![\"SPLC](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/SPLC-Hate-Map.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe name, \u2018The Southern Poverty Law Center\u2019 (SPLC) is misleading. The SPLC does little to alleviate poverty,\u00a0its own stated goals<\/a><\/span> are: fighting hate, teaching tolerance and seeking justice. At the moment, the SPLC lists its top activity as attempting to remove confederate statues and symbols. This is consistent with the activity for which the SPLC is best known, its annual hate map in which it locates so-called \u2018hate\u2019 groups on a map of the United States. How is it that one of the best funded poverty law centers acts as an arbitrar of hate instead of as an advocate for the poor?<\/h5>\nThe term \u2018Poverty Law\u2019 usually refers to the more mundane practice of representing poor people who are often un or under represented. But the SPLC\u2019s goals are more lofty, here\u2019s how Mark Potok, a Senior Fellow at SPLC described his mission. \u201cIt\u2019s not what most in the media think. Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate crimes\u2026Our criteria for a ‘hate group\u2019\u2026 have nothing to do with criminality or violence or any kind of guess we’re making about ‘this group could be dangerous.’\u00a0It’s strictly ideological. I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them<\/a><\/span>“<\/h5>\nEach year, the SPLC advertises over 900 hate groups on its hate map. Author\u00a0Laird Wilcox<\/a> <\/span>says the SPLC \u201cHas specialized [in] a highly developed and ritualized form of defamation … a way of harming and isolating people by denying their humanity and trying to convert them into something that deserves to be hated and eliminated. They accuse others of this but utilize their enormous resources to practice it on a mass scale themselves.\u201d<\/h5>\nTo begin with, the SPLC uses a very loose definition of a hate group as \u201can organization that \u2013 based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities \u2013 has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.\u201d They bolster this with the false claim that the FBI uses a similar definition of hate crime, \u201c[A] criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender\u2019s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.\u201d\u00a0 But the FBI\u2019s words do not refer to practices or beliefs, they characterize an actual crime which may have been inspired by bias.<\/h5>\nWithout advocating hate or prejudice I find the SPLC\u2019s categories hilarious. They are:\u00a0Ku Klux Klan<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Neo-Nazi<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0White Nationalist<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Racist Skinhead<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Christian Identity<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Neo-Confederate<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Black Separatist<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Anti-LGBT<\/a>,\u00a0Anti-Muslim<\/a>,\u00a0General Hate<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0(Anti-Immigrant<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Hate Music<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Holocaust Denial<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Radical Traditional Catholicism) and Other Hate (a grab bag of \u2018hateful’\u00a0ideologies<\/a><\/span>). Query,\u00a0if a neo-nazi gets a haircut will he become a racist skinhead or a neo-confederate?<\/h5>\nOne \u2018hate\u2019 group, Radical Traditional Catholicism, are excoriated for blaming Jews for the killing of Christ and \u201cThey also embrace extremely conservative social ideals with respect to women.\u201d\u00a0 Is this a hate group?\u00a0 Ultra Orthodox Jews have some pretty vile thoughts about non Jews and also adhere to extremely conservative social ideals for women.\u00a0 Why aren\u2019t the <\/strong>Lubovitches<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, for instance, on the list?<\/strong><\/h5>\nHolocaust denial is the only hate group defined by simply questioning authority. SPLC claims such groups \u201conly pretend to be interested in historical research.\u201d Instead, even the claim that Jews may have died in ways other than the gas chambers form [hate groups] because they are used simply \u00a0\u201cto rehabilitate the German Nazis\u2019 image as part of a bid to make the ideology of national socialism more acceptable.