Posted: 3/10/2008 2:30:55 PM EDT
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Report links anti-immigrant sentiment to rise in hate groups and hate crimes By David Crary ASSOCIATED PRESS 9:01 a.m. March 10, 2008 NEW YORK – Anti-immigrant sentiment is fueling nationwide increases in the number of hate groups and the number of hate crimes targeting Latinos, a watchdog group said Monday. The Southern Poverty Law Center, in a report titled “The Year in Hate,” said it counted 888 hate groups in its latest tally, up from 844 in 2006 and 602 in 2000. The most prominent of the organizations newly added to the list, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, vehemently rejected the “hate group” label, and questioned the law center's motives. FAIR said the center was using smear tactics to boost donations and stifle legitimate debate on immigration. “Their banner may be 'Stop the hate' but it's really 'Stop the debate,'” said FAIR's president, Dan Stein. “Apparently you can't even articulate an argument for immigration reform without being smeared.” The law center's report contends there is a link between anti-immigrant activism and the significant rise in hate crimes against Latinos in recent years. According to the latest FBI statistics, 819 people were victimized by anti-Latino hate crimes in 2006, compared with 595 in 2003. “The immigration debate has turned ugly and the result has been a growth in white supremacist hate groups and anti-Latino hate crime,” said Mark Potok, director of the law center's Intelligence Project. “The majority of anti-Latino hate crimes are carried out by people who think they're attacking immigrants, and very likely undocumented immigrants.” Potok said hate groups were proliferating because a growing number of Americans were agitated by the immigration debate. He said many new groups had appeared in the border states of California, Texas and Arizona where illegal immigration has been a particularly volatile issue. Critics of the law center, including FAIR, contend that the periodic reports on hate groups exaggerate the threat to public safety and inflate the total by including entities that are little more than Web sites or online chatrooms. Potok acknowledged that some of the groups may be small and said it is impossible for outsiders to gauge the membership of most of the groups. Among the largest categories of hate groups, Potok said, are neo-Nazi, white nationalist, racist skinhead and those with links to the Ku Klux Klan. FAIR, which is frequently quoted by the media and whose officials often have testified before Congress, advocates an end to illegal immigration and tighter controls on legal immigration. In pursuing these goals, it says, “there should be no favoritism toward or discrimination against any person on the basis of race, color, or creed.” The law center said its decision to designate FAIR a hate group was based in part on the ideology of various people who established it, worked for it or donated to it over its nearly 30-year history. The center has issued a detailed report outlining its allegations, although little of that report deals with FAIR's recent activities. The center's critique of FAIR was endorsed by a major Latino group, the National Council of La Raza. The council's vice president for advocacy and legislation, Cecilia Munoz, said FAIR's leaders were polished in public forums, but represented “a very unsavory set of views.” Stein described the assertions of bigotry as “a total fantasy.” Both FAIR and law center are relatively well known in the ranks of advocacy groups. The law center, which started as a small civil rights group in 1971, has amassed an endowment fund totaling $200 million as of October and it received nearly $29 million in grants and contributions in fiscal 2007. FAIR claims more than 250,000 members and reported more than $4 million in contributions in 2006. Stein, in addition to rejecting the “hate group” label, questioned the law center's linking of anti-immigrant sentiment to the recent increase in anti-Latino hate crimes. The data on such crimes is inexact and prone to misinterpretation, and some of the incidents classified as anti-Latino hate crimes involved violence between Latino gangs and non-Latino rivals, Stein said. The law center has listed numerous incidents not fitting that profile. In one such assault, in February 2007, three men broke into a mobile home in Wright City, Mo., yelling “immigration enforcement” and beat an illegal immigrant from Mexico with a piece of lumber, according to police reports. In Arkansas, where the Latino population has grown rapidly, there have been several recent violent incidents. In December, police said, a Hispanic man was fatally beaten in Lowell, Ark., after his nephew spoke Spanish to the assailant's girlfriend. |
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The SPLC is a longtime liberal operation. They're anti-gun as well. This is just the latest attempt to demonize American citizens that have legitimate issues with our border being overrun. Expect to see more as we get towards the election. The dems have to court LaRaza. Semper Fi |
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It seems like it would occur to sensible people more often that the key problem with illegal immigration is the illegal part. I really don't think that the majority of people on either side of this debate have a problem with anyone who wants to come here and make a prosperous living in this Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. The problem is the ones who insist on coming here subversively. I'm not opposed in any way to good decent persons wanting to come here for any and all righteous purposes, I just think they should sign the fuckin' guest book! That's not a lot to ask of someone with good intentions. The ones who feel they should be exempt to this that give me cause for alarm. And I don't see the reason or need for it to be any more complicated than that. Just my two pennies. If this make sense, then I feel like I'm in good company. |
The problem is that many (including a good number of folks on this site), are bothered by the 'immigrant' part... It's not illegal or legal... It's 'White Culture Under Siege'...  And those are the ones that fall into the hate groups... |
You can always count on Dave_A to represent the other side. |
...and whats wrong with white people trying to save their culture? Every other group is praised for it... 
