Tag: Southern Poverty Law Center

Sunday’s mixed bag

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Potpourri
  • The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy has been the perfect book for re-reading on this dour Sunday afternoon. In the novel, we read of the terror of attendance at the “Carolina Military Institute.” So many people–including the Citadel’s top brass, I suppose–saw the 1980 novel as a veiled and not very flattering account of education at the Citadel. So, they banned him from the campus for two decades. Conroy is my favorite author and I much prefer South of Broad and The Prince of Tides to this novel.
  • I can’t remember what online vendor it was, but when they delivered a package at about 7:30 p.m., they sent my wife a picture of the box sitting on the welcome mat. That’s a first. Too bad the photo didn’t include Robbie (cat) standing by the box while glaring at the camera and hissing at the interloper who dared to step up on our front porch.
  • I see this free and downloadable magazine “Learning Justice” from the Southern Poverty Law Center as an excellent chance to consider how teaching should be happening in our schools. According to the center, “Current censorship efforts and attacks on inclusive schools show that education is indeed the battlefield for justice, and the new issue of Learning for Justice magazine highlights the fact that the fight for democracy is built on intersecting struggles for justice.” (Download your copy of Issue 3, Fall 2022 Learning for Justice magazine: https://bit.ly/3gEXeBg ) I’ve been a supporter of the SPLC since its 1971 founding with Julian Bond as its first president.”
  • If you’re a constant visitor on Facebook, you’ll remember seeing photographs people took years ago under the designation of FBT (Fall Back Thursday.) One of my favorite FBT pictures shows what happened a lot when we first moved here since the fence around the adjoining pasture was always falling down.  The most fun comes when the cows get out at night and we all go out to round them up in the dark when we can hardly see them. Seriously, you don’t want these heavy critters in the yard because they create mini-potholes wherever they go. Those play havoc with the riding mower for weeks.
  • In a recent post called A character is alive or dead or both until the scene is written I said that I was avoiding writing a scene because I didn’t want to character to die. I reasoned–as in the famous Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment–that the character wasn’t really dead until I wrote the scene. Okay, I wrote the scene with only three fingers of Scotch to help me make it through the night. Okay, now I can mow I can move on. If my publisher is reading this post, she now knows why I don’t turn out books like hashbrowns at a Waffle House.
  • We recently purchased a 2019 Honda HRV because our 2006 Focus wouldn’t start. So, what happened the first time we wanted to go somewhere in the car? Right, it wouldn’t start. The dealer said to jump-start it and bring it in. They figure it just needs a new battery. We figure: (a) that they should have checked the battery before we drove it off the lot, and (b) that they should have driven over to our house to fix the problem rather than saying, “hey, just dump the sonofabitch off and bring it back to the dealership.” I think my wife told them on the phone that that wasn’t the image of customer service they presented to us when we were buying the car. I think the vibes coming from all those cows damage the electrical systems of cars that have sensitive computer systems.

–Malcolm

What You Need To Know About QAnon 

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn issues4 Comments

QAnon is the umbrella term for a sprawling spiderweb of right-wing internet conspiracy theories with antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ elements that falsely claim the world is run by a secret cabal of pedophiles who worship Satan and are plotting against President Trump. Though some influential individuals are active in the movement, it is not an organized group with defined leadership.

Source: What You Need To Know About QAnon | Southern Poverty Law Center

Americans–or perhaps certain elements of the media–have been running amok looking for conspiracies beneath every rock and under the woodwork of everything building.  This reminds me of the McCarthyism of the 1950s when the House Unamerican Activities Committee “saw” communists everywhere.

At the time, when the committee said so and so is a communist, my response was “so what?” But in those days, communists were presumed to be working for the Soviet Union and were often blacklisted (most famously by Hollywood) by their employers.

The blacklisting is happening again. The daily news brings us reports that various people have been fired for expressing their personal opinions on Facebook as though they’re part of a conspiracy, in college lectures, in speeches, in books, and when this happens we’re all reminded that the First Amendment doesn’t protect us where we work–or on Twitter and Facebook as it turns out.

These days, if somebody “screams I’m offended,” my response is “so what?” But corporations, including colleges, are often influenced by those who are offended more than by who’s right.

This article tells us what’s behind all the shouting.

–Malcolm

 

Hate in the Sunshine State

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Florida

My novels are set in the 1950s when the traditional KKK in Florida was strong and active. Years later, hatred is still alive and just as sick as ever, though it’s been dispersed into a variety of groups.  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Florida has 67 hate groups currently tracked by the Center. 

