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SPLC — Hate Map 2019 — Prove It!

Well, Friends, it’s that magical time of year again when the Southern
Poverty Law Center unveils its latest annual “Hate Map” fundraising
tool. The map purports to identify “hate groups” in the US over the
previous fiscal year. As always, the map is filled with half-truths,
untruths and every ham-fisted propaganda technique known to man.

And as usual, the Media has been reprinting the SPLC’s

spurious claims without even the most rudimentary fact
checks.

Not to fear. We at Watching the Watchdogs are only too happy to run
a fact checker over the “Hate Map,” and, unlike the SPLC, we will show
our work. There’s a lot to unpack here, so pull up your hip boots, slip
on your rubber gloves and let’s wade in.

Hate Groups: There is NO legal definition for “hate group.” Period.

This is why even the FBI does not, cannot, designate “hate groups,”
but somehow a private fundraising company can and the Media has no Follow
problem with it.* Think about that.

[*There does exist a single FBI document online that lists a number of
violent, criminal groups by name. This is an internal training
document, written in 1995 and reprinted a couple of years ago,
verbatim. The designation of these groups as “hate groups” is solely
the opinion of the author, not a description used under federal law.]

The fact is that a “hate group” is whatever the SPLC says it is.
The company is the sole arbiter and designator of that insanely
profitable label. They receive no external review or oversight.
They control the world’s supply of “hate group” designations,
and, like any monopoly, they are prone to abuse their power.

Physical Locations: If you are going to designate “hate groups,”

then you need to provide hard evidence that a journalist, researcher
or even a donor can use to verify your claims. That’s not too much to
ask. In fact, it’s pretty much Journalism 101. “Trust, but verify.”

The SPLC does include a number of brick-and-mortar organizations on

its “Hate Map,” such as the Family Research Council and the Center for
Immigration Studies, but these make up a fraction of the overall total.
Otherwise, all we have is the company’s word for it that there is a
chapter of the League of the South in Weogufka, Alabama, (Pop. 282),
and that’s not good enough. It certainly isn’t professional journalism.

On February 21, 2019, SPLC “Outreach Manager” Kate Chance

told a crowd of 300 in Mankato, MN, that: “An online presence
isn’t enough to be added to the list; a group has to meet at
least once a year at a physical location.”

Even a cursory glance at the “Hate Map” shows numerous one-man

websites. In 2015, Mark Pitcavage, Director of Investigative Research
at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), stated publicly that the SPLC
has a habit of counting single individuals as groups or chapters, which
can give a skewed impression of hate groups in any given state.

“The [SPLC’s] list is wildly inflated,” said Pitcavage. “They list

skinhead groups in places where there are no organized
groups, but instead it’s just a couple of individuals.”

Pitcavage’s statement confirms what veteran fringe-group researcher

Laird Wilcox has been saying for decades: “There was another
phenomenon I noticed. Several racist groups published large numbers
of local post office box listings, as in local chapters.”

“When I tried to check these [SPLC “hate group” claims] out I

found that many of them were false—the box was closed after
one rental or that the mail was forwarded elsewhere. I think a
lot of these never existed or were just some guy renting
different post office boxes.”

In 2009, the SPLC’s own Director of Intelligence, Mark Potok,

confirmed the P.O. box scam to the San Luis Obispo Tribune: “Potok
says inclusion on the [“Hate Map”] list might come from a
minor presence, such as a post office box.” (March 25, 2009)

If you claim there’s a “hate group” chapter in Weogufka, or

any other known city or town, just show your proof. Prove to
us that an alleged group on the “Hate Map” is not a one-man
website or long-abandoned P.O. box. If the SPLC has done all
of the research it claims it has, how hard can that be?

“Statewide” Chapters: This is the ultimate smoking gun when it

comes to exposing the spurious nature of the “Hate Map” fundraising
tool.

