Top executives are departing amidst reports of racial and sexual harassment.
Controversy has struck the Southern Poverty Law Center, the
formidable progressive law firm best known for tracking hate groups in
the U.S. Co-founder Morris Dees, President Richard Cohen, and other top
executives are exiting the organization amidst a staff uprising over
alleged sexual and racial harassment in the work place.
The leadership shakeup, fueled by allegations that black staffers were shut out of key positions and that Dees personally harassed female staffers, has brought the SPLC considerable media scrutiny, and it's about time. Regardless of whether these specific accusations have merit, the SPLC should face a reckoning over its extremely shoddy work, which has mistakenly promoted the idea that fringe hate groups are a rising threat.
An awful lot of people here? A bit of a hyperbole, n'est pas? Oh, and a nice ad lib too. I like the "personal touch."
Les mots que vous cherchez sont "ad hominem", je pense.
And no I don't think so, but I'll leave a perusing of the forum as an exercise to the reader. And regular posters here (and you're as regular a poster as we have) drip hatred, just generally not directed at protected classes.
The FBI is only relevant for its similarity. Similarity doesn't require something to be identical (in purpose). Vilification (even within the bounds of legality) is sufficient for the SPLC. Not for the FBI: "Hate itself is not a crimeâand the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties."
I'm quite grateful the SPLC could only directly damage my reputation (and indirectly put me at risk for one of their fans to decide I'm fair game) and not put me in prison. I'm rather fond of the freedom of speech and civil liberties. That used to be a priority at SPLC as well.
If opposing a policy goal of some group is vilification then anyone who has an opinion is guilty; opposing gay marriage was enough to get a group on their list. Well, a group that couldn't effectively fight back anyway. They didn't list, say, the LDS church.
I don't think any pragmatic organization is interested in being sued into oblivion, regardless of principles.
Half a gigabuck in the bank means they aren't going to be sued anywhere near oblivion even if they lost, and defamation suits by people deemed public figures are notoriously hard to prove. They are, after all, pretty successful lawyers.
Good enough lawyers that they didn't want to subject themselves to the discovery process and what it might reveal about them. After caving on the Nawaz case they quietly scrapped their entire Journalist's Manual: Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists project.
Well that's a relief, otherwise an awful lot of people here would be hate groups. You included.
The FBI definition of hate crime involves motive...for a crime. If the organizations they list aren't advocating criminal conduct the FBI definition isn't relevant.
An awful lot of people here? A bit of a hyperbole, n'est pas? Oh, and a nice ad lib too. I like the "personal touch."
The FBI is only relevant for its similarity. Similarity doesn't require something to be identical (in purpose). Vilification (even within the bounds of legality) is sufficient for the SPLC. Not for the FBI: "Hate itself is not a crimeâand the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties."
I don't think any pragmatic organization is interested in being sued into oblivion, regardless of principles.
The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as an organization that â based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities â has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics. We do not list individuals as hate groups, only organizations.
The organizations on our hate group list vilify others because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity â prejudices that strike at the heart of our democratic values and fracture society along its most fragile fault lines.
(A) criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offenderâs bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.
We define a âgroupâ as an entity that has a process through which followers identify themselves as being part of the group. This may involve donating, paying membership dues or participating in activities such as meetings and rallies. Individual chapters of a larger organization are each counted separately, because the number indicates reach and organizing activity.
Well that's a relief, otherwise an awful lot of people here would be hate groups. You included.
The FBI definition of hate crime involves motive...for a crime. If the organizations they list aren't advocating criminal conduct the FBI definition isn't relevant.
The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as an organization that â based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities â has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics. We do not list individuals as hate groups, only organizations.
The organizations on our hate group list vilify others because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity â prejudices that strike at the heart of our democratic values and fracture society along its most fragile fault lines.
(A) criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offenderâs bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.
We define a âgroupâ as an entity that has a process through which followers identify themselves as being part of the group. This may involve donating, paying membership dues or participating in activities such as meetings and rallies. Individual chapters of a larger organization are each counted separately, because the number indicates reach and organizing activity.
Seems to me they can count any way they want, as long as they can justify it, do it consistently, and are open about it. The same for their definition of a hate group.
Yep, they're free to squander the credibility of their organization as they please. It just undercuts the very important work they used to do.
SPLC (the source of that number) has some serious credibility problems with their reporting. They count a lot of groups more than once, count local chapters as separate groups, and have a rather...flexible definition of a "hate group."
This critique is three years old but they haven't changed their methods.
Seems to me they can count any way they want, as long as they can justify it, do it consistently, and are open about it. The same for their definition of a hate group.
SPLC (the source of that number) has some serious credibility problems with their reporting. They count a lot of groups more than once, count local chapters as separate groups, and have a rather...flexible definition of a "hate group."
This critique is three years old but they haven't changed their methods.
Who are we supposed to hate today? The Russians for allegedly throwing the presidential election? The Chinese for allegedly stealing our jobs? The North Koreans for allegedly planning our nuclear destruction? The Iranians for allegedly working to acquire nuclear weapons? The “axis of evil” for being, well, evil?
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously told Americans that the only thing they had to fear is fear itself. However, recent American presidents have encouraged us to fear everything. Let’s not forget the stoking of fear by people like Condoleezza Rice and her image of a smoking gun morphing into a nuclear mushroom cloud. That image helped to propel America into a disastrous war in Iraq in 2003 that festers still.
One of the most powerful scenes I’ve seen in any movie came in the adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984. The film version begins with the “two minutes of hate” directed against various (imagined) enemies. Check it out. Doubleplusgood!
Especially disturbing is the rant against Goldstein, the enemy within. Here I think of Donald Trump claiming that the Democrats are anti-military for not rubberstamping his budget, a dishonest as well as ridiculous charge, since both parties support high military spending. Indeed, high Pentagon spending is the one bipartisan area of agreement in Congress.
The top tweet is typical of Trump: Accusing Democrats of not caring about “our” troops
This is among the biggest problems in America today: the stoking of hate against the enemy within, e.g. “illegal” immigrants (rapists, gang members, killers, according to our president), Democrats who allegedly don’t support our military, rival politicians who should be “locked up,” protesters who should be punched and kicked and otherwise silenced, high school students who are dismissed as phonies and professional actors, and on and on.
Irrational fear is nothing new to America, of course. Consider the fear of communism that produced red scares after World Wars I and II. Consider how fears of the spread of communism led to criminal intervention in Southeast Asia and the death of millions of people there. Massive bombing, free-fire artillery zones, the profligate use of defoliants like Agent Orange, the prolongation of war without any regard for the suffering of peoples in SE Asia: that behavior constituted a crime of murderous intensity that was in part driven by hatred and fear.
And when hatred and fear are linked to tribalism and a xenophobic form of patriotism, murderous war becomes almost a certainty. When the zealots of hate are screaming for blood, it’s very hard to hear appeals for peace based on compassion and reason.
Anger, fear, aggression: that way leads to the dark side, as Yoda, that Jedi master, warned us. Hate too, Yoda says, must be resisted, lest one be consumed by it. Sure, he’s just an imaginary character in the “Star Wars” universe, but that doesn’t negate the truth of his message.
God is love, the Christian religion says. Why then are we so open to hate and fear?