The Center notes that sixteen statewide groups are not shown on the map. Otherwise, you can place your cursor on the white circles on the map on the website to see the names of the groups.

We should be aware of these groups: otherwise, it’s hard to combat them. A word of caution, though. While some have websites, those sites are composed of the sickening kind of tripe (and pictures) one would expect of thugs, psychopaths, and other degenerates. Don’t go to these sites unless you have a strong stomach.

Florida has more hate groups than any other state except California with 88 groups. So, hate is not just a product of the South in spite of how our part of the country is often portrayed by others.

In A “superhighway of hate:” Extremism is flourishing in Florida from “Florida Phoenix,” Diane Rado writes, “From hate speech to hate groups to hate crimes, Florida faces a broad atmosphere of hatred that has been escalating for years, though residents and tourists may not have realized how much the extremist landscape has changed.”

Just why Florida has so many groups is unclear, but some suggest the Intenet has helped thread the hate around, allowing groups to become interlinked–among other things, groups that once operated out of a basement are easier to find via search engines today and those whom they attract help them do their work.

Groups of various stripes have been more vocal of late. The media gives them exposure. Peaceful and legitimate protests often give hate groups a foot in the door to gather on the same streets and give the protesters a black eye when the news shows buildings on fire and police cars turned over.

The times have become ripe for the radicalization of people who are easily led by news accounts of violence and social media information. Hatred is one virus no vaccine is able to defeat; no doubt it will still be around when COVID is long gone.

We have a lot of work to do to clean the scum out of this country.

—Malcolm

 

What’s really gone with the wind

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn beliefs, Life

“The American population is moving toward a minority-majority future, a shift the Census Bureau predicts will occur sometime in the 2040s. Nativists, racists and our president are taking advantage of the browning of America, contrasting it with nostalgia for a perceived better, whiter past, and using that idea to activate citizens into white nationalist thinking.”       – Heidi Beirich

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that monitors racially based and gender-based hate in the U.S., two statistics stand out: The number of monitored hate groups in 2018 was at an all-time high at 1,020 and hate-based murders conducted by members of the “Alt-Right” made last year the deadliest year ever (presumably, not counting the Jim Crow era when the KKK got rid of more people).

As Beirich notes, the so-called browning of America is leading to a rise in white nationalist thinking. Often-criticized today, the movie “Gone With the Wind” painted the days of slavery with a sad and nostalgic brush for those who owned the plantations and participated in gracious living based on purportedly honorable and sacred traditions. Now there are a lot of people worrying about the fact that, according to the Census Bureau, the United States will become “minority white” by 2045, whith whites comprising 49.7% of the population. At that point, the demographics are expected to be 24.6% Hispanic, 13.1% blacks, and 7.9% Asian.

This is the problem, not the solution. Wikipedia photo.

So it is that what will really be gone with the wind for frightened white people are the times when more whites lived in the U.S. than all other races combined. Hate groups are reacting as though whites will be less numerous than every other group rather than continuing to have nearly a majority. Nonetheless, the predicted demographics represent change and, on the surface, that scares people.

I’ve mentioned on this blog before that when my brothers and I were in junior high school, we used to build sandcastles on the beach during low tide and then make a game out of seeing how long they could hold out against the incoming high tide. This is what white supremacists are doing today–except it’s not a game. It’s a deadly and disgusting war against minority groups that’s being carried out by thugs who believe they will no longer be about to hold their own without relying on the traditionally high percentage of whites in the country.

That is, they fear that on a level playing field, their real or imagined inferiority will make them lose.

Lose what? Control, I suppose. An edge, probably. The luxury of never having to coexist with other races, cultures, and religions, no doubt. Walking down streets, walking into stores and churches and sporting events and backyard barbecues with the confident assurance that everyone one else there is exactly like them, good, bad, and ugly, but safe and understood without having to think.

Those with self-confidence in their own abilities, agility to adapt to changing times, a spirituality that embraces the totality of humankind, and minds that know how to think rather than reacting to every difference as a threat will have no problem with the demographics of 2045. Those who do not are, at best, dinosaurs in their death throes who are resorting to hate as a sand-castle bulwark against the incoming tide.

White supremacists are doomed, and in their heartless hearts, I think they know this. Rather than change or at least graciously step onto ice floes heading out to sea, they are attempting to justify their murder and terrorism as a reasonable response to their demise. They’re not innocent. They’re killing the innocent, though

Which prompts me to say, the country will be much better (more free, fair, exciting, and more creative) when they are gone.

–Malcolm