\u201d\u00a0 A number of historians investigating World War II might find this assertion surprising.<\/h5>\n\u201cThe SPLC\u2019s list is wildly inflated,\u201d said Mark Pitcavage<\/a>,<\/span> director of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League. The National Socialist Movement, for example, was listed 49 times in the 2015 Hate Map, since the count included each of the NSM\u2019s individual chapters. The SPLC also counts single individuals as a group or chapter.\u00a0The result is a count totally at odds with Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics. Hate crimes plummeted 24% between 1998 and 2013, according to the FBI. Yet the SPLC claims the number of hate groups in the U.S. shot up by 75% during this same period.<\/h5>\nThe SPLC has so many categories of \u2018hate\u2019 and those categories are political as much as violent. So is there any actual harm from a listing on the hate map?<\/h5>\nThere was when Floyd Lee Corkins entered the Family Research Council intending to kill as many as possible because \u201che found us listed as a hate group on the SPLC website,\u201d said executive vice president retired Gen. William Boykin. \u201cWe and others like us who are on this \u2018hate map\u2019 believe that this is very reckless behavior<\/a><\/span>. \u2026 The only thing that we have in common is that we are all conservative organizations. \u2026\u201d<\/h5>\nGurnee IL <\/a><\/span>is an unlikely location for a hate group. A prosperous suburb of 30,000, the town is careful with its reputation with tourists as it is home to Six Flags Great America amusement park, the Gurnee Mills indoor shopping mall and the water park, Great Wolf Lodge.<\/h5>\nBut the SPLC bestowed upon Gurnee the label that makes small-town officials sweat. Towns usually earn their reputations as harbors for hate groups in more public ways. They may be unlucky enough to be the place the Klan decides to march and someone later dies (Charlottesville) or be\u00a0 home to the media-trolling Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas). But for towns like Gurnee, designation as one of the 917 locales on SPLC\u2019s Hate Map comes without warning or explanation.<\/h5>\nWhen the town asked the self appointed cartographers of hate to remedy the listing they were told, \u201cI know it is disturbing to find hate groups in your community but I don\u2019t think that should be seen as a reflection of what I am sure is a wonderful community.\u201d Sorry, but the map is only updated once a year. \u201cCall back in January.\u201d The town protested that its police had searched and failed to find a hate group in Gurnee. SPLC Intelligence Chief Heidi Beirich would not budge. \u201c Even though<\/a><\/span> the police couldn\u2019t locate them doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/h5>\nGiven the low threshold for inclusion on the list, it is not surprising that other towns were included for questionable reasons. In 2004,\u00a0Olathe, Colorado earned a white hood icon when a self-proclaimed \u201cinternational imperial wizard\u201d from Indiana told a Denver newspaper that a chapter in Olathe, \u201ca little Klan klavern<\/a><\/span>,\u201d had asked him to come and speak. Neither he nor any of the town officials\u00a0 could name any of the members. Olathe stayed on SPLC\u2019s list for three years.<\/h5>\nAmana, Iowa, was placed on the hate map when someone at the SPLC spotted a chat thread on the\u00a0Daily Stormer. Someone with the screen name \u201cConcerned Troll\u201d proposed a neo-Nazi \u201cbook club\u201d meeting in an Amana caf\u00e9. No one in Amana was able to confirm to the SPLC whether or not the meeting actually took place, but that was enough <\/a><\/span>to earn the corn-carpeted state its only swastika.<\/h5>\nBut still, Beidich worries more<\/a><\/span> about undercounting than over inclusion. She thinks the undercount groups hide in shadows. She does not explain why listing what are\u00a0 \u2018un\u2019 hate groups, by her own criteria,\u00a0will cause hate groups to emerge from the shadows. In fact, it is not clear why we are not all better off if a \u2018hate\u2019 group stays hidden.<\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