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Pay no attention - it's just their latent anti-white hatred creeping out. Self-loathing whites and racist minorities hate it when White people talk like that. |
the hate groups like FAIR ? |
+ eleventy bazillion . I must be racist too 
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Here is the thing, now that we are going into a recession, a lot more Americans are going to want to do those jobs that they previously didn't want to do, that's going to cause problems either way it plays out, if the trend is that employers stick with the illegals say because they think they work harder, or are cheaper, that will cause resentment and retaliations. If employers DO replace with local talent causing an increase in illegal unemployment, that WILL result in an increase in crime by unemployed illegals, and in turn that will return more resentment and attacks by locals. just the way i see it playing out, i live in a tango rich environment and there is already signs of what i speak. |
Don't you know ? It's a hate crime to save European American culture . |
Don't forget all the hate spewed by the Spelling Nazis. I'm sure you're well familiar with all that. |
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If you're not white and are proud of your race you are awesome. If you are white and are proud of your race you're a racist and a bigot. White people cannot be proud of who they are.... They have the United Negro College Fund. I wonder how many milli-seconds it would take for racist calls if someone started a United White College Fund. There are lots of black history museums. Ive never seen or heard of a white history museum. Theres a black history month but no white history month. White people are to blame for slavery even though the slave traders were mostly Africans. The only place I know of where slavery still exists today is in Africa. Most African-Americans couldnt give a shit less about Africa. |
That White people even exist is an embarassment to many self-loathing Whites. They discount "White Culture" every chance they get and even go so far as to deny that a "White Culture" even exists. Yet they somehow believe that Western Civilization just spontaneously sprang into existance and surpassed all other cultures on earth by pure luck. They'll point to some inbred backwoods Appalachian trailer trash and say "Is that your 'White Culture'?" completely ignorant that cultures are not measured by the depths to which some stray bottom-dwellers in that culture sink but rather by the breadth and pinnacles that that culture most commonly reaches. So a few stray examples of "trailer trash" are no more representative of "White Culture" in America than Thomas Sowell or Clarence Thomas are representative of "Black Culture" in America.
And again, self-loathing Whites will pompously and piously say you don't need such things. They'll say you don't need to promote your race or your culture - all the while all other cultures promote and celebrate themselves while simultaneously denigrating White culture for being the historical cause of their sufferings, shortcomings and failings. Self-loathing Whites will say you're just whining and that, even as the very timbers supporting Western Civilization are being torn down one by one and replaced with inferior ideas and principles, it makes no difference to them (and so it should make no difference to you either) whether Western Civilization or "White Culture" (yes, they are synonymous, self-loathing white denials notwithstanding) is replaced with inferior Tribalized-American, African, Hispanic, Chinese, Aboriginal or Arabic cultural traditions. |
SPLC is a widely-accepted resource for tracking "hate groups". Kind of like how CAIR is a widely-accepted resource for tracking anti-Islamic speech. |