New Orleans, I don’t know much about the Southern Poverty Law Center. Sure, I’ve gotten their fundraising solicitations, but that just makes me the same as most Americans this side of Attila the Hun. Visiting Montgomery, Alabama, some years ago with my son, I was surprised to see their big, fancy building, but more than anything else, because I worry about what a comrade had called the trend among labor and the left, to join the “edifice complex” in a clever pun on the Oedipus complex of Freudian practice.
With the announcement that the Justice Department is going after them, I can’t help but scratch my head and be sympathetic, even while bracing myself for the barrage of mail from them that will burdening my letter carrier soon. The acting AG and the head of the FBI, soberly announced an indictment, which was a bit hard for me to follow. They claimed the SPLC was guilty of…
a number of financial crimes, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment focused on the law center’s past use of paid informants to infiltrate far-right groups. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, accused the group of “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”
This is going to be a tough case for Justice and the FBI to prove. For one thing, there’s way too much racism out there to prove that anybody, including the SPLC, needed to be involved in manufacturing it. The racism industry is one of the most vibrant manufacturing centers in America for hundreds of years with no signs these days of abating. As for the problem of paying informants, that could boomerang as well. SPLC claims they don’t do this anymore, but these are lawyers, which means that they haven’t thrown anything away. Their informants will have produced voluminous records of their work establishing that many of the groups were haters to the core.
The story in the Times also looked at their IRS 990, a required filing by all tax-exempt organizations with the government. They report assets knocking on the vault door of almost $900 million. I had no idea they were that big, so no wonder they have a nice headquarters building. It also means that this is no lightweight outfit that will be easily bullied by the feds. They have lawyers beaucoup. Law center is part of their name after all. They also have deep pockets and the ways and means to refill those pockets, as they’ve proven for decades.
Marc Morial, president and CEO of the Urban League, and former mayor of New Orleans, was quoted that this is “intimidation” and saying “It is about silencing organizations that have spent decades protecting vulnerable communities and advancing justice under the law.” Once again, I have to agree with my former mayor on this call.
This will cost SPLC a couple of million to defend themselves and drag through the courts. I’m not a lawyer, but I’d be surprised if this doesn’t die on the vine in court or on appeal before 2028, but if it’s still got a heartbeat, it’ll be over then.
The expression was always, “haters are gonna hate.” They’ve called it like they’ve seen them, and that’s still called free speech in the United States. Furthermore, for the groups that feel like they have been maligned, if the shoe fits, and you’re wearing them, don’t complain when others point out the way they shine.