Of the 1,020 “hate groups” designated by the SPLC for 2018,

fully 322 of them are simply marked “statewide,” meaning the
company provides no verifiable information, not even a known
city or town, whatsoever. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

That’s one-in-four alleged groups right off the top and nobody in the
Media seems to have a problem with it. “Nothing to see here, folks…”
Literally. As the graph below indicates, the SPLC simply makes up
“statewide” groups out of thin air.

For 2017, the SPLC claimed that the number of “hate groups”
rose by 37 chapters to 954. The number of “statewide”
phantoms grew by 107, from 193 to 300, over the same period.
The company is losing “groups” faster than it can create them.

Fear and Outrage: The purpose of the SPLC’s annual “Hate Map” is
to generate fear and outrage, which the company then deftly spins
into cash donations and political power. For 2016, the SPLC reported
tax-free donations of $50 million. For 2017, the year of the
Charlottesville riots and Trump the Baleful, donations exploded to
$132 million and the company’s cash endowment ballooned to more
than $433 million, 98% of which is designated as “unrestricted” in
use.

Clearly, the SPLC has a strong financial interest in keeping the

number of alleged “hate groups” as high as the donor market
will bear.

When the “Hate Map” was simply a tool to separate gullible donors
from their hard-earned money it was bad enough, but those victims
were self-selected. They didn’t care if the SPLC’s “facts” were bogus or
not because they wanted (and still do want) to believe them with all
their heart and soul. As far as SPLC donors are concerned, they’re
getting what they are paying for.

The truly terrifying thing about the SPLC’s “Hate Map” scam is
that it is now finding its way into the private realm, with social
media giants such as Apple, Google and Twitter using this
disinformation to decide who gets to speak and who gets
banished to the Cyber-Gulag.

As Orwellian as that situation is, unfiltered, unvetted SPLC “hate

group” propaganda has been finding its way into government
discourse at all levels, from local to federal, for years.

Certain law enforcement agencies and think tanks regurgitate

SPLC claims, knowing full well the numbers are meaningless,
because the fear generated by them guarantees continued
funding for another year.

2018: The Hype: Time to have a closer look at the SPLC’s hyperbolic
claims for the 2018 “Hate Map.” This year the company was kind
enough to provide a handy link on its “Hate Map” that allows you to
download the data into a spreadsheet. This makes spotting the
inaccuracies so simple that even a professional journalist could do it.

The company also provides a handy graph showing the steady growth,
more or less, of alleged “hate groups” since 1999. That chart doesn’t
really present well on WordPress, so we’ve enlarged a segment to
make things a little clearer.

“Hate groups have reached RECORD HIGHS!!!”

It’s true. According to the map, “hate groups” reached 1,020 in 2018,
the highest number ever designated by the SPLC; i.e., a “record.”
We’re doomed!

What was the previous record? The SPLC designated 1,018 “hate
groups” in 2011 as proof of an “explosive growth” due to the 2010
election of Barack Obama. Despite controlling the supply of “hate
group” labels, the SPLC could only show “explosive growth” of 1.6%
for the first full year of the Obama Administration, which was soon
followed by “record-breaking” decline (in fact, the only series of
declines in SPLC history) of a whopping 23% over the course of the
president’s second term in office.

And while the number of alleged groups grew by 16, from

1,002 to 1,018, the number of “statewide” phantoms
“exploded” from 148 to 247 over the same period, as shown by
the chart above.

“Hate groups have GROWN BY 30% over the past four

years!!!”

Propagandists absolutely adore percent signs. When you’re selling fear

and outrage nothing stirs up the customer base like an empty
statistic. Most Media articles will mention a 7% increase in the number
of alleged groups from 2017 to 2018, but none of them will mention
that the number of “statewide” phantoms grew at an identical rate
last year. So what was gained?

The SPLC had to go back to its self-imposed 2014 trough to

come up with a far more impressive sounding 30% increase.
What the company fails to mention, and what nobody in the
Media will tell you, is that the number of “statewide”
phantoms grew by 84% over the same span.

“White “hate groups” are SURGING!!!”

