Southern Poverty Lie Center

A few weeks ago I wrote a column on just how pathetic the SPLC is, which generated several complimentary emails. So, this week I decided to browse their site again just so see what more I could find.

Their new unIntelligent Report is out, and not surprisingly, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the League of the South are prominently featured. We all know the SPLC’s drill regarding Southern organizations so I won’t go into that.

Currently they have two legal cases, one against Ranch Rescue in Arizona for having detained illegal aliens, naturally, they are on the side of the illegals. Their second case involves ill inmates in Alabama‘s prisons. Both cases date from 2003.

Wow, what a dizzying calendar!! Two whole cases, I hope they can keep up with that workload.

Reviewing their financial statement which is posted in PDF format, I see they spend $7,045,569 on employee salaries and benefits. Their investments total $120,538,810. Their operating fund is $36,344,012 for total assets of $156,882,822. They started their accounting year November 1, 2002, with $99,346,316, and ended on October 31, 2003, with $120,538,810. Not bad for a non-profit organization. Of course through the usual slight of hand, they do manage to zero out, legal enough to keep their non-profit status.

So you see that this is a very lucrative business that Morris and company have. No wonder they have to cover the map with dots, squares, flags, and all type of icons, making it look as if the whole county is awash in hatred that they have to fight.

I signed up to receive their Hatewatch E-newsletter so I can keep get frequent updates on hate in the news. I did review their Hatewatch For the Record in which they enumerate 109 incidents so far this year. As I suspected over half, 56 to be exact, were flyer distributions.

I can hardly wait to get updates such as this harrowing item from Queens, New York dated March 14, 2004, Yolanda Moorjaney, a 31-year-old white woman, was charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime for allegedly scrawling racist graffiti on a school's bathroom wall. And this from Marloboro NJ on 01-30-2004, Two swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs were scrawled inside a bathroom at a school.

Is it any wonder that they have to spend over $7 million dollars in salaries and benefits so they can keep track of graffiti on bathroom walls?

I also noticed that the SPLC takes quite an interest in a prison based gang called the "Nazi Lowriders." This appears to be a rather nasty group composed of ex-convicts and convict wannabes whose activity is mainly drug related. It must be the name that attracts the SPLC watchdogs. Who would have thought that a prison based gang would engage in criminal activity? I know I‘m surprised. What gets the SPLC’s attention is that these are white ex-cons.

Most of their information on the Nazi Lowriders comes from Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who runs a website called The Militia Watchdog, which has an Alexa rating of 1,033,155 and has a reach of .65 per million, or approximately 130 hit’s a day.

Neither the SPLC or Mark Pitcavage display much interest in other prison based gangs such as the Mexican Mafia. Neither do they express any concern over the fact that approximately 65 percent of deaths among young minorities in Los Angeles are gang related killings. No, they’re too busy monitoring flyer distribution and bathroom graffiti.

This indicates to me that such groups as the SPLC and ADL, despite their publicly expressed concern about “hate crimes” and “hate groups” care absolutely nothing about the lives of minorities. If they were really concerned about the safety of minorities they would target the street gangs that plague minority communities, murdering more of them than the Klan ever dreamed of.

Despite having signed up for the SPLC's Hatewatch Updates and being told I'd get a confirmation email that I had been added to their list, no such confirmation has been received. I did leave my correct name and email address. I wonder what happened.

Next time I’ll try to discover Just How Pathetic is the NAACP...

Greg Hanson lives in Apple Valley, Minnesota. Contact Greg at lookingsouth03@yahoo.com.