MONTGOMERY, ALA. — The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has released its annual Year in Hate report and the data depicts a country with extraordinary political and racial tensions. 

Established in 1971 to make promise of the newly re-enacted civil rights laws, the SPLC’s strategy is to fight hate, teach tolerance and seek justice.

Headquartered in Montgomery, today the SPLC operates with 225 people on staff. The organization has additional offices in New Orleans, Jackson, Atlanta and Miami. 

The Year in Hate report released this week shows a rise in hate groups in America for the first time since 2010. The SPLC noted that anti-Muslim sentiments were at the forefront of documented hate crimes across the country. 

Anti-government “patriot” groups, classified as armed militias, and others inspired by conspiracy theories have also seen an uptick in the last year. 

The SPLC also found that members of hate groups and lone wolves are now being radicalized on the Internet, to levels that may be increasingly difficult to track. 

In an interview with The Arab American News, SPLC President Richard Cohen and Stephen Piggott,  an SPLC senior research analyst, compared the country’s current political climate to that of the 1960s.

 “I think we are in a very delicate moment in our country,” Cohen said. “We’ve had a tremendous increase in extremism over the last decade and a half. With this political season, the rhetoric has ratcheted up to a very dangerous degree. I think there’s going to be a price paid for this, unfortunately.”

The main factor behind this epidemic that’s sweeping America?

Fears of a changing population — one where Whites are diminishing in numbers, while other ethnic groups grow to become more dominant.

Cohen noted that since President Obama took office in 2009, the number of Americans who turned to Neo-Nazi groups has risen by more than 50 percent. Today, an estimated 300,000 Americans classify themselves with such groups.

“Diversity is what the country is based on and there’s backlash to it,” Cohen said. “They see the political process as not responsive to their concerns. This year, people have embraced Donald Trump in unprecedented ways. What attracts them to it is the bigotry, his Islamophobia and anti-Latino rhetoric.”

The mainstreaming of Islamophobia 

In its annual report, the SPLC noted that 2015 will be noted for random attacks against Muslims. 

There had already been several noteworthy incidents against the community at the beginning of the year — including the murder of three young Muslim college students in Chapel Hill, N.C. by a man known for his hatred of religion.

That event was on the backdrop of already growing anti-Muslim sentiments in the U.S., with the rise of the terrorist group ISIS, whose attacks and propaganda in the Middle East were receiving extensive media coverage.

The FBI reported that in 2014, hate crimes against Muslims had risen by 14 percent, even as hate crimes in every other major category had dropped.

The last two months of 2015 saw Islamophobia reach a fever pitch following the Paris attacks in November, claimed by ISIS, and the San Bernardino mass shooting in December, claimed by a Muslim couple.

Then there is Donald Trump—the Republican presidential candidate who is at the forefront of Islamophobia. 

Trump’s attack against the religion not only enticed fears against Muslims abroad, but a questionable image was being painted of the everyday Muslim in America.

Trump cited a bogus poll by the Center for Security Policy that falsely claimed a quarter of American Muslims support violent jihadists, such as members of ISIS. This poll was even referenced on FOX News.

The result: In the last two months of 2015, American extremists turned their anger to everyday Muslim citizens. Daily attacks were being reported by Muslims in every state. Mosques across the country were being targeted. Actions ranged from arson to threats and gunshots, to leaving behind dead pigs.

In an effort to combat the trend, the SPLC organized a coalition of groups to fight back against the rise of Islamophobia. Cohen said the SPLC received backlash from hate groups following the move.

SPLC President Richard Cohen.

“A few months back, we were targeted by a very prominent anti-Muslim group,” he said. “They were going to come here to set up a ‘draw a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamad day’ in front of our office. They never appeared. It was an effort to maybe intimidate us.”

The SPLC noted that there are anti-Muslim groups who have huge pull in the political field. 

The Center for Security Policy and ACT! for America, two grassroots organizations, have been listed as anti-Islamic hate groups by the SPLC this year.

ACT! for America, the nation’s largest non-profit, non-partisan, grassroots organization, says its mission statement is devoted to promoting national security and defeating Islamic terrorism. The organization has more than 280,000 members in the U.S. 

What’s even more eye-opening — the organization is run by Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese woman who claims “every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim.”

The Center for Security Policy also has a similar mission statement — to pioneer the organization, management and direction of public policy coalitions in order to promote national security.