According to the SPLC’s own numbers… not so much. The chart below
indicates that one full year into the Trump-o-Caust, fully nine out the
company’s fifteen “hate group” categories have DECLINED since 2017,
(shown in yellow), and two others, marked in blue, have remained
static, although even “Hate Music” is down from 2016 levels.

In fact, Ku Klux Klan is at an all-time record low of 51,

according to SPLC records, far surpassing its previous all-time
low set during… wait for it… the Obama Administration.
Apparently, they don’t make “surges” like they used to.

That leaves the four categories, marked in red, that reflect an alleged
increase over 2017 levels, but, as with all things SPLC, a closer look
reveals a very different story.

General Hate: When you’re in the fearmongering game it is often

helpful to have a nice, generic, catch-all phrase that allows you to
designate the “other” without having to go into a lot of detail. This is
why the SPLC’s “General Hate” category has been so important to the
company over the years.

“These groups espouse a variety of rather unique hateful doctrines

and beliefs that are not easily categorized. Many of the groups are
vendors that sell a miscellany of hate materials from several different
sectors of the white supremacist movement,” says the SPLC website.

“Many of the ‘groups’ are vendors,” meaning that if you are a one-
man website selling neo-Nazi music or Confederate t-shirts, you are a
bona fide “group.” No matter that people have to actively seek you out
in order to purchase your 100% legal wares, you are a “threat” and
must be demonized and shut down by the thought police.

This is especially ironic as long-time SPLC frontman Mark

Potok was claiming as late as February, 2017. that: “We make
a big effort to separate a man, his dog and a computer from a
group with on-the-ground activity.”

(Sadly, the following month, Mr. Potok was unceremoniously kicked to

the curb by his employer of 20-odd years without so much as a “thank
you” for his decades of highly lucrative service. Potok created the
“Hate Map” out of thin air and used it to bring hundreds of millions of
tax-free donor-dollars into the SPLC’s coffers. Some gratitude.)

So what drove the increase in “General Hate”? For the most part, it
can be tracked to the SPLC’s “creative accounting” techniques. In
2017, the company trotted out a brand new “hate group” category:
Neo-Völkisch. Sounds Teutonic, no? The Nazis were German and so
these Neo-Völkisch haters must be evil too.

“Neo-Völkisch adherents worship the Norse or Germanic gods,

spirituality premised on the survival of white Europeans and the
preservation of dead or dying cultures they presume to embody.”

Are they dangerous?

“…violence rarely erupts from the neo-Völkisch movement.”

So why are they a “hate group” now?

“Hyper-masculine imagery fetishized within neo-Völkisch spheres

reinforces misogyny and traditional gender roles.”

Yes, folks, “traditional gender roles.” Not to be confused with

the Amish, Muslims, Orthodox Jewry and a large percentage of
Latino immigrants. No doubt their slogan should read “Me
Tarzan. You Jane.” And the Media never said a word.

The SPLC has apparently abolished the neo-Völkisch brand and folded
all of those organizations into “General Hate,” making up more than
half of that category’s recent increase. One group, the Asatru Folk
Assembly, even expanded from 11 chapters (10 of which were
“statewide”) to 17 chapters (15 “statewide”).

The “American Guard,” which was already in “General Hate” limbo,

expanded from 10 chapters/10 “statewide” to 17 chapters/17
“statewide.” The “Proud Boys” also showed a healthy increase by
burgeoning from 3 chapters/ 1 “statewide” to 44 chapters/16
“statewide” overnight.

If the SPLC has vetted addresses for 30-plus new chapters,

now would be a really good time for them to produce them.
How hard could it be?

White Nationalist: The core cause of the increase in this category

lies mainly with the SPLC’s own peculiar form of inflation.

“The Right Stuff” is a new addition to the “Hate Map,” and appears to
be a blog, which begs the question as to how exactly the SPLC can
designate 34 chapters of it (14 of which are statewide)?

This isn’t the first time the SPLC has franchised websites (which they
make a “big effort to separate” from actual “groups,” remember?). In
2015, the SPLC recognized exactly one chapter of Daily Stormer, a
one-man website out of Ohio that Mark Potok described as “mostly
Andrew Angelin, his dog, and a computer.”

