SPLC: 888 hate groups in U.S.

The Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual "Year in Hate" report this week, and it wasn't good news. From the news release:

Led by three states on the southern border, the number of hate groups operating in America has swelled by 48 percent since 2000, a staggering increase mainly attributable to the anti-immigrant fervor sweeping the country ...

... The latest annual count by the SPLC found the number of hate groups operating in America rose to 888 last year, up 5 percent from the 844 groups in 2006 and far above the 602 groups documented in 2000.

At the same time, new FBI statistics suggest a 35 percent rise in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2006. Experts believe that such crimes are typically carried out by people who think they are attacking immigrants.

"Hate groups continue to successfully exploit the immigration debate to their advantage, even though the immigration issue has largely disappeared from the presidential debate," said Mark Potok, editor of the SPLC's Intelligence Report, an investigative journal that monitors the radical right. "The fact is that they've been aided and abetted by mainstream pundits and politicians who give these haters a platform for their propaganda."

Other hate groups continue to target blacks, gays, and immigrants. Read the full release here.

Everyday Democracy - formerly the Study Circles Resource Center - has resources for communities that want to hold large-scale, inclusive dialogues on sensitive issues including immigration and racial equity. One community - Springfield, Illinois - used its dialogues in part to counter a visit from a white supremacist. Another community - New Haven, Connecticut - will focus on immigration as it takes part in Everyday Democracy's  new Communities Creating Racial Equity project.

Comments

[Amy Malick]

Thanks for pointing out this important report. The news is dreadful. And, yes, it's hopeful communities like New Haven are looking for ways to include a range of residents in solutions.

[Stephen Buckley]

"Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

But I don't understand what I am reading.

If someone comes to my community to speak at a public meeting, and I decide, beforehand, that I don't like his/her point of view, then I should try to "counter" that discussion by holding a separate discussion about how undesirable the first one is?

It sounds like somebody forgot about "inclusiveness" and "diversity"!

And by reading the strong language about "haters" at the link to the SPLC site, it sounds like that organization has, at the very least, a very high dislike for certain people.

Does that mean that the SPLC has, unwittingly, become a "hate group"?

Who knows, because I can't find anything on their website that tells us how the SPLC defines that they consider to be a "hate group" (vs. those who are merely "dislikeable").

Or maybe they don't define what what they mean, because there is no clear line between "hate" and mere "dislike".

So SPLC just skips over that part and lumps everyone who doesn't agree with its viewpoint as "haters" (or, at least, latent ones).

Their approach of "hating the haters" does *nothing* to encourage inclusive, civil discussion and, as such, should not be touted as an example of what "everday democracy" should be.

[Julie Fanselow]

Stephen,

As always, I think I ought to point out that our Everyday Democracy discussion guides present an array of viewpoints on issues and encourage people with widely varying opinions to take part so they can seek to better understand one another, then move forward on some mutually agreeable course of action.

Occasionally, that action may be merely "agreeing to disagree," but we've found that when people spend several weeks listening to one another's stories and comparing life experiences and perspectives, they often find they have more in common than they thought.

Also, please don't infer that Everyday Democracy is in agreement with everything that appears on pages that this blog links to.

Thanks for reading!