Medical Tuesday Blog

The Myth is who really Hates Whom?

Sep 9

Written by: Del Meyer
09/09/2017 12:19 PM 

J.P. Morgan’s Hate List

What is its gift to the Southern Poverty Law Center telling bank customers?

By Kimberley A. Strassel | WSJ | Aug. 24, 2017

. . . The press is still obsessing over President Trump’s incompetent handling of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and that has suited some profiteers just fine. The notorious Southern Poverty Law Center is quietly cashing in on the tragedy, raking in millions on its spun-up reputation as a group that “fights hate.” Apple CEO Tim Cook informed employees that his company is giving $1 million to SPLC and matching employee donations. J.P. Morgan Chase is pitching in $500,000, specifically to further the SPLC’s “work in tracking, exposing and fighting hate groups and other extremist organizations,” in the words of Peter Scher, the bank’s head of corporate responsibility.

What Mr. Scher is referring to is the SPLC’s “Hate Map,” its online list of 917 American “hate groups.” The SPLC alone decides who goes on the list, but its criteria are purposely vague. Since the SPLC is a far-left activist group, the map comes down to this: If the SPLC doesn’t agree with your views, it tags you as a hater.

Let’s not mince words: By funding this list, J.P. Morgan and Apple are saying they support labeling Christian organizations that oppose gay marriage as “hate groups.” That may come as a sour revelation to any bank customers who have donated to the Family Research Council (a mainstream Christian outfit on the SPLC’s list) or whose rights are protected by the Alliance Defending Freedom (which litigates for religious freedom and is also on the list) . . .

The SPLC has tarred the respected social scientist Charles Murray, author of the well-regarded book “Losing Ground,” as a “white nationalist.” Mr. Murray has been physically assaulted on campus as a result. He happens to be married to an Asian woman and has Asian daughters, so the slur is ludicrous. But what’s a little smearing and career destruction if J.P. Morgan Chase gets some good headlines?

It isn’t only the lists. An honest outfit tracking violent groups would keep to straightforward descriptions and facts. Instead, the SPLC’s descriptions of people are brutally partisan, full of half-truths and vitriol designed to inspire fury. . .

Had the companies done a bit of homework, they’d have discovered the SPLC isn’t even considered a sound charity. Karl Zinsmeister excoriated the outfit in a recent article for Philanthropy Roundtable: “Its two largest expenses are propaganda operations: creating its annual list of ‘haters’ and ‘extremists,’ and running a big effort that pushes ‘tolerance education’ through more than 400,000 public-school teachers. And the single biggest effort undertaken by the SPLC? Fundraising. On the organization’s 2015 IRS 990 form it declared $10 million of direct fundraising expenses, far more than it has ever spent on legal services” . . .

The corporate donations are nonetheless appalling, as they legitimize a group that already exercises inappropriate influence. The SPLC’s list is cited regularly by the media and congressional Democrats, ignorant or uncaring of its falsehoods. The charity tracker GuideStar for a time attached warning labels to philanthropies flagged by the SPLC.

This undermines the fight against truly hateful groups. Comparing pro bono lawyers at the Alliance Defending Freedom to hood-wearing KKK members only make the Klan seem more innocuous. Blackballing mainstream groups only silences the moderate voices the country needs to fight hate and bigotry.

Corporations have a role to play in calming today’s divisions. This is the opposite.

Write to kim@wsj.com.

Read her entire article at the WSJ . . .

There was a recent report of a legislative committee that spent two hours on castigating our president, when someone on the committee reminded them that they had spent two hours of hatred of Trump; perhaps they should start on their agenda for the meeting.

Hate groups are using the psychiatric defense mechanism of projecting their feelings of hate on to those that they themselves hate.

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