Hate Groups In America Are On the Rise: Up 48% Since 2000

March 11, 2008

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In a truly startling revelation we have been exposed to a dark social fad taking place in every state of our country. What is this heinous movement I am speaking of? I am referencing the fact that the number of hate groups operating in America has swelled by 48% since 2000, a staggering increase mainly attributable to the anti-immigrant under current which is sweeping the country at an unprecedented rate, this is according to the “Year in Hate” issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report released today. This is the latest study released regarding this subject. A 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.

As you could imagine with the rise of these hate groups, their has also been a noticeable rise in hate crimes. Specifically in this case, aimed at Latino’s living in America. According to the SPLC report, 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.”

The states showing the greatest growth in hate groups came in California, Arizona and Texas, which had respective jumps of 27 percent, 70 percent, and 22 percent. The Intelligence Report also compiled a list of the most influential anti-immigrant activists here in America. Below is a section from the study, along with a couple of the most influential names on SPLC’s list of 22. To see the list in it’s entirety you can do so here:

What follows are snapshots of these 20 new-wave nativists. Although this collection is not intended to be comprehensive, it provides insight into the attitudes, motivations and personalities of a still-growing fringe movement that regrettably wields more influence in our society now than ever.

-Rusty Childress
-Jerome Corsi
-Shawna Forde
-”Buffalo” Rick Galeener
-Rosanna Pulido
-Jason “J.T.” Ready

These particular hardliners, ranging in age from 25 to 81. And they are as radical as you can get, have advocated everything from forcibly sterilizing Mexican women to mining the U.S.-Mexican border. In the past three years, there have been some 300 anti-immigration groups founded; about half of that number are listed by the SPLC as “nativist extremist” groups. Some of these organizations are also listed as hate groups.

The most prominent name added to the hate group list this year is that of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, a group that has become one of the leading anti-immigration voices in the country but has for years had strong ties to white supremacists and white supremacist ideology.

“FAIR has been taken seriously for years by both the media and Congress, but it shouldn’t be,” said Potok. “Its officials have repeatedly revealed an anti-Latino and anti-Catholic bias. It has energetically promoted racist conspiracy theories about the immigration situation. And it has ties to white supremacists and hate groups.”

That being said, also included in the new issue of the Intelligence Report is a list of each of the 888 groups hate groups currently operating in the United States and includes a U.S. map showing their locations. The groups include neo-Nazis, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, Klansman and black separatists. Other groups target gays or immigrants, and some specialize in producing racist music or propaganda denying the Holocaust. Any way you cut it, these groups represent what is wrong with our country, and I hope that the task of sniffing these ingrates out, and subsequently squashing them will be a bipartisan affair, with both Democrats and Republicans working side by side getting rid of these cockroaches plaguing our country. Also I have included a map of the United States which shows a state by state hate group count. To enlarge the image simply click on it and it will appear in it’s regular size.

Number Of “Hate Groups” Per State