In 2009, Carol Swain, an African-American political science professor at Vanderbilt University was labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an “apologist for white supremacy.”
Swain, who has written books condemning racism in the past, made a mere observation regarding the fact that the perspective of white students who felt as if they were being beaten up for alleged racism was being swept under the rug.
Promptly, the SPLC condemned her and she was put on a hate list. The SPLC once had a noble task of eliminating violent groups who sought to terrorize those who could not defend themselves.
The organization became successful in the realm of civil rights for doing exactly that. But, whenever there were no more legitimate hate groups to sue out of existence they had to create some.
That is exactly what the SPLC has been doing since the late 70s.
Having originally existed as a (recognizably) left-leaning group with good intentions, the SPLC has transformed into a totalitarian and corrupt organization that seeks to demonize and destroy any conservative person or group that has views different from what is acceptable in the eyes of the organization.
All the while, they accept money from “gullible but well meaning donors” as TV host Tucker Carlson said in his interview with Swain.
Fundamentally, the SPLC has become a hate group in its quest to fight against hate groups. One of the main problems with the organization is the dogma that feeds it.
Calling someone racist used to actually mean something.
The radical influx of cultural marxism in our lives today, however, has made the term “racist” totally subjective.
If one were to ask 14 different people to define the word “racist” one would receive 14 completely different answers.
Abstract terms such as “racist,” “bigot,” etc. have been used in the past 30 years to silence people who have no hatred in their hearts whatsoever, but simply believe in principles and values that the left does not agree with.
Confederate heritage groups, Second Amendment organizations and churches who still believe in the traditional definition of marriage have all been categorized as “hate groups” by the authoritarian SPLC and equated with violent organization such as the KKK and the Neo-Nazis.
Since its founding, the SPLC has dangerously expanded the qualifications one must meet to be considered as part of a “hate group.”
By the SPLC’s standards today, even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be considered as part of a “hate group” due to his traditional Christian views on marriage.
Even former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali was placed on their hate watch.
This was due to the fact that Ali (an atheist and a feminist) had asserted herself as a firm opponent of radical Islam’s expansion into the West.
What many people do not know, is that SPLC founder Morris Dees began his career in 1961 by defending the KKK in legal cases.
After he staunchly supported the campaign of the regressive left-wing candidate George McGovern for president, he realized that suing groups like the KKK would produce more of a profit than trying to defend them.
After the Klan was relegated to relative obscurity, money still needed to be made by attacking people who were not racist at all in the original sense.
This was in 1971.
Since then Dees’ organization has become a political weapon of the left that seeks to silence any dissenters by labeling them with subjective terms.
In 1986, most of the organization’s employees quit due to this fact.
The SPLC did nothing, the disgruntled employees said, to alleviate poverty or to help the downtrodden.
Instead, the SPLC has gone after abstractions instead of legitimately helping those who need it in order to prolong an ideologically left-leaning agenda.
Thirty years later and critics are still saying the same thing.
It’s time to recognize the Southern Poverty Law Center for what it is.
The views expressed in columns do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Auburn Plainsman.
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