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Socialist Action / July
1998
WHO'S A HATE GROUP?
By Sylvia Weinstein
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a liberal civil rights
group in Birmingham, Ala., has listed the Nation of Islam
(NOI) as a hate group along with 474 others in this country.
The SPLC, which began its "hate lists" in 1981, has been
a respected group that provided a useful service in
revealing "hate groups." But by adding the Nation of Islam
to its list of "hate groups," it destroys it's own
credablity.
"Hate groups are based on a number of criteria" said Joe
Roy Sr., director of the SPLC's Intelligence report. "We
look at groups based on their racial hatred and we look at
the activities of its membership from their publications and
transcripts."
The Intelligence Report reads: "We hesitate with a group
like the Nation of Islam because we recognize that its
racism is largely a response to white racism." Well, duh.
To put the NOI on the same list with violent white-racist
groups like the Ku Klux Klan defames this Black organization
and distorts what it stands for. Just because the NOI
recognizes the need for self-defense does not mean that it
advocates violence. This decision opens the door to
violence-bating other groups of oppressed nationalities in
this country that similarly advocate self-defense tactics.
Actually, the NOI has never been involved in any kind of
hate violence in its 60-year history.
But I can easily describe hate to anyone who will listen.
Let's take a look at Jasper, Tex. On June 7, three white men
tied a Black man to their rear bumper and dragged him to his
death. He was James Boyd Jr., 49 years old.
The three white men&emdash;Shawn Allen Berry, John
William King, and Lawrence R. Brewer&emdash;had all done
time in prison. Berry and King served time for a bungled
burglary, and Brewer seven years for peddling cocaine. While
in prison, both Brewer and King joined the Confederate
Knights of America, a hate group.
In describing prisons, Mark Potok, a spokesman for the
SPLC said," The truth is the level of racism in prison is
very high. The truth is, you may go into prison completely
unracist and emerge ready to kill people who don't look like
you." Evidently that's what happened in this case.
But don't think that Jasper, Tex., is the only place that
hate thrives.
On June 8, Victor Palmer, Victor Triollion, Celia Rivera,
Diseree Butler, and Butler's daughter, 11-month old Keianna
White, were walking on Page Street in San Francisco in the
Haight Ashbury section when they became surrounded by about
20 white men who began attacking them.
McDavid, one of the white men, pulled out a knife and
began attacking all three adults. McDavid knocked over the
baby's stroller and said, "Fuck the baby." He has been
arrested is and being held on $60,000 bail. A protest
against this racist act was held on June 20 in the
Haight-Ashbury.
Has Minister Louis Farrakan ever tied a white man to his
bumper and dragged him to death? How many whites have been
found hanging from trees, left there by Black men.?
If the Southern Poverty Law Center can answer yes to
those questions, then they might have a might have a right
to call the NOI racist, but if not they should remove them
from the list and apologize immediately.
The truth is that the United States ruling class has an
ongoing history of racism and vicious crimes against Blacks
and other ethnic minorities. The capitalist class has a
material interest in dividing and ruling the working class,
Black and white. This is not the time to muck up that truth
with lies about the Nation of Islam.
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