Lunch with Governor Granholm and Mark Potok of the SPLC

After the first session, the conference reassembled in the dining room for lunch. During the lunch several speakers came up to start the lunch session.

Governor Granholm was originally scheduled to speak later in the afternoon to give the closing remarks, but a change occurred in her schedule and they moved her up to lunch.

The Governor spoke of the importance of eradicating hate, both in through legal means and by activism. She spoke of a court case in Michigan where two men were given 17 years in prison for burning down the home of an African American family.

“It’s easier to amend the stuff between the law books than the stuff between the ears,” the Granholm said.

She went on to mention some of the legal amendments that need to be in place to help stop hate in America.

Granholm said fighting hate meant “making sure the hate crimes act is expansive enough to include sexual orientation, people with disabilities, to include immutable characteristics that often cause people to fear”.

She said that the state should value diversity as it tries to move out of its troubled economy andinto a global market.

“In order to be competitive in this challenging economy we have, we have got to go out an invite people from other countries to our state… We have to invite diversity,” she said.

Granholm spoke about her daughter, who graduated from East Lansing High School. Granholm said she was talking about the MCRI with her daughter.

“She [her daughter] said ‘Mom the reason why East Lansing High school is such a great place is because it’s uncool to hate.’  That’s the kind of culture we have to create in this state,” Granholm said.

Granholm wrapped up her message that Michigan needs to work as one to eradicate hate that would divide the state.

“There may be two Virginias, there may be two Carolinas, and two Dakotas, and we may have two peninsulas, but we are one Michigan.”
Stephen J. Murphy, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, introduced Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.

As Murphy was introducing Mark Potok I got my camera out to record Potok’s speech. I was approached by Alberto Flores of the MIAHCC. He said I was they did not want to allow recording in the room. I told him it had been arranged that I only shoot the speaker.

With the help of Heywood again, I was able to convince him to allow me to shoot Potok’s speech. Later I would learn that the confusion came from the fact that I had registered for the Conference for YAF Watch before agreeing to do a story for Spartan Edge. Mr. Flores had not seen the part that said “Watch” and thought I was a member of Young Americans for Freedom. I was able to sort the situation out in time to get Potok’s speech.

Potok opened up his speech with an explanation of the purpose of his work as Head of the Intelligence Project and Editor of the Intelligence Report.

“Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups. Well, I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups,” Potok said.

He went briefly into the history of hate groups in Michigan. He said that there was a large Klan membership in Detroit in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Michigan was home to part of the militia movement, including Oklahoma City Bomber Terry Nichols, according to Potok. It was also the home of John Tantum, who was the architect of the current nativist movement.

Potok mentioned Michigan’s place as the number three state in reported hate crimes.

“Michigan reports very well, so you’re not really number three in terms of hate crimes; that’s not true,” Potok said.

Potok said hate crimes go underreported. For years, the FBI has shown the numbers of hate crimes as between 6,000-10,000, but not much can be drawn from the fluctuations because the system is voluntary. He mentioned Alabama reported for years a hate crime number of zero.

Potok said the Justice Department came out with victimization surveys in 2005 that went beyond collecting police statistics. It studied testimony from victims and found 191,000 hate crimes a year, many times what was otherwise reported.

“Hate crime data collection is more important than hate crime penalties and laws because it is statistics that really guide public policy,” Potok said.

Potok said that years ago there was a rash of serial killers that led to money being invested to track serial killers, although the number of serial killers was quite low. He said that that may have resulted in allocating money at the wrong problem.

Potok went on to talk about the nativist movement as the largest growing segment of hate groups in America. He mentioned Chris Simcox as one of the leaders and that he had appeared on Lou Dobbs over twenty times in the last few years.

“What Lou Dobbs has never pointed out and what is virtually never pointed out… is that Chris Simcox routinely tells audiences, away from the TV cameras, that he has seen and personally witnessed the Chinese army maneuvering on the US-Mexico border. I think it goes without saying that once you say that…he doesn’t have anymore credibility,” Potok said.

Potok went on to speak about the Intelligence Report, which sent out copies for 50,000 law enforcement agencies and groups. He said the report also had readership from many of the hate groups as well. He said no other publication gave as well of a fact-based coverage of the world of hate groups as the Intelligence report did.

“That has allowed us to do some interesting things,” he said.

He mentioned about the fall of the National Alliance. SPLC received a video of the group leader Dr. William Pierce’s last speech showing him calling followers of other groups and his own “freaks and weaklings”. The video caused splits in the group, which combined with poor management brought the group down. Potok also said it resulted in a huge economic hit. The bulk of the National Alliance’s $1 million annual funding came from a white power music label.

The SPLC also got a calendar published by the National Alliance that was supposed to attract new membership. The SPLC tracked down one of the models from the calendar to a strip club frequented by the National Alliance leaders.

“We were able to write ostensibly to our broad mainstream audience, and in effect really to the movement  ‘You know where your dues are going boys? They’re going to this woman to do lap dances for the leaders of the group. They’re not saving the Aryan race at all,” Potok said.