Talk:Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents

1 Criticisms of SPLC are over-represented 2 = 3 Is this article neutral? 4 Hate groups 5 This article is bogus

Criticisms of SPLC are over-represented

The Montgomery Advertiser story was a watershed development in the criticism of the Center, and virtually destroyed its credibility in Birmingham and Montgomery. Your deletion of that section removed a strong piece of contention against the Center, and it will be restored. I also think its disengenious to say that 'because of its work the Center has met controversy', etc etc. This is true to a point, but it should be noted that the Advertiser story was originally jumpstarted by employees of the Center who passed on hints that 'something isn't right over there.' It should also be taken into consideration the lengths the Center went to kill the Advertiser report, with threats of lawsuits and lobbying against its consideration for awards. I believe the Advertiser story, with the note that it was a finalist for a 95 Pulitzer Prize, are very important, because it indicates that it was well respected in the journalistic community even though the SPLC mobilized against it. A further note about the critical stories in USA Today, Harper's, and The Birmingham News would be fair. I've repeatedly tried to get people at the Center to respond to these allegations, and I've been shut out everytime. There is no mention of it on their website, except for the line about extremists groups trying to slander the Center. But I digress...

It is very hard to find this article credible when virtually all of it contains criticism of the Center's work. Whomever is making these edits does not serve even their own purpose very well by making this article so biased. What type of work does SPLC do? That question is not really answered here. One must distill that from the hailstorm of criticsm that appears here. Clearly the people who have placed this article on Wikipedia do not like SPLC. Clearly they have an agenda. Do they really believe this article could be perceived by any disinterested party as unbiased? -PS

I removed the link to Deeswatch (http://www.deeswatch.com) because its broken, not because of its content. Saul Taylor 17:14, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

=

I certainly agree that the SPLC is an historically important institution in the USA, regardless whether you agree with them or not. They have been involved in many court actions aimed at disrupting organizations they do not like. However, it is no co-incidence that their legal targets are overwhelmingly euro-american christian heritage ones (i.e. "white"). Whether you like their targets or not, they are *NOT* unbiased, and their work has little to do with "poverty" per se. Why would that be in dispute? They are also associated with the web of race-based laws and regulations in the USA, whether you approve of those laws or not.

It seems to me the entry needs to make it clear that this is a very important group in the racial politics of America and that they make no pretense of their tilt. They are not universally admired in the USA although they have many very vocal supporters. This institution is one of the victors in the American "culture wars" of the past 40 years, and quite influential. I believe most educated Americans would say they are "anti-hate" as long as the targets of that hate are on their "preferred" list.

user:milesgl 11/01/04

Is this article neutral?

While this article presents a point of view in regard to the SPLC that deserves some attention, it will be difficult to term this "Neutral Point of View." The writer seems to be quite unabashed about his/her point of view regarding SPLC and it is not positive by any means.

I've moved these two paragraphs here. The first one seems redundant to me (the same info is in the first paragraph). And the second paragraph uses weasly passive voice to talk about criticism of the center.

"The center claims to be engaged in tolerance education, litigation against white supremacy groups, tracking of hate groups and sponsorship of the Civil Rights Memorial. SPLC publishes in-depth analysis of political extremism and bias crimes in the United States in the quarterly Intelligence Report."

"Some people have accused Morris Dees of practicing a modern-day form of McCarthyism using smear campaigns against those who question government actions. Others accuse him of exaggerating the threat of the Ku Klux Klan and militia groups as a mail order fundraising tool."

I've replaced the second paragraph with one sentence on the critic cited in the external links.mennonot 14:16, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

GETTING IT RIGHT. This article has gone through many edits. Some of these edits removed material and then added new material. However, an argument for removing material was not made. Further, many of these changes were made by anonymous users (IP address only). One must assume that SPLC is a controversial organization. Thus any article written about it from NPOV must be carefully crafted and contain as much attribution as possible. Diverse points of view should be presented and preserved. This article should not become a vehicle for slamming the organization as some versions have done. A review of past edits may yield material that can be restored. It might be helpful if contributors who have material from various sources engage in a discussion on this page about it. Information that can be defended should and will remain with the article through future edits. This is the nature of Wikipedia. It is an exercise in futility to engage in a tug of war between warring opinions each trashing the other's contributions. --MacSigh 17:21, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

I did some research on the SPLC, and found the Montogmery Advertiser series which was highly critical of Dees and the SPLC. I also located the roundtable discussion with the investigative team's editor, and added that as a link. I sent an e-mail to the Center, asking them to respond to the newspapers allegations and they did not respond. I also had a senior individual's e-mail at the Center, and they did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Checking the SPLC's Website, they have no mention of the allegations, only a brief line to 'attempts to smear the Center by extremists groups' in the history section. -Anon. User, Jul. 24, 2004

Can anyone tell me why all the criticism of the Center has been deleted, as have the critical weblinks?

Please sign and date your contributions to the Talk pages. Wikipedia:Wikiquette Willmcw 22:05, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hate groups

As an encyclopedia article about an activist organization, the main activities of the SPLC should be adequately covered. I've added a section on their tracking of hate groups. Their education effort sounds significant and, if so, should get a graf or at least full sentence. Willmcw 07:46, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why is Nation of Islam listed twice?

My oversight. -Willmcw 21:55, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This article is bogus

The first paragraph is lifted directly from the SPLC site.

The SPLC is most certainly not universally known for its "tolerance education."

If anything it is mostly known for its racial hucksterism and scapegoating.

• Comment made by 4.230.249.20 Trampled 00:01, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)