By Steve Sailer
07/28/2016
As we’ve seen from recent murder statistics, BLM activism closely correlates with subsequent increases in the number of homicides.
Never mind the dead bodies, however, because the Southern Poverty Law Center is here to define from first principles how BLM can’t be a hate group despite all the murders that happen in its wake:
Black Lives Matter Is Not a Hate GroupIf you weren’t soRichard Cohen President July 19, 2016
Each year, the Southern Poverty Law Center, of which I am the president, compiles and publishes a census of domestic hate groups.
Our list, which is cited extensively by journalists, academics and government officials alike, provides an important barometer — not the only one, of course — to help us understand the state of hate and extremism in America.
In recent weeks, we’ve received a number of requests to name Black Lives Matter a hate group, particularly in the wake of the murders of eight police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Numerous conservative commentators have joined the chorus. There is even a Change.org petition calling for the hate group label.
In our view, these critics fundamentally misunderstand the nature of hate groups and the BLM movement.
Generally speaking, hate groups are, by our definition, those that vilify entire groups of people based on immutable characteristics such as race or ethnicity. Federal law takes a similar approach. …
Many of its harshest critics claim that Black Lives Matter’s very name is anti-white, hence the oft-repeated rejoinder “all lives matter.” This notion misses the point entirely. Black lives matter because they have been marginalized throughout our country’s history and because white lives have always mattered more in our society. As BLM puts it, the movement stands for “the simple proposition that ‘black lives also matter.’”
The backlash to BLM, in some ways, reflects a broad sense of unease among white people who worry about the cultural changes in the country and feel they are falling behind in a country that is rapidly growing more diverse in a globalizing world. We consistently see this phenomenon in surveys showing that large numbers of white people believe racial discrimination against them is as pervasive, or more so, than it is against African Americans.
Black Lives Matter is not a hate group. But the perception that it is racist illustrates the problem. …
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