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Evolution Of Hate Groups

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There are 917 hate groups currently operating in the United States (Southern Poverty Law Center). While this may not seem like much, these groups target every possible racial, religious, and political affiliation that a person could have or be. The Ku Klux Klan is the immediate thought when it comes to a hate group, but their membership, between “5,000 and 8,000,” is tiny when compared to the Black supremacist group Nation of Islam, which has a membership number between “20,000 and 50,000” (Southern Poverty Law Center). Clearly, this makes for a far more serious issue, as all Americans are unjustly targeted. Just as these groups currently have a right to free speech, millions of Americans also have a right to be scared. This concept of the …show more content…

Hate groups are not just confined to White people hating everything and everyone, as there are extremist Black groups such as the Nation of Islam and Black Hebrew Israelites with even more insane ideologies. For example, the Nation of Islam believes that a Black male scientist named Yakub invented White people 6,600 years ago in order to destroy the Black race, which is where the phrase ‘White devils’ originates from (Southern Poverty Law Center). While we are not blind to such hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, I want to know how the United States justifies the existence of hate groups towards both races. The Nation of Islam is just an example I am familiar with, and I would not doubt that further research into the 916 other hate groups the Southern Poverty Law Center recognize would find even more extreme examples that many would agree should not exist, but still remain unchallenged due to the First Amendment. I emphasize hate groups because they are often prone to violence, and serve as an important counterpoint when defining what free speech should and should not be. Pro-Communist groups, for example, are totally against the values that the United States hold, and are for censorship rather than free speech. Ironically, however, a group such as this is allowed to express this in the first place due to their freedom of speech. I am excluding any global hate groups and focusing on the United States for everything other than the history of free speech, as, although Communists would put dissenting common people against a wall and shooting them in the head, or would starve poor people that would not fall in line with their ideas, the point of this research paper is to discover the

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