Important Update: While this story was reported by multiple mainstream outlets, contacts to AVfM today have led to questions as to its veracity. A look at at least one FBI web site shows them still linking out to SPLC as a partnered source and is being refuted by SPLC-supporting sources. More updates as we get them. -DE
Editor’s note: As AVfM Contributor and former SPLC Fundraiser Nurdy Dancing reported in 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center is an organization that purports to combat “hate” but in fact exists only to raise money for the wealthy con artists who work for it, like Arthur Goldwag. They raise those millions of dollars through ginning up fear, paranoia, and yes, hatred, frequently misleading readers and contributors in order to make those who run it richer. They do absolutely nothing to help the victims of actual hate, and indeed, they even accept money from genuine hatemongers such as Radical Feminists, while frequently portraying people with opinions they don’t agree with as “hate.” Their repeated use of discredited journalist hack and hatemonger David Futrelle, who is a repeatedly-documented liar, only further cements the SPLC’s well-deserved reputation as an organization that cares only about raising money by peddling a message of fear and paranoia, not caring whose human rights are trampled in the process or who is hurt by their lies. SPLC also routinely censors anyone who dares question their rationale on much of anything. We are very pleased that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has ceased to link the SPLC as an authoritative source on anything, and hope this is a trend that continues. Jonathan Taylor has more to say on the matter. -DE
It had to happen at some point. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the fallen-from-grace organization which Reason magazine has quite accurately characterized as one that “would paint a box of Wheaties as an extremist threat if it thought that would help it raise funds,” has been officially dropped from its time-honored position on the FBI list of authoritative sources concerning hate groups.
While the SPLC originally did good work in the 1970s (and occasionally still does today), in the last decade it has devolved into simply an extreme-left political attack group, riding on a tide of donations from gullible and paranoid devotees and shouting “hate speech!” to anyone who happens to think differently from them about… well, about anything.
The SPLC’s integrity in regards to its treatment of the rise of men’s issues groups and websites over the past five years is sketchy at best. In the spring of 2012, the SPLC created a list titled “Misogyny: the Sites” which attempted to address hatred in the “manosphere.”
While some sites on the list actually did harbor suspicious attitudes toward women, the SPLC went too far in most cases, listing benevolent organizations like Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), and PUA (pick-up artist) websites that have nothing to do with the men’s human rights movement.
The SPLC’s initial list was published a full year and a half before A Voice for Male Students was launched, but they finally got around to addressing it. Late last year the SPLC published an article on their website which made a pitiable attempt to link this site to extreme right-wing groups. Rather than paint this site in a negative light, however, it had the opposite effect: many people rallied to defend AVFMS (including A Voice for Men), my comments on the SPLC article were overwhelmingly voted up, and traffic to this site increased substantially.
When it became clear that the SPLC didn’t have a leg to stand on, they resorted to mass censorship by deleting over 100 comments by men’s advocates on their article, which backfired by drawing even more negative attention their way.
Using the “find” function to discover how many comments the SPLC deleted.
I suspect that David Futrelle (aka “Manboobz”) had something to do with the SPLC’s article concerning my website. He has a history of being an “informant” to them, and was very quick to triumphantly tweet about their article, and rode in to the comments section of an AVFMS article to try to divert the shame away from the SPLC article when it blew up in their face. He also has a history of coming out worse for wear when trying to criticize this site.
Not that I’m worried about Futrelle. The SPLC is his darling, however, so in a way I kind of pity him. It’s almost like seeing someone watch helplessly as their poisonous but beloved pet snake gets put down by animal control after attacking the neighbors.
Or something like that. To use one of his favorite phrases, he’s probably “shocked! Shocked, I tell you!”
When the SPLC published its list of men’s issues “hate sites” two years ago, the list was touted by the Feminist bloggers as solid-gold proof that the issues men’s advocates were raising were just made up, and that we were all simply troglodytes who wanted to send women back to the sandwich mines.
And now here we are, two years later, and the SPLC has been officially de-recognized by the highest investigative authority on hate crimes in the United States. Funny how it all works out in the end.
While the SPLC has lost a lot of credibility due to their reliance upon embellishments and overexaggerations to tug at the heart and purse strings of gullible donors, scrutiny toward their operation intensified in 2012 after Floyd Lee Corkins took their “hate map” and used it to plan out and enact a shooting that was later labeled an act of domestic terrorism.
After Corkins pled guilty in federal court, Morris Dees, co-founder of the SPLC, found himself judged by the same arguments his organization so often employed to judge others. He was effectively hoisted by his own petard. The case provided the perfect occasion for the FBI to reassess the relevance of the SPLC. And the FBI found their relevance lacking.
I wonder what the SPLC’s donors will think now that the SPLC has been dropped by the FBI. Will they realize that their investment was mostly wasted on politics? Will they donate less in the future, or stop donating altogether? Ah, the possibilities!
It’s the beginning of the end for the SPLC, and the schadenfreude is well-warranted. The chickens are coming home to roost.
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