Each year, the SPLC advertises over 900 hate groups on its hate map. Author\u00a0Laird Wilcox<\/a> <\/span>says the SPLC \u201cHas specialized [in] a highly developed and ritualized form of defamation … a way of harming and isolating people by denying their humanity and trying to convert them into something that deserves to be hated and eliminated. They accuse others of this but utilize their enormous resources to practice it on a mass scale themselves.\u201d<\/h5>\nTo begin with, the SPLC uses a very loose definition of a hate group as \u201can organization that \u2013 based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities \u2013 has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.\u201d They bolster this with the false claim that the FBI uses a similar definition of hate crime, \u201c[A] criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender\u2019s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.\u201d\u00a0 But the FBI\u2019s words do not refer to practices or beliefs, they characterize an actual crime which may have been inspired by bias.<\/h5>\nWithout advocating hate or prejudice I find the SPLC\u2019s categories hilarious. They are:\u00a0Ku Klux Klan<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Neo-Nazi<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0White Nationalist<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Racist Skinhead<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Christian Identity<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Neo-Confederate<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Black Separatist<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Anti-LGBT<\/a>,\u00a0Anti-Muslim<\/a>,\u00a0General Hate<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0(Anti-Immigrant<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Hate Music<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Holocaust Denial<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Radical Traditional Catholicism) and Other Hate (a grab bag of \u2018hateful’\u00a0ideologies<\/a><\/span>). Query,\u00a0if a neo-nazi gets a haircut will he become a racist skinhead or a neo-confederate?<\/h5>\nOne \u2018hate\u2019 group, Radical Traditional Catholicism, are excoriated for blaming Jews for the killing of Christ and \u201cThey also embrace extremely conservative social ideals with respect to women.\u201d\u00a0 Is this a hate group?\u00a0 Ultra Orthodox Jews have some pretty vile thoughts about non Jews and also adhere to extremely conservative social ideals for women.\u00a0 Why aren\u2019t the <\/strong>Lubovitches<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, for instance, on the list?<\/strong><\/h5>\nHolocaust denial is the only hate group defined by simply questioning authority. SPLC claims such groups \u201conly pretend to be interested in historical research.\u201d Instead, even the claim that Jews may have died in ways other than the gas chambers form [hate groups] because they are used simply \u00a0\u201cto rehabilitate the German Nazis\u2019 image as part of a bid to make the ideology of national socialism more acceptable.\u201d\u00a0 A number of historians investigating World War II might find this assertion surprising.<\/h5>\n\u201cThe SPLC\u2019s list is wildly inflated,\u201d said Mark Pitcavage<\/a>,<\/span> director of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League. The National Socialist Movement, for example, was listed 49 times in the 2015 Hate Map, since the count included each of the NSM\u2019s individual chapters. The SPLC also counts single individuals as a group or chapter.\u00a0The result is a count totally at odds with Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics. Hate crimes plummeted 24% between 1998 and 2013, according to the FBI. Yet the SPLC claims the number of hate groups in the U.S. shot up by 75% during this same period.<\/h5>\nThe SPLC has so many categories of \u2018hate\u2019 and those categories are political as much as violent. So is there any actual harm from a listing on the hate map?<\/h5>\nThere was when Floyd Lee Corkins entered the Family Research Council intending to kill as many as possible because \u201che found us listed as a hate group on the SPLC website,\u201d said executive vice president retired Gen. William Boykin. \u201cWe and others like us who are on this \u2018hate map\u2019 believe that this is very reckless behavior<\/a><\/span>. \u2026 The only thing that we have in common is that we are all conservative organizations. \u2026\u201d<\/h5>\nGurnee IL <\/a><\/span>is an unlikely location for a hate group. A prosperous suburb of 30,000, the town is careful with its reputation with tourists as it is home to Six Flags Great America amusement park, the Gurnee Mills indoor shopping mall and the water park, Great Wolf Lodge.