It is unfortunate that these people live in California. I wish we can deport them to Idaho or some place.

Something interesting: I've noticed many comments of members assuming that bigotry is the exclusive domain of the South. So I did some research on hate groups in the US and their 'headquarters'. I found that over half since the 1950's are located in California and the Pacific NE. Here's what I found:


I wonder when they'll do a list of anti-gay hate groups? Or is there one?

Bigotry is not exclusive to the South. However, I believe that many white Southerners moved to the rural areas of California and elsewhere in the 1950s.

Usually, hate groups who hate blacks and other racial minorities also hate gay people (and women and non-Christians). They hate. That is what they do.

The army should be having a big recruitment drive in those areas given they support the Republican war so much. I am sure there are many ground patrols their sons and daughters can volunteer for in Iraq.

I'll never understand the reason(s) for not allowing gay couples to marry should they want to.
Seems to me they are all pretty weak.

A woman I work with who is against gay rights is always ragging on this topic and I finally told her to shut up & go talk to someone who cares.

She asked, " but what if your kid was gay wouldn't you care?". I said "if my kid was gay I couldn't care less who they decided to marry as long as they are happy and treat each other good."

OOPS on my last post! I don't live in CA so I guess what I think doesn't much matter....

Exclusive? Really? Please provide some links for that.

While I'm waiting, I'll just say for the record I doubt ANYWHERE is free of racial bigotry. Personally, I've lived in two places that, at some point in my lifetime - though not when I was there - were home to the American Nazi Party. One was in California, one was in Wisconsin. Sure doesn't mean that I or those I was close to ascribed to the beliefs of the organization. Indeed, in both cases it was community pressure and harassment - not all of it legal - that ultimately forced the HQ's to relocate.

I can sure understand why those in the South who reject racist thinking would be pretty fed up up with and frustrated by the fact that the South remains infamous for rampant racism. But that infamy isn't premised upon a series of commercials, or misleading press, or ancient canards.

Incidentally, you might note that, in California, many of the cities listed are home to state prisons, which are magnets to hate groups.



Check this out - the Southern Poverty Law Center's map of "Active Hate Groups." Of 888 total, 80 are in CA. What an embarrassment for the state But as for "the south," well, Florida and Georgia combined easily exceed that number. That's with roughly 42,000 FEWER square miles, and a total population more than 10 million short of California's.

If you don't see there's a significantly heavier concentration of racial hatred in the South...well, consult your optometrist. But it appears South Dakota, Alaska and Hawaii are the only places that can claim to be free of active, organized hate groups, which of course does NOT mean there are no racists there.

Morris Dees once told me he's asked at almost every appearance why the SPLC maintains it's HQ in Montgomery - folks think they're just ASKING for trouble their - and he said his answer is always the same. He just reminds the questioner of Willie Sutton's answer when asked why he robbed banks, "That's where the money is." For the SPLC, Montgomery is the epicenter for racism.

I asked if the fact that they hadn't been able to eliminate open evidence of the problem on their own home territory just didn't just create the appearance of failure, and he scolded me for not crediting the SPLC and other like-minded groups with the extent of the improvement over the decades. He said hate groups thriving in Idaho and Montana was a sign of reduced acceptance in his home territory. He also told the old story about looking for a lost nickel under the street light - not because that's where it was dropped, but because that's where the light was best for searching. Finally, he maintained they'd never get anywhere if they always had to work as "outsiders." By being part of the community they are trying to change, they have an advantage.

Aside from its current lawsuit against the Klan, 5-6 years ago the SPLC said its efforts would begin expanding to include the growing number of anti-immigrant hate groups. And that, naturally, means Texas and California getting more attention than they have in the past. But the bulk of their legal attention right now remains in the south, especially including their lawsuit against the Klan. It scheduled to go to trial in Kentucky before the end of this year.

No place is free of racism. So I'll be looking forward to those links to those posters who have maintained it's exlcusive to the South. And surely you and I will convince them otherwise with the map above.

Hey, I just stumbled on an interesting pasttime. Consider the map above against the Dem. Primary voting results.

Interesting, no?

Developing quite a pattern of hit and run posts, there WM. Apparently this request prompted just the latest run.

Rhode Island.

Doesn't count. There's nobody there. Nobody. Not one. They'll be back Thursday.

Dang - more of the irrational prejudice against the South in the AP headline about an article from Time:

Obama facing uphill battle in South, polls show

(Surely it's only because the South is generally opposed to leaving Iraq and despise his health care plan.)

Can Georgia Be Obama's Ohio?

