“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children.”
That’s the mission statement for Western Hammerskins, new Nazi group in Menifee.
“It isn’t Islamophobia when they really are trying to kill you!”
That’s the message you’ll find at the website for Bare Naked Islam, based in Marina del Rey; the words appear over an image of a burning skull and a mosque.
“Take our country back!”
It’s a slogan you’ll read at the site for Nation of Islam, a national group with chapters in Compton and Rialto.
These are just some of the 30 Southern California organizations listed on the latest edition of the Hate Map, an annual product of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The 2015 Hate Map (a new one is due next month) lists 892 groups nationally, including 68 in California, making our state No. 2, behind Texas, which tops the list with 84 hate groups. Nearly half of the California groups are based in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.
Some groups aren’t, technically, groups; instead, they are entities that have just one member. Others are bigger, with hundreds of members and budgets that run into many millions of dollars.
All share the label of “hate,” which, like “accused pedophile,” can be tough to impossible to shake.
They’re also part of a growth industry.
The 2015 Hate Map is nearly 14 percent bigger than the 2014 map. The Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking the numbers since 1999, the year before the 2000 Census told the world that Caucasians would lose their majority status in the United States by 2040.
Hate Map data over the years have tracked the ebb and flow of these groups. The numbers spiked, for example, after that 2000 Census. They spiked again in 2009, after the United States elected its first African-American president.
By 2014, the Hate Map was at its lowest point in nearly 10 years.
Now, it’s growing again.
Who says so
Ryan Lenz is spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center and, as such, he speaks for a group that wields a heavy club.
“We specifically look at organizations that attack, demonize and rob individuals of their right to equality for an immutable characteristic like race, religion, national origin or sexual orientation,” Lenz said.
Such organizations may be nonprofits, informal groups or even clubs.
All, according to Lenz, are evaluated for what they do, not only for what they say or think.
“If it’s a couple of guys getting lunch and talking about the Jewish problem, we don’t count that,” Lenz said. “We only count groups of people that have a physical presence in the community.”
The researchers make recommendations, and final decisions are made “in the upper echelons of the (Southern Poverty Law Center),” he added.
While the current Hate Map shows that parts of Texas and Florida are crowded with such groups, Southern California has a gamut of entities that are deemed hateful – white supremacists, black separatists, groups that deny or minimize the Holocaust, and those that are perceived as against Muslims or Islam, immigrants or the LGBT community.
A majority of these groups did not respond to emails or phone calls seeking comment. Those that did often said the label is unfair.
“They simply list everyone who disagrees with them,” said Evelyn Miller, treasurer of the Huntington Beach-based National Coalition for Immigration Reform (NCIR), which is listed as an “anti-immigrant” hate group on the 2015 Hate Map.
Still, Miller insists she doesn’t care about being on the list and neither do the 200 or so paid members of her coalition.
She said her group is only opposed to illegal immigration, not legal immigration – though she also believes legal immigration should be curbed, saying the influx of immigrants at this time is “too much.”
“We are opposed to birthright citizenship and, definitely, birth tourism,” Miller said.
President Donald Trump, who was saluted by a hate group in Washington, D.C., shortly after his election and has been endorsed by well-known white supremacist David Duke, is jumping headfirst into the immigration issue.
Last week he signed executive orders that he hopes will lead to the construction of a wall along the southern border and make it tougher for most undocumented residents to stay in this country. He is said to be weighing the end of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama-era executive order that, as of now, protects about 750,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
“We enthusiastically support Donald Trump for his policies on immigration,” Miller said.
The label
The Hate Map is both well regarded and widely controversial.
“This kind of data is particularly crucial at a time when we are seeing significant spikes in hate crime in Los Angeles County and statewide,” said Robin Toma, executive director of the Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations.
Los Angeles saw a 24 percent spike in hate crimes in 2015. Similar increases were seen in Orange and Riverside counties.
Toma said the Southern Poverty Law Center provides valuable information about “what types of organizations are out there and what kinds of … hate activity” are happening.
