SPLC notes uptick in hate, extremist groups in 2015

Mark Potok (Courtesy Photo)
Mark Potok (Courtesy Photo)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) _ The number of hate groups and anti-government organizations in the United States jumped sharply in 2015 as political speech became more divisive, violent encounters between police and Black men were increasingly publicized, and attacks in Paris and California spurred widespread fears of terrorism, a civil rights advocacy group said Wednesday.
In its annual Year In Hate and Extremism report, the Southern Poverty Law Center said the number of U.S. hate groups increased to 892 last year, up from 784 in 2014. SPLC officials said the number of anti-government groups increased from 874 in 2014 to 998 in 2015.
The nonprofit also noted an uptick in anti-Muslim behavior, which it linked to terrorist attacks in Paris and California, and talking points from Republican presidential candidates. Some candidates have suggested that Muslim Syrian war refugees be blocked from entering the country to ensure that Muslim extremists don’t get in.
The group also noted that the number of Black separatist groups, which it categorizes as hate groups, has risen from 113 in 2014 to 180 in 2015.
“We think that the growth of these groups is due almost entirely to the very dramatic attention that has been paid over the past year to police violence against Black men,” said SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potok. The group simultaneously notes the number of active Ku Klux Klan groups increased to 190 in 2015 after falling between 2013 and 2014.
In general, Potok said, he would describe 2015 “as a year that very nearly approaches the political upheavals of 1968 _ a time of real trial for this country.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1971. The center says its mission is to fight hate and bigotry by monitoring extremist groups, launching public education campaigns that promote tolerance, and representing clients in civil rights cases in court.
The SPLC defines hate groups as organizations that attack people based on central characteristics such as race, sexual orientation and religion. The listings focus on ideology and not violence or criminal acts.
Some targets of the center say the SPLC’s main mission has become to silence conservative viewpoints.
“What you will find is anybody that has taken a strong conservative view of major issues _ whether it be life, marriage, the threat of Islam _ they have come out on that hate list,” said Family Research Council Vice President Jerry Boykin. On its website, the Council says its mission is to “advance faith, family and freedom in public policy and the culture from a Christian worldview.” The SPLC has identified the Council as a hate group.
The Council blames a 2012 shooting at its Washington, D.C., headquarters on its inclusion on the SPLC’s hate-group list.
Center officials deny the allegations.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center was born, and still lives today, to essentially defend the 14th Amendment,” Potok said, referring to the amendment that guarantees citizens of all races equal protection under the law.
Last June, SPLC’s Hate Watch blog featured two Anniston, Alabama, police officers who had been involved with the League of the South, which defines itself on its website as a “Southern Nationalist organization whose ultimate goal is a free and independent Southern republic.” The SPLC defines the league as a racist neo-Confederate organization. One officer resigned and the other was quickly fired.
SPLC officials “have got an opinion like everybody else does and that’s all it is, is an opinion about ideology,” the fired officer, Josh Doggrell, said outside his home, where a sticker on the mailbox reads “SECEDE.”
Southern Poverty Law Center officials strongly deny that they target groups whose beliefs don’t align with theirs. They insist that the center has always and continues to define hate groups as organizations that attack an entire class of people for characteristics central to their identity _ such as race, religion and sexual orientation _ and that use lies or name-calling to promote their agenda. Sometimes, those groups may also be conservative, said SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok.
The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded in 1971 in Montgomery, Alabama. It began watching the Ku Klux Klan in the 1980s and expanded to other groups in the late `90s, including anti-government militias.
Pete Simi, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, says he has yet to see a group on the SPLC’s list that he believes shouldn’t be, although he said defining hatred is subjective.
“The SPLC is a non-governmental, private organization,” said Simi, who studies extremist movements. “They’re not the only voice that exists out there about what is or what isn’t hate.”
Last year, the SPLC acknowledged its labels aren’t always foolproof.
In February 2015, SPLC officials apologized to Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson for the 2014 profile of him in their online “Extremist Files.”
SPLC leaders said that, following intense criticism, they determined that while some might consider Carson’s statements on gay marriage and other issues extreme, he should not have been branded an extremist.
Potok and other SPLC leaders say the nature of hatred and extremism has evolved _ largely because of technology _ and the organization had to make adjustments in how it tracks threats.
SPLC Intelligence Project Director Heidi Beirich cited Dylann Roof, the White man accused of killing nine people at a Black church in South Carolina last year.
`’As far as we can tell, he was completely radicalized online,” she said. “It could be that in 10 years a hate map, a hate list, doesn’t make any sense because people aren’t in groups anymore.”
 
 

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