<\/h5>\nBut the SPLC bestowed upon Gurnee the label that makes small-town officials sweat. Towns usually earn their reputations as harbors for hate groups in more public ways. They may be unlucky enough to be the place the Klan decides to march and someone later dies (Charlottesville) or be\u00a0 home to the media-trolling Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas). But for towns like Gurnee, designation as one of the 917 locales on SPLC\u2019s Hate Map comes without warning or explanation.<\/h5>\nWhen the town asked the self appointed cartographers of hate to remedy the listing they were told, \u201cI know it is disturbing to find hate groups in your community but I don\u2019t think that should be seen as a reflection of what I am sure is a wonderful community.\u201d Sorry, but the map is only updated once a year. \u201cCall back in January.\u201d The town protested that its police had searched and failed to find a hate group in Gurnee. SPLC Intelligence Chief Heidi Beirich would not budge. \u201c Even though<\/a><\/span> the police couldn\u2019t locate them doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/h5>\nGiven the low threshold for inclusion on the list, it is not surprising that other towns were included for questionable reasons. In 2004,\u00a0Olathe, Colorado earned a white hood icon when a self-proclaimed \u201cinternational imperial wizard\u201d from Indiana told a Denver newspaper that a chapter in Olathe, \u201ca little Klan klavern<\/a><\/span>,\u201d had asked him to come and speak. Neither he nor any of the town officials\u00a0 could name any of the members. Olathe stayed on SPLC\u2019s list for three years.<\/h5>\nAmana, Iowa, was placed on the hate map when someone at the SPLC spotted a chat thread on the\u00a0Daily Stormer. Someone with the screen name \u201cConcerned Troll\u201d proposed a neo-Nazi \u201cbook club\u201d meeting in an Amana caf\u00e9. No one in Amana was able to confirm to the SPLC whether or not the meeting actually took place, but that was enough <\/a><\/span>to earn the corn-carpeted state its only swastika.<\/h5>\nBut still, Beidich worries more<\/a><\/span> about undercounting than over inclusion. She thinks the undercount groups hide in shadows. She does not explain why listing what are\u00a0 \u2018un\u2019 hate groups, by her own criteria,\u00a0will cause hate groups to emerge from the shadows. In fact, it is not clear why we are not all better off if a \u2018hate\u2019 group stays hidden.<\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
Without advocating hate or prejudice I find the SPLC\u2019s categories hilarious. They are:\u00a0Ku Klux Klan<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Neo-Nazi<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0White Nationalist<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Racist Skinhead<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Christian Identity<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Neo-Confederate<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Black Separatist<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Anti-LGBT<\/a>,\u00a0Anti-Muslim<\/a>,\u00a0General Hate<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0(Anti-Immigrant<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Hate Music<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Holocaust Denial<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Radical Traditional Catholicism) and Other Hate (a grab bag of \u2018hateful’\u00a0ideologies<\/a><\/span>). Query,\u00a0if a neo-nazi gets a haircut will he become a racist skinhead or a neo-confederate?<\/h5>\nOne \u2018hate\u2019 group, Radical Traditional Catholicism, are excoriated for blaming Jews for the killing of Christ and \u201cThey also embrace extremely conservative social ideals with respect to women.\u201d\u00a0 Is this a hate group?\u00a0 Ultra Orthodox Jews have some pretty vile thoughts about non Jews and also adhere to extremely conservative social ideals for women.\u00a0 Why aren\u2019t the <\/strong>Lubovitches<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, for instance, on the list?<\/strong><\/h5>\nHolocaust denial is the only hate group defined by simply questioning authority. SPLC claims such groups \u201conly pretend to be interested in historical research.\u201d Instead, even the claim that Jews may have died in ways other than the gas chambers form [hate groups] because they are used simply \u00a0\u201cto rehabilitate the German Nazis\u2019 image as part of a bid to make the ideology of national socialism more acceptable.