“But,” he added, “a lot of hate activity in this region is not connected to hate groups.
“So, there’s more to it.”
Not everyone agrees with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s methodology, including some who are pursuing similar goals.
“It just isn’t helpful,” said Rabbi Peter Levi, spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in Orange County. “And that’s because most extremists aren’t involved with groups, with the internet and social media being such big factors.”
Also, he said, most hate groups don’t have staying power. Being listed on the Hate Map can be beneficial to their marketing.
“Members fight among themselves, and the group splinters or dissolves,” Levi said.
“We’ve found that social media harassment, for example, of Jewish people by white supremacists, and trolling, has been far more horrific than what is happening on the ground.”
Jewish harassment is a staple of American hate groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center defines Holocaust denial as either entirely denying the genocide of 6 million Jews by the Nazis in World War II or minimizing its extent.
It’s not a distant issue. The Institute for Historical Review, with an office in Fountain Valley and a bookstore in Newport Beach, is listed on the Hate Map under the category “Holocaust Denial.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center website says: “These groups (and individuals) often cloak themselves in the sober language of serious scholarship, call themselves ‘historical revisionists’ instead of deniers, and accuse their critics of trying to squelch open-minded inquiries into historical truth.”
The director of the Institute for Historical Review, Mark Weber, said his organization does not deny that the Holocaust took place and called the group’s listing on the Hate Map unfair.
“To be called a hate group is not a flattering thing,” Weber said.
“I don’t like it either. How do you call anyone a hate group without an objective standard? And how do you prove that you are not a hater? It’s impossible to defend yourself against such an accusation.”
When an organization blacklists a group, it is essentially silencing voices of dissension, Weber said.
“Part of the effectiveness of (the Southern Poverty Law Center) is they mix people for whom no one could have sympathy with others whose views merit being heard,” he said.
“There is also a real danger in judging the actions of people in the past by the prevailing standards of the present, because these standards keep changing.”
For example, calling an organization a hate group because its members believe marriage should be between a man and a woman, is unfair, Weber said.
Setting up conflicts?
Laura Kanter, director of policy, advocacy and youth services at the LGBT Center OC in Santa Ana, noted that Traditional Values Coalition, listed as an anti-LGBT hate group, is in neighboring Anaheim.
“I can’t do anything about them,” she said. “They are going to continue to do what they’re going to do.
“But knowledge is power. And it’s good to know we have these groups in our own backyard.”
Kanter said LGBT activists in Orange County have tried to expose businesses that support organizations like Traditional Values Coalition, whose revenue dropped from $7.9 million in 2013 to $4.1 million in 2014, according to its tax filings.
“About three years ago, we protested Chick-fil-A because they were donating to such organizations,” she said. “It’s good to make people aware of the type of businesses they are supporting and where their money goes.”
Several hate groups that target the LGBT community “hide behind Christian names, or the idea of family values,” and the Hate Map helps expose some of those organizations, Kanter said.
“Our goal is going to be to find out where these groups are, what they’re doing, and how we can get in their way and make it harder for them to do what they’re doing,” she said.
Erroll Southers, former FBI special agent and director of USC’s Homegrown Violent Extremism Studies program, said the Hate Map and, generally, the Southern Poverty Law Center do a good job of reporting fluctuations in the number of hate groups.
“That, to me, shows a certain degree of honesty in data collection,” he said.
To some, the Hate Map is less shocking than it is a reminder of the need to work together.
“We need to reach out to these hate groups,” said Arbazz Mohammed of Sahaba Initiative, a San Bernardino-based group that works to build relationships among people of differing faiths throughout the Inland Empire.
“They might be doing this because they are powerless, marginalized and are feeling ignored. We need to talk to one another,” he said.
Mohammed added that the current polarization of Americans based on politics and culture isn’t productive.
“When we cut off ties with our neighbors or community members because they think or act differently, the vicious cycle of hate continues.
“We need to stop that. And the only way is to stop screaming at one another and start building bridges.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-7909 or dbharath@scng.com
