zeroed in on "hate groups" that "barely seem to exist at all." Of the
ten groups Robinson identified, only four have been removed, including
the most hilarious of his examples, the Wildman's Civil War Surplus
& Herb Shop. The one-woman website CarolynYeager.net is still on the
list, as is Tony Alamo Christian Ministries — despite the founder's
death in prison in 2017. The African fashion boutique Luxor Couture
remains on the list, as do the small "groups" Sharkhunters
International, Hell Shaking Street Preachers, and Wotan's Nation — whose
website has expired.
ACT
for America, a national security organization founded by
Lebanese-American Brigitte Gabriel, accounts for 39 separate "hate
groups," even though ACT for America scrapped its chapter program in
2017 and officially shut all its chapters in 2018. The SPLC listed 47
different "hate groups" as part of ACT for America in 2018.
"Since
our chapter members faced harassment in the aftermath of 'hate group'
labels we scrapped our chapter model entirely," Robert Maxwell, the
group's communications director, told PJ Media. "So we actually don't
have chapters anymore and have moved to an activist model which has
performed stronger for us because it allows our members to act in unison
without being limited by geographical barriers."
As
for the SPLC releasing the report amid the coronavirus, Maxwell said,
"The SPLC is a classless organization so this report's timing doesn't
shock me. I know they need to exaggerate claims of hate groups for
donors but the fact that they still include defunct ACT For America
chapters on their hate list shows you that they aren't even keeping
accurate records."
The
"anti-LGBTQ hate group" accusation may be the most notorious. SPLC
spokesman Mark Potok once said the organization's "goal in life is to
destroy these groups, completely destroy them." In 2012, a shooter
targeted the Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, D.C., aiming
to shoot everyone in the building and smear a Chick-fil-A chicken
sandwich in their faces. He found the group thanks to the SPLC's "hate
map."
The 2019 increase in
"anti-LGBTQ hate groups" is deceptive on many levels. While
organizations like ADF and FRC do advocate for religious freedom and
traditional Christian values, they do not promote hatred against LGBT
people.
Brad Dacus,
president of the "anti-LGBTQ hate group" Pacific Justice Institute
(PJI), told PJ Media that his organization has "consistently promoted
love and respect for everyone, including those in the LGBT movement." He
even recalled giving legal advice to a mother in a lesbian
relationship. A social worker was threatening to remove her children
from her, and PJI "provided the mother of two with counsel on what she
needed to do to avoid wrongfully losing her children."
"That's not what a
hate group does," Dacus quipped. "We at Pacific Justice Institute not
only defend people who might have different religious convictions but we
also have made a concerted effort to reach out to exemplify how
individuals can respectfully disagree even though they have very
different beliefs." He pointed to a video exposing
the SPLC and announced that PJI would release a video series showing
"how to lovingly and respectfully promote unity and true tolerance among
people with different beliefs and perspectives."
Yet
the SPLC report lists five different "hate groups" under the PJI
umbrella: three "chapters" in California, one in Oregon, and one in
Washington. The SPLC is a year behind: the Oregon and Washington offices
opened in 2018, while new ones in Reno, Nv., and Denver, Colo., opened
in 2019.
The SPLC also mixed
up the chapters of the "anti-LGBTQ hate group" MassResistance. The 2018
report lists four chapters of the group, while the new 2019 report
lists no fewer than 12 "hate groups." When reached by PJ Media,
MassResistance Founder Brian Camenker insisted that no fewer than 8 of
the SPLC's listings were false.
"To
be specific, we DO NOT have chapters in these places: Torrance,
CA; Lexington Park, MD; Detroit, MI; Las Vegas, NV; Austin, TX; Dallas,
TX; Fort Worth, TX; Seattle, WA," he wrote. "We have done activism from
time to time in most of those places (except Detroit and Seattle – where
we did activism in nearby towns but not in those cities). But we do not
have active chapters in any of them." He also denied having a chapter
in Denver, Colo., although MassResistance does have a Colorado chapter.
"Again,
the SPLC is extremely sloppy in their research and has no problem
outright lying. Their purpose is not to be accurate, but to cause
hysteria and fear among clueless liberals," Camenker argued.
The
SPLC "hate map" includes many organizations that most Americans would
abhor, such as Ku Klux Klan chapters and openly white nationalist
groups. However, counting the number of groups arguably obscures the
real nature of these movements. The Daily Stormer, a notorious white
nationalist website that temporarily lost its hosting after the
Charlottesville riots in 2017, counts for no fewer than ten "hate
groups." The American Identity Movement/Identity Evropa has roughly 800 members and
accounts for 39 different "white nationalist hate groups" on the "hate
map." That equates to roughly 20 people per group. American Christian
Dixie Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which accounts for 9 "hate groups,"
has a pitiful website and has been booted from Facebook and Twitter.
While
the SPLC undoubtedly reports on many truly bad actors, much of its
"hate map" involves exaggeration and political attacks. The report
mentions Trump no fewer than 66 times. In one particularly telling
passage, the report states, "It is time to move beyond the illusion that
hate violence and extremism is merely a criminal crisis in America. It
is also a political crisis. It has to be engaged politically."
The
SPLC email announcing the report brags about the far-left group's
efforts to "push internet companies like Facebook, PayPal, Twitter and
others to protect members of targeted communities by preventing hate
groups from using their digital platforms to raise money, recruit
members and spread racist propaganda."
While
America struggles with the coronavirus, the SPLC is hard at work
demonizing conservatives, fundraising off of a hate "scam," trying to
cover up its own scandals, and further pitting Americans against one
another.
"This so-called
hate map reinforces the fact that the SPLC cares only about surviving a
major revolt from its own workforce," Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, FRC's
executive vice president, told PJ Media. "SPLC’s own employees have
identified systematic and long-standing racist and sexist practices and
policies. Rather than trying to help the nation in a chaotic and
confusing time, SPLC is only dividing the nation."
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