By 2016, the SPLC was counting 31 Stormer websites (30

“statewide”) which has declined to 22 chapters for 2018, 21 of which
are “statewide.” How does a one-man website end up with multiple
chapters, and how are websites, real or imagined, “groups”?

What was it that SPLC Outreach Director Kate Chance said

about “a web presence alone” not being sufficient for a “hate
group” designation? What was it that SPLC Intelligence
Director Potok said about the company “making a big effort” to
exclude one-man, one-dog websites from the list?

“The Patriot Front” went from 4 chapters/1 “statewide” to 16

chapters/15 “statewide” last year. “Identity Evropa” was another big
winner in 2018, more than doubling from 15 alleged chapters/11
“statewide,” to 38 chapters/19 “statewide.”

The vast majority of Evropa’s increase seems to come from reports of

posters and stickers for the “group” being found on lamp posts and
college campuses. The only recent sighting of actual men-on-the-
ground came a few weeks ago when 11 men were spotted on a hill
overlooking the University of Utah unfurling a banner marked “End
Immigration!”

Identity Evropa makes its propaganda posters available online, where

any individual can download them and distribute them under the
cover of darkness. While emotions run high on both sides of the
debate, “End Immigration” is as valid and as legal an opinion as
anything any Open Borders supporters could post. Immigration is a
legal matter. You can be for it, against it or neutral on the issue, as
you deem fit.

Once again, the SPLC is using the actions of lone-wolf

individuals, just as it does with anonymous P.O. boxes, to pad
out its lucrative “group” counts. If the the company has the
proof, let them show it.

Neo-Confederate: One of the smaller categories on the “Hate Map,”

neo-Confederate groups allegedly made modest gains from 31
chapters/6 “statewide” in 2017 to 36 chapters/9 “statewide” in 2018.

Not only were most of the gains made by “statewide” phantoms, but a
new inductee, “Wildman’s Civil War Surplus” store, in Kennesaw, GA.
has been added to the list. The sole proprietor, and apparently the one
and only member of this new “group,” appears to be octogenarian
Dent “Wild Man” Myers.

This cranky old hippie doesn’t seem to be much of a threat to the

world at large (although he is reported to pack twin .45s). The
important thing is that his appearance, attitudes and demeanor will
outrage the SPLC’s donor base. Thanks to the fundraisers at the
SPLC, Wild Man Myers has gotten more free publicity than he
could ever have dreamed of. At least this “group” has a fixed
physical address, which is more than can be said of most.

Wildman’s One-Man “Group”

Black Nationalist: According to the SPLC,” Black “hate groups”

represent the largest single category of “hate group” on their “Hate
Map” fundraising tool. If you strip out all of the “statewide”
phantoms from the tool, Black “hate groups” are also the
fastest growing category by far, according to the SPLC.

In fact, at face value, Black “hate groups” outnumber ALL of

the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi and Racist
Skinhead “groups” on the “Hate Map” COMBINED, at 264
versus 262. Strip out the “statewide” phantoms and Black
“hate groups” outnumber the other four categories combined
BY THREE TO ONE, AT 252 versus 82.

Remember the narrative, folks: “White hate groups are on the

rise!”

Naturally, these inconvenient facts wouldn’t sit well with the

donor/customer base, so the SPLC has to make excuses: “The black
nationalist movement is a reaction to centuries of institutionalized
white supremacy in America.”

Insinuating that Blacks and other Persons of Color are

somehow incapable of the very human traits of nationalism,
tribalism, xenophobia and racism is the lowest form of soft
racism. Thank goodness POC’s have the White Saviors at the
SPLC to swoop in and protect them.

Still, there must be some reason for including them on the list: “Most
forms of black nationalism are strongly anti-white and anti-Semitic.”
Considering the lucrative rhetoric that pours forth from the SPLC, one
can imagine that “anti-white” sentiments fall pretty low on the
company’s list of offenses.

