Capitol Correspondent
LANSING – Law enforcement, community leaders, victim advocates and others gathered at Michigan State University's Kellogg Conference Center on Sept. 6 to discuss and develop community responses to hate and bias incidents at the "MI Response to Hate: Building United Communities" conference – sponsored by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and Michigan Alliance Against Hate Crimes, with a grant from the state's Crime Victim Services Commission.
The event was designed to bring people involved in community responses to hate crimes together, and offer them information on hate groups, responding to hate activity, protests, criminal investigation and more.
"The latest U.S. Census ranks Michigan as the most segregated state in the nation, and the FBI Bureau of Justice Statistics ranks Michigan as the state with the third-highest number of reported hate crimes in the nation," said Linda V. Parker, director of the MDCR. "Considering that intense segregation precludes quality intercultural relationships, any community which responds to hate with silence allows the hate to speak for them."
Dr. Randy Blazak, director of the Hate Crimes Research Network at Portland State University, spoke at the conference in the morning. Blazak addressed hate, where it comes from and how it has manifested itself in a speech called "Why we hate."
"As they have many stereotypes about us, we have stereotypes about them," said Blazak, talking about hate groups and their members. "In fact, we may find we have more in common with (them) than we would care to admit."
During his speech, he laid out a historical perspective, starting with the rise of Knights of the Klu Klux Klan on Dec. 24, 1865, to present day. Blazak noted that hate groups rose in conjunction with significant changes in society. He pointed to the end of the Civil War; the rise of the KKK in Detroit during the '20s and '30s in response to southern immigration for auto industry employment; the '50s and '60s in response to the civil rights movement; the '70s in response to the farm crisis; and now the rise of the immigration crisis as classic examples of hate responding to change.
At lunch, the attendees heard from Gov. Jennifer Granholm. She spoke in support of amending the state's ethnic intimidation act and morphing it into a comprehensive hate-crimes bill. She also spoke about Michigan's intolerance of hate.
"We don't tolerate intolerance in this state. There may be two Virginias, two Carolinas, two Dakotas and even two peninsulas, but we are one Michigan," she said to applause. "Sometimes you gotta show a little tough love."
Following the governor was Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project and editor of the Intelligence Report. The Intelligence Report is a magazine distributed to more than 50,000 law enforcement individuals all over the world. The SPLC also created and maintains an annual hate group listing.
The hate group listing includes 844 active hate groups in America, with 25 of them in Michigan. Of all those, Michigan State University's Young Americans for Freedom has the distinct honor of being the only university-recognized and -supported hate group in America.
"Our goal is to destroy these groups," Potok said. "I think they (hate groups) are pretty well thriving." Potok spoke at length about the how the "nativist extremist" movement has gained authenticity and credibility by bad media coverage, and addressed critics of the SPLC who claim the group is an "open borders" supporter.
"We don't have a position on immigration," he said. "We are here to tell the truth, which is, whatever you think the nativist movement is, it is filled with bigots, conspiracy theorists or people quite simply off their meds."
He then launched into an extensive exploration of the lengths some organizations have gone to bury their roots in racist organizations. He discussed how the Federation for Immigration Reform, or FAIR, was started by racialist John Tanton. Tanton, Potok said, supported Planned Parenthood – in part because he supported aborting the children of African Americans.
Potok then proceeded to share with the audience the tactics FAIR has used to create front groups in order not to appear racist. He shared a story about the creation Choose Black America, which turned out not to be a group at all; rather, it was a press conference to which many leaders of the African American community were flown to Washington, D.C. and put up in hotels so they could appear at the event.
FAIR also created the Center for Immigration Studies. MSU YAF will be bringing the executive director of CIS to MSU's campus on Oct. 4 for a speech about immigration.
Potok closed his speech by explaining what he hopes the SPLC's Intelligence Project can achieve: "We hope our work will be taken by the grassroots movement to fight it (hate) on the ground."