By JAY NEWTON-SMALL/WASHINGTON

No one who has been following Barack Obama's upstart path to the Democratic presidential nomination should be surprised at his campaign's claim that he does not need to win Florida and Ohio to have a chance at winning it all in November. Obama has been pursuing an ambitious national strategy from the start.

"I'm probably the only candidate who, having won the nomination, can actually redraw the political map," Obama replied to a question about his strategy from a Concord, N.H., woman at a house party last August. Pacing around the old Victorian home, the wooden floor creaking, Obama went on: "I'll give you one specific example: Mississippi is 40% African American, but it votes 25% African American. If we just got the African Americans in Mississippi to vote their percentage, Mississippi is suddenly a Democratic state. And Georgia may be a Democratic state. Even South Carolina starts being in play. And I guarantee you African-American turnout, if I'm the nominee, goes up 30% around the country, minimum."

It was an extraordinary boast, five months before the start of the primary season. But he stuck to it as the race with Hillary Clinton wore on through the winter and spring. Whenever Clinton asserted that Obama couldn't win states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, he would respond by saying he could bring other states into play, especially in the South.

Now that he is the presumptive nominee, Obama is working hard to make good on his prediction. In briefings last week with former Hillary Clinton supporters, Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, said he is focusing on Georgia and Virginia as potential swing states and, depending on the outcomes of voter registration drives, he's also keeping an eye on Mississippi and Louisiana. In Georgia, the Obama campaign has wasted no time, launching massive voter registration drives before he the primaries had even ended. "By some estimates we have about 600,000 African Americans in Georgia are eligible but unregistered. I think that number is a little high, but we will be working very hard to register as many voters as we can before the election," said Jane Kidd, chairwoman of the Georgia Democratic Party. "Georgia is one of the most progressive southern states. There are a lot of people moving in, there's a lot of transition, a lot of progressives."

...

Yet Obama faces an uphill battle in most of the South. Even if there is vastly increased black turnout, he still needs to draw a portion of white votes in states like Mississippi and Louisiana, where less than a quarter of whites voted for John Kerry in 2004. Though he may have a legitimate shot in Georgia, he currently trails McCain by a margin of 12.3 percentage points, according to an average of Georgia polls by the non-partisan website RealClearPolitics.com.

In 1992 Bill Clinton lost most of the Deep South, except for Georgia and his home state of Arkansas). In Georgia the third party candidacy of Ross Perot helped leach enough votes from President George H. W. Bush to deliver Clinton the state. This year the Libertarian candidacy of former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr could help Obama in much in the same way. "Georgia would be very much in play, even if I weren't in the race, and it will be even more so now that I am," Barr told TIME. Republican presumptive nominee John McCain "does not really have a natural constituency in Georgia. Certainly, he'll appeal to die-hard Republicans and certainly the military folks, but it's not a state, if I were advising his campaign, that I would focus on."

If Barr just wins his former district, to the west of Atlanta, he could sap more than 8% of the vote. A May Insider Advantage poll of likely Georgia voters showed Barr garnering just about that amount, to McCain's 45% and Obama's 35%. "I'm still not ready to call any of the Southern states probable for Obama," said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. "If the election were held now, I think McCain would hold on in all of them. But Obama is going to bury McCain in expenditures, and thus broaden the playing field in his favor, and if economic conditions don't improve rapidly, McCain's chances of winning the election are quite small."
...
Yet McCain has shown some weakness in the South. During the primaries, he lost Georgia and much of the South to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister. McCain has struggled to connect with Southern social conservatives, who are leery of his positions on issues such as global warming, campaign finance reform, immigration, domestic oil drilling and gay marriage. He's also gotten himself into trouble with high-profile Evangelicals like James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, who never warmed to the Arizona senator and has said he won't vote for him.

There is no question that Obama can turn out Southern blacks: African American voter participation in the 2008 Georgia primary, which Obama won by 36 percentage points over Clinton, increased 85% over the 2004 primary, for example. And there's lots of room to grow from the last general election; in 2004 just 54.3% of the 1,090,000 registered blacks in Georgia voted.

But black votes alone cannot win him Southern swing states like Georgia, according to David Bositis, senior political analyst at the non-partisan Joint Center, which tracks black voter trends. "In states that could potentially flip it isn't just about increasing black turnout. They have to be states where Obama can win a fairly significant portion of whites," Bositis said. In the Georgia primary Obama edged out Clinton among young white voters, but lost white voters over the age of 45 by more than 20 percentage points, according to CNN exit polls. Certainly, the idea of a black candidate winning the South appealed to those New Hampshirites last August - the Concord audience gave Obama's answer an ovation. But no one has to tell Obama that the North and the South don't always see eye to eye.

LINK TO THE FULL ARTICLE