"Rage on the Right"?

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a respected civil rights organization. While they are primarily known for their exposures of KKK-type hate groups, they have also published the names of hundreds of organizations they consider to be hate groups in the US. Their spring 2010 special issue is devoted to what they call right-wing hate groups. The issue is entitled, "Rage on the Right". Today, I had a chance to go over a copy. Along with their lead article, they include pages and pages of hate groups under categories such as militias, anti-immigration, KKK, Neo-Nazi, anti-Gay and others. Aside from the fact that the issue lists so many organizations I am unfamiliar with, I was able to determine that some of the groups mentioned are not what we would consider to be "on the right". Some of the information I consider to be downright misleading.

One article in the issue is entitled, "The Year in Nativism." This, of course, implies that some people and groups are "anti-immigration", a term the magazine uses repeatedly. Yet, what the article fails to do is distinguish between anti-immigration and anti-illegal immigration, which is misleading. There are millions of Americans (like myself) who favor legal immigration, but think that illegal immigration should be stopped. It appears that the SPLC considers the Minutemen to be an extremist organization.

Let me state my own position here fully aware that the Minutemen organization has split off into diverse groups. If we are talking about people who are acting as a "neighborhood watch" at the border, if you will, and alerting the Border Patrol to the crossings of illegal aliens, and not taking any action themselves, then I have no problem with that. Were their actions illegal, the Border Patrol would have stopped their activities years ago. If any groups are confronting the aliens themselves or committing crimes against these people, then that is a horse of a different color.

The article also singles out numerous state militias. It's not an issue I follow, and it seems to me that the motivation of forming a so-called militia is important. If their mission is to plot a violent revolution or assassinate officials, obviously they get no support from me.

Of course, the lead article is "Rage on the Right" by Mark Potok. This addresses a lot of people who, in Potok's words, see "an array of initiatives by the relatively liberal Obama administration as socialist or even fascist".

Relatively liberal.

There is a line which reads that "the number of hate groups in America has been going up for years, rising 54% between 2000 and 2008 and driven largely by an angry backlash against non-white immigration and, starting in the last year of that period, the economic meltdown and the climb to power of an African-American president."

First of all, you have to go back to the central question of who is a hate group. Then I would point out that "anti-non-white immigration" should be replaced by "anti-illegal immigration". I also continue to take exception to the claim that a large number of Americans object to President Obama's skin color-rather than his policies. We elected him did we not?

Here is what the article artfully said about the tea-parties: "The tea parties and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups (thank you), but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism."

There you have it.

That chapter is followed immediately by several pages of identified hate groups by state and by issue. The problem is that not all of the groups are on the right. True, the magazine does not claim they are all on the right, but if you read carelessly, you could assume that the dozens or hundreds of these groups listed are all on the right. Not so, The New Black Panthers are certainly not on the right. La Voz de Aztlan, a website with whom I have crossed swords, is not on the right. They have two main issues, the SW US (Aztlan) should revert to Mexico and Jew-hatred. What about Neo-Nazi groups? Do conservatives or tea partiers really embrace them? Of course not. Skinheads? C'mon.

Potok also leads off the issue with an editorial entitled, "They say they want a revolution". This editorial leads off with Sarah Palin's speech to the National Tea Party convention. He also drags Michele Bachmann into the essay. Does he consider them to be "hateful extremists" too?

I have no doubt the SPLC does good work. I do question, however, whether liberal politics might be creeping into who they consider hate groups. In my view, while not defending the majority of the groups identified, most of whom I have no knowledge of, I think the issue makes a misleading impression of much legitimate conservative dissent.