The most baffling charge leveled against Black “hate groups”

is that “Some religious versions assert that black people are
the biblical “chosen people” of God.”

Think about that. The SPLC is actually weighing in as to which

religious sect has copyright on who are God’s “chosen people.”
No pandering here. Move along.

It’s also worth noting that the 76 chapters of the Nation of Islam, plus
a handful of overtly Black Muslim groups hidden under “General Hate,
do not count as “Muslim hate groups,” even though their religion is
their primary reason for being.

The SPLC pads out its 100 alleged Anti-Muslim “hate groups” with 47
individual chapters of “Act for America” and ten “statewide” chapters
of the “Soldiers of Odin,” (out of eleven), so having nearly twice as
many Muslim “hate groups” would confuse the customers.

Collateral damage: So what happens when the Southern Poverty

Law Center sets its sights on your state, your town or even your own
person? While the primary function of the “Hate Map” is to extract
lucre from liberals, there are serious ramifications for real people on
the ground.

At the state level, negative publicity generated by the SPLC’s spurious

“hate group” numbers can dissuade individuals and corporations from
moving to your part of the country. Who in their right minds would
relocate the next Apple, Amazon or Facebook headquarters to a
“hateful” state or city?

The quote from the Anti-Defamation League’s Mark Pitcavage, cited

above, came in response to a headline in the South Jersey Times that
claimed: “New Jersey has the fourth highest number of hate groups in
country, says Southern Poverty Law Center.”

The SPLC had assigned 40 “hate groups” to New Jersey that year,
including 14 chapters of the AC Skins (“AC” as in “Atlantic City”). As
Pitcavage noted, the SPLC’s claims were “wildly inflated” with the
company listing one or two individuals as “groups.”

By 2015, whether because of, or in spite of, Mark Pitcavage’s “outing,”

New Jersey’s “hate group” count dropped from 40 to 21, largely by
shedding 13 of the 14 alleged chapters of the AC Skins overnight.

Larger states, like New Jersey, California, Texas and Florida can
absorb stupid “hate group” claims better than smaller ones, although
the last thing New Jersey needs is another spurious groin kick to its
reputation. This year’s “Hate Map” has introduced a new meaningless
“statistic” that directly affects many states with smaller populations.

The 2018 “Hate Map” now identifies those states with the
highest number of “hate groups per capita.” The company
comes to this worthless designation by dividing the state’s
population by 100,000 and then again by the number of
alleged “hate groups.”

Predictably, those states with the smallest populations ranked

highest on the list, with states like Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, New
Hampshire and South Dakota making it into a “Top Ten States
per Capita” Hall of Shame. What kind of numbers does it take
to get into this elite club?

Alaska: 4 groups/3 “statewide”

Hawaii: 5 groups/3 “statewide”
Idaho: 10 groups/4 “statewide
New Hampshire: 10 groups*/6 “statewide
South Dakota: 7 groups/2 “statewide

(*Two of New Hampshire’s alleged “groups,” the Slaves of the

Immaculate Heart of Mary and its online publishing arm, IHM Media,
are located in the same building in tiny Richmond, NH, population
1,155. The SPLC counts them twice to pad its numbers.)

The “per capita” designation is worthless and is designed only

to spread fear and outrage among the donors. Under this
warped measurement, these small population states have
more McDonald’s, Burger Kings and Starbucks “per capita”
than other states. So what? Do Whoppers and Big Macs cause
“hate groups”? Is there a link between lattes and
“extremism”?

(Don’t laugh. In 2012, the peer-reviewed academic journal, Social

Science Quarterly, actually published a paper based on SPLC “data”
claiming that Walmarts cause “hate groups.”)

For 2011, the SPLC assigned 20 chapters of the Georgia Militia to that
state’s “hate map,” tucked under the “General Hate” catch-all. One
chapter was pinpointed to somewhere in Camden County,
another was at large in Blairsville (population 611) and
locations for the remaining 18 chapters were simply left blank
(in those days, the company didn’t bother with the “statewide”
canard, it simply left locations for 25% of its locations blank. It’s not
like anyone in the Media is going to say anything about it.)

