White Supremacy & Hate Groups: A nation-wide problem

Almost a year ago, NBC reported on the rise of hate groups throughout the U.S.:

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking hate groups for almost 30 years. In its spring 2009 Intelligence Report, they found that 926 hate groups are currently operating in the U.S., an all-time high. These groups include the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, racist skinheads and Black separatists.

Potok attributes this rise in hate groups to the recession, the election of the nation’s first black president, and the immigration debate.

“We’re looking at a kind of perfect storm of factors that really favor the continued growth of these groups,” he says.

In the past year, that perfect storm has grown, as more and more reports of white supremacist groups, militias and neo-Nazis have taken over the news pages. The media, for its part, has taken a passive role in the growth of these hate groups, reporting when they commit crimes or hold marches. Unless it’s the Tea Party movement, which has received a great deal of attention for having white nationalist interlopers amongst them.

Now, I will gladly admit that the vast majority of people involved in the Tea Party are not white supremacists. But with the overall whiteness and simmering racial tension, the Tea Party movement is a shining opening for many white supremacist types, who view the loosely held together organizations as a chance at achieving broader acceptance.

While this isn’t primarily about the Tea Party, it’s time for these “Patriots” to adopt a “you’re with us or you’re against us” mentality when it comes to white supremacy. Because as a quick check of Google News shows, white supremacists and hate groups are continuing to gain influence in every part of the United States:

• Arizona: Profiling Arizona legislator Russell Pearce: Author of immigration law is pals with noted neo-Nazi.
• Arkansas: White Supremacist Man Gets Ten Years – Planned On Killing Obama.
• California: Nazi flyers litter Rialto neighborhood
• California: White Supremacy Rally Draws Counter-Protesters, Heavy LAPD Deployment.
• California: Suspected white supremacists arrested in connection with attacks on police.
• Connecticut: Another Militia Group Indicted by Feds
• Florida: Stormfront Scion Derek Black Hosting Radio Show on WPBR.
• Idaho: Supremacist Fliers left at local home.
• Illinois: White Supremacy Fliers Found In Easter Eggs.
• Indiana: Christian Identity Church to Host White Nationalist Speaker
• Indiana: Judge suppresses motorcycle gang leader’s white supremacist ties.
• Massachusetts: White supremacist murder defendant stable after suicide attempt.
• Massachusetts: Racist graffiti found in Concord.
• Michigan: Court records reveal more about Hutaree
• Mississippi: White Supremacist Richard Barrett Allegedly Murdered by Black Neighbor.
• Missouri: Judge says Klan can have barbecue at battle site.
• Missouri: Radio Stations Wait for Ruling on White Supremacist Campaign Ads.
• Missouri: Club Owner’s Ties To Aryan Nation Draws Furor Of Residents.
• Nevada: Oregon man bound over for trial in Sparks rape, robbery
• New Hampshire: Fear and Loathing in New Hampshire.
• New Jersey: Nazi Flag Flier: I Collect Flags, I Fly Them
• New York: Teen in NY immigrant slay: ‘I am not a racist’
• Ohio: Three ‘Skinhead’ Soldiers, Another Man Held In Attack On Cincinnati Homeless Man
• Oregon: White Supremacist Flyers Again Cropping up in Portland
• Oregon: Bigotry making a comeback.
• Oregon: Businesses use specter of selling out to hate group in community disputes
• Texas: KKK Distributes fliers in Lubbock.
• Utah: Allgier pleads not guilty to murder, 7 other charge
• Virginia: Revoked ‘Hate Plates’ Restart Free Speech Debate
• Virginia: Neo-Nazi leader White to be sentenced today.
• Virginia: Group With White Supremacist Ties Influential In Getting VA Gov To Declare April Confederate History Month
• Virginia: Governor McDonnell Declares April ‘Confederate History Month’
• Washington, D.C.: FBI release files on white supremacist.
• Washington: I’m not a white supremacist — I just move around a lot.
• Washington: Man sentenced in anti-Muslim attack on Seattle woman, child
• Wisconsin: Tea Party drops speaker for alleged ties to white supremacists.
• Michelle McGee Nazi?
• David Duke: Tea Party is not Racist.
• Jesse James poses as Hitler.
• Pat Buchanan: Tea Parties Are a ‘New Tribe Rising’
• Thom Hartman: Threats, Violence Against Congress Show Urgent Need for King Records Act.

It’s in front of everyone’s face, we just have to make it visible. It’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue, we just have to keep calling it out by name: White Supremacy. And we must keep fighting to push them to the furthest fringes of our society. To not is to risk everything.

-WKW

Originally posted at Alan Colmes’ Liberaland