AT&D #42. Hate Groups

Hate groups have proliferated in recent years. According to the the Southern Poverty Law Center, 888 hate groups were in active in 2007 (source: Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report, Spring 2002). Locate a hate group on the internet and then post a summary of the website using these questions as guidelines:

• What are the goals of this hate group? (also include URL)

• How does this group try to rationalize and “market” hate?

• What prejudices, stereotypes and “-isms” are revealed in the website?

• Why is this website damaging?

A hate group I found is called “The Christian Identity Church-Aryan Nations.” (source: http://christian-aryannations.webs.com/). Basically, the goal of this hate group as stated on their website is to spread the “truth” of what constitutes the supreme “race” that inhabits the Earth, namely Christians. What particular types of Christians and backgrounds of Christians does the website declare as “supreme?” Anglo-Saxons, Teutonics, Scandinavians, and Germans to name a few. Furthermore, the hate group declares that Jews have descended from Satan (who Cain is associated with due to him being the son of Eve who was the first human to sin in the Bible) and that Canaanite Jews are the natural enemy of the white race as attested by historical accounts of the ongoing conflicts between the two “races.” This hate group attempts to rationalize a vision interpreting the Bible’s verses and content as pro-Christian instead of acknowledging the book as something that came from the Torah and evolved into the Quran. From what I can see on the website, there isn’t anything too explicit involving marketing; the ideologies stated are on the home page as is online registration in becoming a member of the church.

The prejudices and stereotypes of Jewish people that the website goes into detail include their religious superiority due to their belief in how Jesus is not their Messiah, how they engage in greed (i.e. control of media), and how they cause trouble in every society they associate themselves with (i.e. which is what led to their religious persecution). The “-isms” that the website mentions include atheism and secularism which are both condemned by the group. Overall, this website and hate group is clearly extremely damaging to nearly every race and religion (excluding Caucasians and Christianity respectively) because it favors the ultra-racist ideal of Aryanism and is anti-semitic. In fact, I can draw a parallel between this hate group to another hate group called the Neo-Nazis, whom they share many ideals with. Scary.