Eighteen out of 20 locations left blank and yet the SPLC

included every last one for the 2011 “hate group” count. By
2012 the count was one group in Camden County/13 blank, in
2013 they counted Camden County and 11 blanks, and by 2014
the “group” had vanished into thin air as quickly as it had
appeared.

Georgia, like New Jersey, is already the butt of a lot of bad publicity.
What happens when 27 out of the 63 “groups” the SPLC assigned to
Georgia for 2011 are homeless phantoms? That’s 43% of the alleged
total right off the bat. Remember, one-in-three Georgians are
minorities. What does this needless, worthless negative publicity do
for their economic opportunities? The only people profiting from the
“Hate Map” are at the SPLC.

Let’s zoom in to the city/town level. Major cities can absorb “hate
group” hits up to a point, but there’s a limit. Baltimore’s image is
hardly burnished by the claim that it is home to 11 “hate groups,”
seven of which are Black Nationalists, according to the SPLC. What
does that even mean for the people on the ground there?

When the SPLC assigns “hate groups” to smaller municipalities

the ramifications are even greater. Politico Magazine, hardly a
right-wing rag, documented the plight of two small towns,
villages actually, who were added to the SPLC’s “Hate Map” for
2017 on the flimsiest of evidence.

Tony Rehagen’s February 2018 article, “What happens when your town
lands on the Hate Map?” ought to be required reading for every
schoolchild, journalist and donor. As the article’s subtitle indicates:
“You freak out. You try and clear your name. You get nowhere.”

Case in point, the village of Gurnee, Illinois, sits beside Lake Michigan
and its economy relies heavily on lake-based sports tourism. With no
warning whatsoever, the village found itself on the 2017 “Hate Map”
with one chapter of the Ku Klos Knights of the KKK.

Horrified at the accusation, the mayor and police chief of Gurnee

contacted the SPLC for more details about this group. According to
Heidi Beirich, who replaced the cast-off Mark Potok as SPLC Director
of Intelligence, someone at the company found a single post on a KKK
website where an individual, claiming to be an “exalted cyclops”
posted his name and the address “Gurnee, Il, 60031.”

As Rehagen notes in his article, that scrap of address isn’t

even “enough information to get a letter properly delivered,”
but it was more than enough to get Gurnee on the “Hate Map.”
As further proof, Beirich claimed that she sent an email to the
guy’s Gmail account and the fact that she allegedly received a
reply from that anonymous account PROVED that there was a
KKK group in Gurnee.

Think about that, SPLC donors. This is the kind of hard-hitting

investigative research your dollars are funding.

When the Chief of Police informed Dr. Beirich that he had performed a
thorough investigation and could find no evidence of anyone by that
person’s name ever living in Gurnee, the Director of Intelligence told
him the matter was out of her hands. Gurnee would remain on the
“Hate Map” for all of 2017 until the new version was released in
February 2018.

Think about that… Any 12-year-old can update a web page, but the
SPLC’s online “Hate Map” is static and frozen in time forever. Really?
We’ll explain the real reason for Beirich’s inaction directly, but first
another tale from Rehagen’s article that is even more ludicrous than
this one.

The village of Amana, Iowa, also known as home to the Amana

Colonies, also found itself on the 2017 “Hate Map” as home to one of
the “Daily Stormer” websites mentioned previously in this post. The
problem was that the Amana Colonies were founded in the mid-
nineteenth century by German Lutheran immigrants (who later
founded the Amana Corporation of refrigerator, washing machine and
Radarange fame) and is currently a historic landmark listed on the
National Registry of Historic Places. It’s populated by costumed
“interpreters” demonstrating 19th century farm life.

Amana Colonies
Amana, Iowa

Assigning a “hate group” to Amana is about as logical as

assigning one to Virginia’s Colonial Williamsburg or
Massachusetts’ “Plimoth Plantation.”

