A new report argues anti-immigration fever is fueling a spate of new hate groups across America.
The latest edition of “The Year in Hate,” an annual tracking by the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, counts a record 888 U.S. hate groups of all kinds in 2007.
According to the report, mounting immigration conspiracy buzz is partly to blame. For instance, a “secret plan” to merge the U.S., Canada, and Mexico into a “North American Union” feared by “nativists” – whose battle cry the report quotes as, “We are at war right here in America!” – has never existed nor is in the works. A “Hate Groups Map” ranks Texas second, with 67 groups – after California, with 80 – and lists two Austin groups: the League of the South, which ironically advocates secession from the “Consolidated Nation-State” that is the U.S., and the Power of Prophesy, the leader of which, Texe Marr, writes on his website that the “Zionist media” runs the country, rather than the people, who oppose “the continuing invasion of illegal immigrants, abortion, homosexuality, ad infinitum.”
Finally, a “Hatewatch” section thumbnails 445 reported incidents, from vicious assaults to the absurd cutting of a giant swastika in a cornfield. Read the report and sign up for a March 26 interactive webcast at www.splcenter.org.
This article appears in March 14 • 2008.