\u201d\u00a0 A number of historians investigating World War II might find this assertion surprising.<\/h5>\n\u201cThe SPLC\u2019s list is wildly inflated,\u201d said Mark Pitcavage<\/a>,<\/span> director of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League. The National Socialist Movement, for example, was listed 49 times in the 2015 Hate Map, since the count included each of the NSM\u2019s individual chapters. The SPLC also counts single individuals as a group or chapter.\u00a0The result is a count totally at odds with Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics. Hate crimes plummeted 24% between 1998 and 2013, according to the FBI. Yet the SPLC claims the number of hate groups in the U.S. shot up by 75% during this same period.<\/h5>\nThe SPLC has so many categories of \u2018hate\u2019 and those categories are political as much as violent. So is there any actual harm from a listing on the hate map?<\/h5>\nThere was when Floyd Lee Corkins entered the Family Research Council intending to kill as many as possible because \u201che found us listed as a hate group on the SPLC website,\u201d said executive vice president retired Gen. William Boykin. \u201cWe and others like us who are on this \u2018hate map\u2019 believe that this is very reckless behavior<\/a><\/span>. \u2026 The only thing that we have in common is that we are all conservative organizations. \u2026\u201d<\/h5>\nGurnee IL <\/a><\/span>is an unlikely location for a hate group. A prosperous suburb of 30,000, the town is careful with its reputation with tourists as it is home to Six Flags Great America amusement park, the Gurnee Mills indoor shopping mall and the water park, Great Wolf Lodge.<\/h5>\nBut the SPLC bestowed upon Gurnee the label that makes small-town officials sweat. Towns usually earn their reputations as harbors for hate groups in more public ways. They may be unlucky enough to be the place the Klan decides to march and someone later dies (Charlottesville) or be\u00a0 home to the media-trolling Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas). But for towns like Gurnee, designation as one of the 917 locales on SPLC\u2019s Hate Map comes without warning or explanation.<\/h5>\nWhen the town asked the self appointed cartographers of hate to remedy the listing they were told, \u201cI know it is disturbing to find hate groups in your community but I don\u2019t think that should be seen as a reflection of what I am sure is a wonderful community.\u201d Sorry, but the map is only updated once a year. \u201cCall back in January.\u201d The town protested that its police had searched and failed to find a hate group in Gurnee. SPLC Intelligence Chief Heidi Beirich would not budge. \u201c Even though<\/a><\/span> the police couldn\u2019t locate them doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/h5>\nGiven the low threshold for inclusion on the list, it is not surprising that other towns were included for questionable reasons. In 2004,\u00a0Olathe, Colorado earned a white hood icon when a self-proclaimed \u201cinternational imperial wizard\u201d from Indiana told a Denver newspaper that a chapter in Olathe, \u201ca little Klan klavern<\/a><\/span>,\u201d had asked him to come and speak. Neither he nor any of the town officials\u00a0 could name any of the members. Olathe stayed on SPLC\u2019s list for three years.<\/h5>\nAmana, Iowa, was placed on the hate map when someone at the SPLC spotted a chat thread on the\u00a0Daily Stormer. Someone with the screen name \u201cConcerned Troll\u201d proposed a neo-Nazi \u201cbook club\u201d meeting in an Amana caf\u00e9. No one in Amana was able to confirm to the SPLC whether or not the meeting actually took place, but that was enough <\/a><\/span>to earn the corn-carpeted state its only swastika.<\/h5>\nBut still, Beidich worries more<\/a><\/span> about undercounting than over inclusion. She thinks the undercount groups hide in shadows. She does not explain why listing what are\u00a0 \u2018un\u2019 hate groups, by her own criteria,\u00a0will cause hate groups to emerge from the shadows. In fact, it is not clear why we are not all better off if a \u2018hate\u2019 group stays hidden.<\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