Never one to allow facts to get in the way of a juicy “hate group,”
Heidi Beirich explained to Amana’s officials that she had solid
evidence. As Tony Rehagen recounts:

“Someone at the SPLC spotted a chat thread on the Daily

Stormer, in which someone with the screen name “Concerned
Troll” had proposed a neo-Nazi “book club” meeting in an
Amana café. No one in Amana was able to confirm to the SPLC
whether or not the meeting actually took place, but that was
enough to earn the corn-carpeted state its only swastika.”

That’s it, friends. The rock-solid evidence the SPLC uses to assign
“hate groups” to known cities or towns. How many other localities
have been tarred needlessly by such tissue-thin evidence? Why is
Tony Rehagen one of the few professional journalists to actually
question the SPLC’s claims?

Despite being in the same jam as Gurnee, Amana had a somewhat

happier outcome. It seems that there is one editing loophole in the
otherwise permanent “Hate Map” fundraising tool. Heidi Beirich was
able to move Amana’s neo-Nazi “group” off the village and into the
“statewide” category. Iowa still ended the year with four “hate
groups,” because whatever number the SPLC cooks up each February
goes on all of its press releases and other fundraising materials for the
entire fiscal year. For that number to change would hint at fallibility.

Gurnee was not so lucky, though. Unfortunately, Heidi Beirich

had already assigned a “statewide” chapter of the Ku Klos
Knights to Illinois, and while it would not be unprecedented for
the “Hate Map,” even the most ardent SPLC donors would have
a hard time swallowing two “statewide” chapters in the same
state. So Gurnee had no choice but to suck it up and wait a full
year until the next “Hate Map” could be cobbled together to
clear its name.

In 2008, the small town of Winchester, NH, (nextdoor neighbor to the

aforementioned Richmond, NH), spent a year on the “Hate Map”
because of an alleged KKK group, even though town selectmen and
Police Chief Gary Phillips attested that there was no “group” in town.
In the same article from the Keene Sentinel newspaper, Anthony D.
Griggs, identified as an SPLC research analyst, described the
difficulty in identifying “hate groups” and made an amazingly
candid observation:

“In some instances, it could be just a guy and a couple of his

buddies,” Griggs said.

The “hate group” smear attacks entire communities, as if they are

somehow to blame for every nut who opens a P.O. box or posts some
stupidity on a web site. Towns like Gurnee and Amana have very
tourism-dependent economies. They did nothing wrong but were still
held hostage to the whims of the SPLC’s fundraising machinery and,
with very few exceptions, like Tony Rehagen, the media turn a blind
eye to it because lurid tales of “hate groups” are solid gold click-bait.

And finally, what happens to individuals targeted as

“extremists” by SPLC fundraisers?

When the SPLC created “A Journalist’s Manual: Field Guide to

Anti-Muslim Extremists” in October, 2016, it included the
names of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a woman born in Somalia who
underwent forced female genital mutilation at the age of five,
and Maajid Nawaz, a British-born Muslim of Pakistani descent.
Both people are outspoken critics of Islamic extremism. Both
have criticized violent Muslim fundamentalists and the doctrine
that drives their actions.

Soon after being placed on the list, Nawaz explained the

consequences to David A. Graham of The Atlantic magazine:

“They put a target on my head. The kind of work that I do, if

you tell the wrong kind of Muslims that I’m an extremist, then
that means I’m a target,” he said. “They don’t have to deal
with any of this. I don’t have any protection. I don’t have any
state protection. These people are putting me on what I
believe is a hit list.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was already on a Muslim extremist hit list. As the SPLC
piece explained. “While in the Netherlands, she wrote the script for a
short and provocative film about women and Islam directed by the
Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in the street by a
jihadist a short time after its release. The murderer left a note
threatening to also kill Hirsi Ali pinned to his victim’s body with a
knife.”

The SPLC piece put Ali, who moved to the United States for her own
safety, on the same hit list as Maajid Nawaz. Unlike Ali, and most
people who find themselves on SPLC lists, Nawaz had the wherewithal
to sue the company for defamation and in mid-2018, the SPLC
conceded defeat and entered into a settlement with Nawaz for $3.4
million.

While Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the other “extremists” were not
compensated, the SPLC ultimately took down its online “field guide”
altogether. In fact, the link we provided for it had to be routed
through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The same link on
the SPLC website now redirects to an apology to Nawaz. The good
news is that the SPLC’s $433 million cash reserves remained intact.
The $3.4 million settlement was paid out by the company’s insurance
carrier.

One final incident, which received a lot of publicity at the time

but bears repeating here, in August 2012, LGBT activist Floyd
Corkins walked into the Family Research Council’s (FRC) office
in Washington, DC, with a gun. Corkins later told investigators
that his intent was to kill as many FRC personnel as possible
because the SPLC listed the organization as anti-LGBT on its
“Hate Map.”

Fortunately, the FRC’s security guard, Leo Johnson, who was

unarmed, was able to subdue Corkins, in spite of being shot himself in
the struggle. The SPLC, who are always quick to attribute the actions
of every lone-wolf loon to the “far Right” or as being “emboldened by
Trump,” were even quicker to deny that any Left-wing loons could
possibly be influenced by its “Hate Map” propaganda.

It is our hope that the long-winded examples laid out above will give
some people, especially professional journalists, pause when it comes
to blindly accepting SPLC “Hate Map” propaganda as “fact.” To recap:

» There is no legal definition for “hate group.” The SPLC is the

self-appointed arbiter of that label and uses it to generate
hundreds of millions of dollars.

» If nothing else, the simple fact that the SPLC hides hundreds
of its alleged “hate groups” under a meaningless “statewide”
umbrella ought to cast doubt on the accuracy of its claims. If
they have the proof, demand that they produce it.

» The vast majority of the remaining “hate groups” are only

identified by an alleged city or town. As the stories of Gurnee,
Amana and Winchester show, those claims are often based on
ridiculously flimsy evidence, such as an anonymous P.O. box or
Tweet. Make the SPLC show its evidence.

» Despite claims to the contrary, each year’s “Hate Map”

includes dozens of one-man web sites and online vendors and
booksellers. Make the SPLC explain how someone like Wild
Man Myers constitutes a “group” and what real threat he poses
to the community. “We don’t like it!” isn’t good enough.

» Empty, meaningless “statistics” like the SPLC’s new “per

capita” counts are worthless. They are intended solely for
creating outrage and fear and pose real public relations
problems for low-population states that can least afford it.

» The SPLC’s spurious “hate group” and “extremist” claims

create real economic and safety issues for communities and
individuals. The whole purpose of the “hate group” label is to
dehumanize people in order to agitate the SPLC’s donor base.

As of this writing, there are two civil law suits pending against the
SPLC. The Center for Immigration Studies is pursuing a RICO-based
racketeering suit against, the SPLC, Heidi Beirich and SPLC president,
Richard Cohen, for repeating the claim that the Center is a “hate
group.”

Maryland attorney Glen Allen is also pursuing a racketeering case

against the SPLC, Beirich and Mark Potok. Allen contends that the
SPLC purchased stolen documents which the company then used to
get Allen fired from his post as an attorney for the City of Baltimore.

Both cases have merit, and both cases reference the SPLC’s “hate
group” tactics, but neither actually address the demonstrable
inaccuracies in the “Hate Map” tool that we have laid out above. It
seems pretty apparent that the SPLC uses these claims, knowing full
well that the information is bogus, in order to accrue hundreds of
millions of dollars in tax-free donations.

If any journalist or attorney would be willing to pursue a fraud

suit against the Southern Poverty Law Center in the future, we
at Watching the Watchdogs will make all of our evidence
available upon request.

As we have said many times, the SPLC’s “Hate Map” numbers

are for fundraising, not for fact-finding. Make the company
show its proof once and for all.

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Tags: Amana, fundraising, Gurnee, hate groups, Hate Map, Heidi

Beirich, Kate Chance, Mark Pitcavage, Mark Potok, Richard Cohen,
Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC

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