The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) hate map lists groups it deems as Black Seperatists and White Supremacists extremists. Black Seperatists movements listed as threats on its hate map have been collapsed and reclassified, according to thepostmillenial.com. On Monday a notice was posted on the SPLC’s official Twitter account, announcing that the nonprofit has changied its designation. From now on, the SPLC will classify Black Separatist groups according to whether the group is anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ, misogynist, and xenophobic according to the postmillenial.com.
The SPLC’s new classification collapses Black Seperatist groups based on perceived “extremists” views, disagreement with Jewish religious theology or whether the group considers Jews as”imposters” The SPLC noted that Black Separatism extremists” were rooted in antisemitism, while Black Seperatists were “rooted in a quest for freedom and justice.”,
The SPLC specifically focuses its new classification on Black Seperatists groups that teach the theology that Blacks are the true children of Israel, and God’s chosen people. The new designation appears to target specific Black Seperatist movements such as the Black Hebrew Israelites (BMI) and Nation of Islam (NOI). In assigning these groups the distinction as Black Seperatist Extremists, SPLC seeks to discredit their movements and nullify their rights to be heard in the public, exercise freedoms of religion, speech, and to put forth its own historical themes, ideas, and philosophy..
The SPLC acknowledged that the overwhelming numbers of terrorist acts in the U.S. are committed by White Supremacist extremism. White Supremacy extremists are “the most dangerous threat to national security” . Evenso, SPLC’s new classification focuses its attention on Black Seperatists whom they described as having harmful extremist rhetoric. By asigning the new classification the SPLC is hoping to control the narrative and influence the public’s thinking about these groups.
NNV Blog Writer Sister Rose Morris
