The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has long made a map showing all the organizations it has labeled “hate groups.” For years, that map has included black separatist groups, such as the Nation of Islam. However, this month the SPLC announced that it will drop the “black separatist” listing.
Here are some of its reasons:
“A change in the way the map is structured will better capture the power dynamics endemic to white supremacy. Black separatist groups land on the SPLC’s hate map because they propagate antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ and male supremacist views, not because they oppose a white supremacist power structure.”
“The Black Separatist listing created a color line bias, separating hate and extremism by race and granting the appearance of a false equivalency of equal hate on both sides. But the hate is not equal. Black separatism was born out of valid anger against very real historical and systemic oppression.”
“Wanting separation from a society that has historically and systemically oppressed Black communities isn’t extremism. Black dissent isn’t black violence, and equivocating the two enables this over-policing of Black activism.”
“While these groups can be virulently anti-white, this prejudice does not represent the same threat as white supremacy in America. By making this distinction, IP [Intelligence Project] is hoping to help dispel any misinterpretations of our understanding of how racism functions in American society. In our endeavor for racial justice and equity, it is imperative that we adopt an understanding of racism grounded in nuance and the realities of racial power dynamics. Racism in America is historical, systemic and structural.”
“Black separatist groups earn their place among our hate listings not for their calls for separation, but rather for how entrenched these groups are in antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ, misogynistic and xenophobic rhetoric.”
“Going forward, groups formerly designated as Black Separatist will be characterized by antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ, male supremacy and whatever additional ideological categories most accurately describe their offending beliefs.”
Blacks can be “virulently anti-white” but they can’t be in a “hate group” unless they are also anti-Jew or anti-LGBTQ, etc. This means blacks can hate all white people and want them dead — maybe even kill a few — but if they are silent on the subject of Jews, homosexuals, and women, they are not a hate group.
Hating white people isn’t hate because it’s “born out of valid anger against very real historical and systemic oppression.”
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