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From Red Wine & Blue: Stopping hate groups in America
When you hear the words “hate group,” what image immediately comes to mind? Most of us think of groups like the Proud Boys, marching in black clothes and carrying weapons.
But the truth is that there are 595 different hate groups operating in the U.S., and most of them aren’t wearing cloaks and marching in the street.
Most members of hate groups dress just like you and me and are having sit-down meetings with state legislators and filing lawsuits. They’re speaking at school board meetings under the guise of “concerned parent.” And they’re having a big impact on policies that affect our friends, neighbors, and children.
Next Tuesday, Red Wine & Blue is joined by one of the foremost organizations fighting hate in the U.S., the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), to talk about how these movements are showing up in schools, online spaces, and our government.
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Hateful rhetoric has ramped up in the last several years, and it is seeping into public policy. Ideas that used to be considered fringe are now finding their way into mainstream media and political discourse. When Donald Trump signed an executive order recently banning people from certain Muslim countries from entering the U.S., much of the rhetoric he used came from SPLC-designated hate groups. When book bans are passed by school boards, the reasoning is often directly taken from Moms for Liberty and other anti-LBGTQ and racist groups. And even the Proud Boys have begun to take advantage of the system, hiring a white supremacist lawyer to file a $100 million lawsuit against the Department of Justice, claiming that prosecuting them for their role in the January 6 insurrection “violated their rights.” If we’re going to fight back against hate, we have to learn how to identify it everywhere it pops up, including in our government. And there’s no better expert to show us how than the Southern Poverty Law Center! RSVP now for The Current State of Hate and Extremism in America on Tuesday, July 15, at 7:30PM ET! |
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