Holocaust denial is the only hate group defined by simply questioning authority. SPLC claims such groups \u201conly pretend to be interested in historical research.\u201d Instead, even the claim that Jews may have died in ways other than the gas chambers form [hate groups] because they are used simply \u00a0\u201cto rehabilitate the German Nazis\u2019 image as part of a bid to make the ideology of national socialism more acceptable.\u201d\u00a0 A number of historians investigating World War II might find this assertion surprising.<\/h5>\n\u201cThe SPLC\u2019s list is wildly inflated,\u201d said Mark Pitcavage<\/a>,<\/span> director of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League. The National Socialist Movement, for example, was listed 49 times in the 2015 Hate Map, since the count included each of the NSM\u2019s individual chapters. The SPLC also counts single individuals as a group or chapter.\u00a0The result is a count totally at odds with Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics. Hate crimes plummeted 24% between 1998 and 2013, according to the FBI. Yet the SPLC claims the number of hate groups in the U.S. shot up by 75% during this same period.<\/h5>\nThe SPLC has so many categories of \u2018hate\u2019 and those categories are political as much as violent. So is there any actual harm from a listing on the hate map?<\/h5>\nThere was when Floyd Lee Corkins entered the Family Research Council intending to kill as many as possible because \u201che found us listed as a hate group on the SPLC website,\u201d said executive vice president retired Gen. William Boykin. \u201cWe and others like us who are on this \u2018hate map\u2019 believe that this is very reckless behavior<\/a><\/span>. \u2026 The only thing that we have in common is that we are all conservative organizations. \u2026\u201d<\/h5>\nGurnee IL <\/a><\/span>is an unlikely location for a hate group. A prosperous suburb of 30,000, the town is careful with its reputation with tourists as it is home to Six Flags Great America amusement park, the Gurnee Mills indoor shopping mall and the water park, Great Wolf Lodge.<\/h5>\nBut the SPLC bestowed upon Gurnee the label that makes small-town officials sweat. Towns usually earn their reputations as harbors for hate groups in more public ways. They may be unlucky enough to be the place the Klan decides to march and someone later dies (Charlottesville) or be\u00a0 home to the media-trolling Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas). But for towns like Gurnee, designation as one of the 917 locales on SPLC\u2019s Hate Map comes without warning or explanation.<\/h5>\nWhen the town asked the self appointed cartographers of hate to remedy the listing they were told, \u201cI know it is disturbing to find hate groups in your community but I don\u2019t think that should be seen as a reflection of what I am sure is a wonderful community.\u201d Sorry, but the map is only updated once a year. \u201cCall back in January.\u201d The town protested that its police had searched and failed to find a hate group in Gurnee. SPLC Intelligence Chief Heidi Beirich would not budge. \u201c Even though<\/a><\/span> the police couldn\u2019t locate them doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/h5>\nGiven the low threshold for inclusion on the list, it is not surprising that other towns were included for questionable reasons. In 2004,\u00a0Olathe, Colorado earned a white hood icon when a self-proclaimed \u201cinternational imperial wizard\u201d from Indiana told a Denver newspaper that a chapter in Olathe, \u201ca little Klan klavern<\/a><\/span>,\u201d had asked him to come and speak. Neither he nor any of the town officials\u00a0 could name any of the members. Olathe stayed on SPLC\u2019s list for three years.<\/h5>\nAmana, Iowa, was placed on the hate map when someone at the SPLC spotted a chat thread on the\u00a0Daily Stormer. Someone with the screen name \u201cConcerned Troll\u201d proposed a neo-Nazi \u201cbook club\u201d meeting in an Amana caf\u00e9. No one in Amana was able to confirm to the SPLC whether or not the meeting actually took place, but that was enough <\/a><\/span>to earn the corn-carpeted state its only swastika.<\/h5>\nBut still, Beidich worries more<\/a><\/span> about undercounting than over inclusion. She thinks the undercount groups hide in shadows. She does not explain why listing what are\u00a0 \u2018un\u2019 hate groups, by her own criteria,\u00a0will cause hate groups to emerge from the shadows. In fact, it is not clear why we are not all better off if a \u2018hate\u2019 group stays hidden.<\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