At the beginning of the year, both organizations held events in states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that were attended by Trump and other Republican presidential candidates, including Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. 

 “If you look at these two orgs, one thing that’s extremely problematic is that they sit high with elected officials,” Piggott said. “In 2015, they held major events that took place at the beginning of an election cycle. It’s a good example of the mainstreaming of hate.”

The SPLC lists 892 active hate groups in 2015.

Hate by the numbers

In the report, the SPLC accounts for 892 active hate groups in the U.S. That number is up 14 percent from 2014, when there were 784.

The SPLC classifies a hate group as an organization that “demonizes and maligns entire groups of human beings based on their class characteristics.”

The classifications are not based on criminality or violence, but by mission statements displayed by organizations on their websites or by their leaders. 

While neo-Nazis, White nationalists, skinheads and other factions of the White supremacy movement actually saw a slight decline last year, the SPLC said anti-government “patriot” groups, Black separatist organizations and Ku Klux Klan chapters all multiplied due to events that transpired across the country which received extensive media coverage.

The SPLC noted that some chapters of the KKK, which have historically targeted African Americans, were now also focusing on Muslims. These examples include anti-Muslim fliers being distributed in Alabama to recruit new members to the KKK.

In South Carolina, a KKK group targeted an organization that sought to relocate Syrian refugees.

So-called patriotic groups received a huge second wind following a controversial move by South Carolina last year to remove the Confederate Flag from the Statehouse. The SPLC documented more than 300 pro-confederate flag rallies across the country.

“What this flag represented was pride in being White,” Cohen said. “When the confederate flag comes down, people feel White culture is being attacked and multiculturalism is ascending.”

The number of Black separatist hate groups also rose in 2015, up to 180 from 113 in 2014. 

The SPLC explained the significant rise is due to increased tensions between police and the African American community. The SPLC noted that the Black Lives Matter movement is not one of these groups, as its mission statement is simply to reform police departments.

Instead, these Black separatist hate groups demonize Whites, gays and Jews, along with the police.

There is also a perception that most hate groups are located in the southern “Bible belt” states. That is not true— Texas has been identified as the state with the largest number of hate groups in 2015, with California and Florida coming in second and third place. 

According to the SPLC, a state with a diverse population is likely to reflect a number of hate groups. In Texas’ case, it has had a long history of rebelling against progressive America.

During a phone conference on Wednesday, Mark Potok, author of the annual SPLC report, said that Texas sharing a border with Mexico is also a significant factor.

“There is an attitude that is particularly strong in Texas that is ‘don’t mess with us,’” Potok said. “The huge battle at the border explains part of the reason for the increase in Texas as well.” 

In Michigan, the SPLC documented 19 active hate groups. 

Outside of these groups, the SPLC has also documented a surge in hate crimes committed by individuals. These examples include the 21-year-old White man who went into a historic African American church in South Carolina and murdered nine people. 

The Colorado man who shot up a Planned Parenthood clinic and murdered three people, is another example.

The impact of Black History Month 

Cohen drew comparisons between the current treatment of Muslim Americans to that of the historic treatment of African Americans.

“There’s certainly parallels,” he said.  “These are two groups of people who are portrayed as dangerous. African Americans and the notion of the Black predator. And now we have all Muslims being associated with terror.”

Cohen noted that the documentation of the African American struggle in the public education system, along with nationally celebrated events such as Black History Month, has made the community more accessible to White residents, helping strengthening relations to some degree over the last few decades.  Still, he calls for more improvement on that front. 

 “Most Americans know two names and four words, Rosa Parks, MLK and ‘I have a dream,’” Cohen said. “Of course civil rights history is very narrow. Black History is American History. Thinking about Black History month as just one month is a little odd. I think the American public has served a very salutary purpose to remind teachers of their obligation to teach about a community that was long marginalized.”

He noted that similar efforts towards Muslim Americans would help cap bigotry and ignorance towards the Islamic community. The biggest hurdle in having everyday Americans sympathize with the community is the lack of familiarity and interaction with the group.

“Something similar would be helpful and useful for Muslim Americans,” Cohen added.  “Most people in our country don’t know a Muslim and the rich history of Muslim Americans. They might know Muhammad Ali is a Muslim. I think people don’t have any idea that Muslim Americans have been prominent in all walks of life.”