‘White Lives Matter’ Group Designated A Hate Group
COLUMBIA, SC - JULY 18: A member of the Ku Klux Klan gives a Nazi salute as the Klan members fly the Confederate flag during a demonstration at the state capitol building on July 18, 2015 in Columbia, South Carolina. Hundreds of people protested the demonstration as law enforcement tried to prevent violence between the opposing groups.
While they’re likely to be utterly pissed and confused about it, the self-designated “White Lives Matter” group has officially been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The organization will be included in the next update of their “Hate Map,” which tracks the locations of hate groups across the country.
“I can’t speak to how many chapters will be listed, but it’s clear that the leadership of the group, the ends of the group ― it’s just a flat-out white supremacist group,” Heidi Beirich, director of the center’s Intelligence Report, told the Houston Chronicle. “The ideology behind it, the racist leaders, everything about it is racist.”
The organization recently made headlines when they staged a demonstration in front of the Houston NAACP office with confederate flags and assault rifles as they criticized the Black Lives Matter movement.
According to the Chronicle, Rebecca Barnette, 40, has a leadership role in the White Lives Matter chapter, as well as the women’s division of the Aryan Strikeforce, a skinhead group.
White Lives Matter’s white supremacist agenda is the main reason they’ve been given this designation. Which some would call ironic given that their initial aim was to get Black Lives Matter designated as a racist hate group after misinterpreting its purpose.
SPLC actually received multiple requests to designate BLM as a hate group following the shooting of eight Dallas police officers. But it was determined that BLM is an organization simply looking to promote a group of people that have been long marginalized.