The SPLC has so many categories of \u2018hate\u2019 and those categories are political as much as violent. So is there any actual harm from a listing on the hate map?<\/h5>\nThere was when Floyd Lee Corkins entered the Family Research Council intending to kill as many as possible because \u201che found us listed as a hate group on the SPLC website,\u201d said executive vice president retired Gen. William Boykin. \u201cWe and others like us who are on this \u2018hate map\u2019 believe that this is very reckless behavior<\/a><\/span>. \u2026 The only thing that we have in common is that we are all conservative organizations. \u2026\u201d<\/h5>\nGurnee IL <\/a><\/span>is an unlikely location for a hate group. A prosperous suburb of 30,000, the town is careful with its reputation with tourists as it is home to Six Flags Great America amusement park, the Gurnee Mills indoor shopping mall and the water park, Great Wolf Lodge.<\/h5>\nBut the SPLC bestowed upon Gurnee the label that makes small-town officials sweat. Towns usually earn their reputations as harbors for hate groups in more public ways. They may be unlucky enough to be the place the Klan decides to march and someone later dies (Charlottesville) or be\u00a0 home to the media-trolling Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas). But for towns like Gurnee, designation as one of the 917 locales on SPLC\u2019s Hate Map comes without warning or explanation.<\/h5>\nWhen the town asked the self appointed cartographers of hate to remedy the listing they were told, \u201cI know it is disturbing to find hate groups in your community but I don\u2019t think that should be seen as a reflection of what I am sure is a wonderful community.\u201d Sorry, but the map is only updated once a year. \u201cCall back in January.\u201d The town protested that its police had searched and failed to find a hate group in Gurnee. SPLC Intelligence Chief Heidi Beirich would not budge. \u201c Even though<\/a><\/span> the police couldn\u2019t locate them doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/h5>\nGiven the low threshold for inclusion on the list, it is not surprising that other towns were included for questionable reasons. In 2004,\u00a0Olathe, Colorado earned a white hood icon when a self-proclaimed \u201cinternational imperial wizard\u201d from Indiana told a Denver newspaper that a chapter in Olathe, \u201ca little Klan klavern<\/a><\/span>,\u201d had asked him to come and speak. Neither he nor any of the town officials\u00a0 could name any of the members. Olathe stayed on SPLC\u2019s list for three years.<\/h5>\nAmana, Iowa, was placed on the hate map when someone at the SPLC spotted a chat thread on the\u00a0Daily Stormer. Someone with the screen name \u201cConcerned Troll\u201d proposed a neo-Nazi \u201cbook club\u201d meeting in an Amana caf\u00e9. No one in Amana was able to confirm to the SPLC whether or not the meeting actually took place, but that was enough <\/a><\/span>to earn the corn-carpeted state its only swastika.<\/h5>\nBut still, Beidich worries more<\/a><\/span> about undercounting than over inclusion. She thinks the undercount groups hide in shadows. She does not explain why listing what are\u00a0 \u2018un\u2019 hate groups, by her own criteria,\u00a0will cause hate groups to emerge from the shadows. In fact, it is not clear why we are not all better off if a \u2018hate\u2019 group stays hidden.<\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
Gurnee IL <\/a><\/span>is an unlikely location for a hate group. A prosperous suburb of 30,000, the town is careful with its reputation with tourists as it is home to Six Flags Great America amusement park, the Gurnee Mills indoor shopping mall and the water park, Great Wolf Lodge.<\/h5>\nBut the SPLC bestowed upon Gurnee the label that makes small-town officials sweat. Towns usually earn their reputations as harbors for hate groups in more public ways. They may be unlucky enough to be the place the Klan decides to march and someone later dies (Charlottesville) or be\u00a0 home to the media-trolling Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas). But for towns like Gurnee, designation as one of the 917 locales on SPLC\u2019s Hate Map comes without warning or explanation.<\/h5>\nWhen the town asked the self appointed cartographers of hate to remedy the listing they were told, \u201cI know it is disturbing to find hate groups in your community but I don\u2019t think that should be seen as a reflection of what I am sure is a wonderful community.\u201d Sorry, but the map is only updated once a year. \u201cCall back in January.