Increase Seen In Hate Groups Active In Washington: SPLC

SEATTLE, WA - White supremacists and nationalist groups thrived in President Donald Trump’s first year in office, according to a new report that showed a 4 percent increase in the number of hate groups nationwide. An analysis of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report showed Idaho, an overwhelmingly white state where only 5.8 percent of the population is foreign-born, is the most hateful state in the country, with 12 active hate groups.

But Washington has also seen an increase in hate groups, up to 26 as of the beginning of 2018. Those groups include white nationalists and anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant groups. A separate report by ProPublica revealed that the violent fascist group Atomwaffen is active in Washington - in fact, one of the group's top leaders nationwide lives near Blaine.

In its 2018 Intelligence Project report, the civil rights advocacy group the Southern Poverty Law Center said the number of active hate groups in the United States has risen from 784 in 2014 to 954 in 2017 as “alt-right” white supremacy groups broke through a firewall that for decades kept overt racists underground.

“President Trump in 2017 reflected what white supremacist groups want to see: a country where racism is sanctioned by the highest office, immigrants are given the boot and Muslims banned,” Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, said in a statement. “When you consider that only days into 2018, Trump called African countries ‘s---holes,’ it’s clear he’s not changing his tune. And that’s music to the ears of white supremacists.”

In its analysis of the hate map, 24/7 Wall Street said the 10 most hateful states are Idaho, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Indiana, Virginia, Oregon, Arkansas, Georgia, and Colorado.

The online financial news and opinion site looked at the number of hate groups per 1 million state residents, immigrant populations, and a range of socio-economic data, including the percentage of adults 25 years and older who hold at least a bachelor’ degree, the percentage of each state’s population that is white, poverty rates and median household income. The data came from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2016 American Community Survey and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Click here for more on the methodology.

Some of the hate groups active in Washington identified by the SPLC include:

• Northwest Hammerskins, a racist skinhead group active near Yakima
• Respect Washington, an anti-immigrant group active in Burien and Tacoma
• ACT for America, an anti-Muslim group active near Eatonville
• Nortwest Front, a white nationalist group in Bremerton
• Pacific Coast Ku Klux Klan, active in Spokane

In its 2018 Spring Intelligence Report, the SPLC said that within the white supremacist movement, the greatest growth was in neo-Nazi groups, to 121 in 2017 from 99 the year prior. The number of anti-Muslim groups increased for a third straight year, to 114 chapters in 2017, up from 101 in 2016. Those groups had tripled in growth in 2015, according to the report.

The number of Ku Klux Klan groups decreased to 72 nationwide in 2017, down from 130 a year earlier. The SPLC said the decline “is a clear indication that the new generation of white suprem­acists is rejecting the Klan’s hoods and robes for the hipper image of the more loosely organized alt-right movement.”

Click here to read the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Caption: An anti-immigrant demonstrator who appeared at a rally in Seattle last June organized by ACT for America.

File photo by Neal McNamara/Patch