Southern Poverty Law Center

Southern Poverty Law Center
Abbreviation	SPLC
Formation	1971
Founder	•  Morris Dees •  Joseph J. Levin
Interests	“hate crime”, “hate speech”, hate groups

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a group that is currently focused on promoting recognition of "hate groups". In March 2019, CNN reported that staffers stated that the group suffers from a "systemic culture of racism and sexism within its workplace."

Official narrative

The SPLC a “nonprofit legal advocacy organization” that is “dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society.” It has establishment backing, as demonstrated by the fact that Wikipedia devotes a page to listing groups that it has designated as "hate groups".

Oklahoma City Bombing

Full article: Oklahoma City Bombing

The SPLC was involved in planting federal informants in Elohim City, the militia enclave that housed the government spook at the center of the OKC conspiracy.

Finance

In their 2015 declaration, the SPLC reported $58.2 million in revenue and $328.4 million in net assets.

"Hate Groups"

The SPLC defines a "hate group" as "an organization that – based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities – has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics." The SPLC has an online map of such groups in USA, which featured 917 groups as of 2017, up from 602 in 2000 and 784 in 2014, which it terms "an explosive rise in the number of hate groups since the turn of the century". The groups breakdown as follows:

• 14 Anti-Immigrant
• 52 Anti-LGBT
• 101 Anti-Muslim
• 193 Black Separatist
• 21 Christian Identity
• 46 General Hate
• 16 Hate music
• 10 Holocaust denial
• 130 Klu Klux Klan
• 43 Neo-Confedarate
• 99 Neo-Nazi
• 78 Racist Skinhead
• 14 Radical Traditional Catholicism
• 100 White Nationalist

"Extreme antigovernment groups"

The site also tracking "623 extreme antigovernment groups", including 165 militias.

Generally, such groups define themselves as opposed to the “New World Order,” engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines. Listing here does not imply that the groups themselves advocate or engage in violence or other criminal activities, or are racist.

The 2017 list included the John Birch Society, LewRockwell.com, Oath Keepers, We Are Change, WorldNetDaily, Constitution Party, Next News Network, Lost Horizons, Natural News and Infowars.com.

"Hate symobols"

A protestor in Hong Kong in 2019

The SPLC has a database of over 150 "symbols and images representing bigotry or hate." They added Pepe The Frog to this in September 2016. In 2019 the same symbol was adopted by pro-democracy protestors.

Exposure

Legal action

In 2018, after the SPLC settled a lawsuit by paying over $3 million, around 60 other organizations were considering a lawsuit against the SPLC.

Systemic culture of racism and sexism

In March 2019, CNN reported that staffers stated that the group suffers from a "systemic culture of racism and sexism within its workplace."

Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center

Tyler O Neill wrote Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center in which a former SPLC employee Bob Moser reportedly admitted complicity in "a highly profitable scam" to exaggerate hate.

• A critical look at the group by James Corbett.

 

Employee on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed
Ann Beeson	Chief Program Office	2020

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Censoring Criticism of the hate group concept	Article	17 June 2019	Amalric de Droevig	additions to the wikipedia 'Hate group' page by the author which were repeatedly deleted for no good reason

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