\u201d The town protested that its police had searched and failed to find a hate group in Gurnee. SPLC Intelligence Chief Heidi Beirich would not budge. \u201c Even though<\/a><\/span> the police couldn\u2019t locate them doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/h5>\nGiven the low threshold for inclusion on the list, it is not surprising that other towns were included for questionable reasons. In 2004,\u00a0Olathe, Colorado earned a white hood icon when a self-proclaimed \u201cinternational imperial wizard\u201d from Indiana told a Denver newspaper that a chapter in Olathe, \u201ca little Klan klavern<\/a><\/span>,\u201d had asked him to come and speak. Neither he nor any of the town officials\u00a0 could name any of the members. Olathe stayed on SPLC\u2019s list for three years.<\/h5>\nAmana, Iowa, was placed on the hate map when someone at the SPLC spotted a chat thread on the\u00a0Daily Stormer. Someone with the screen name \u201cConcerned Troll\u201d proposed a neo-Nazi \u201cbook club\u201d meeting in an Amana caf\u00e9. No one in Amana was able to confirm to the SPLC whether or not the meeting actually took place, but that was enough <\/a><\/span>to earn the corn-carpeted state its only swastika.<\/h5>\nBut still, Beidich worries more<\/a><\/span> about undercounting than over inclusion. She thinks the undercount groups hide in shadows. She does not explain why listing what are\u00a0 \u2018un\u2019 hate groups, by her own criteria,\u00a0will cause hate groups to emerge from the shadows. In fact, it is not clear why we are not all better off if a \u2018hate\u2019 group stays hidden.<\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
When the town asked the self appointed cartographers of hate to remedy the listing they were told, \u201cI know it is disturbing to find hate groups in your community but I don\u2019t think that should be seen as a reflection of what I am sure is a wonderful community.\u201d Sorry, but the map is only updated once a year. \u201cCall back in January.\u201d The town protested that its police had searched and failed to find a hate group in Gurnee. SPLC Intelligence Chief Heidi Beirich would not budge. \u201c Even though<\/a><\/span> the police couldn\u2019t locate them doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/h5>\nGiven the low threshold for inclusion on the list, it is not surprising that other towns were included for questionable reasons. In 2004,\u00a0Olathe, Colorado earned a white hood icon when a self-proclaimed \u201cinternational imperial wizard\u201d from Indiana told a Denver newspaper that a chapter in Olathe, \u201ca little Klan klavern<\/a><\/span>,\u201d had asked him to come and speak. Neither he nor any of the town officials\u00a0 could name any of the members. Olathe stayed on SPLC\u2019s list for three years.<\/h5>\nAmana, Iowa, was placed on the hate map when someone at the SPLC spotted a chat thread on the\u00a0Daily Stormer. Someone with the screen name \u201cConcerned Troll\u201d proposed a neo-Nazi \u201cbook club\u201d meeting in an Amana caf\u00e9. No one in Amana was able to confirm to the SPLC whether or not the meeting actually took place, but that was enough <\/a><\/span>to earn the corn-carpeted state its only swastika.<\/h5>\nBut still, Beidich worries more<\/a><\/span> about undercounting than over inclusion. She thinks the undercount groups hide in shadows. She does not explain why listing what are\u00a0 \u2018un\u2019 hate groups, by her own criteria,\u00a0will cause hate groups to emerge from the shadows. In fact, it is not clear why we are not all better off if a \u2018hate\u2019 group stays hidden.<\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
Amana, Iowa, was placed on the hate map when someone at the SPLC spotted a chat thread on the\u00a0Daily Stormer. Someone with the screen name \u201cConcerned Troll\u201d proposed a neo-Nazi \u201cbook club\u201d meeting in an Amana caf\u00e9. No one in Amana was able to confirm to the SPLC whether or not the meeting actually took place, but that was enough <\/a><\/span>to earn the corn-carpeted state its only swastika.<\/h5>\nBut still, Beidich worries more<\/a><\/span> about undercounting than over inclusion. She thinks the undercount groups hide in shadows. She does not explain why listing what are\u00a0 \u2018un\u2019 hate groups, by her own criteria,\u00a0will cause hate groups to emerge from the shadows. In fact, it is not clear why we are not all better off if a \u2018hate\u2019 group stays hidden.<\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n