From time to time

I’ll wander out to the SPLC mostly to see who the hate group de jour is.

I always leave the site shaking my head, surprised at what passes for a “Hate Group” these days.

Often, I’ll head out to the groups they’ve designated as hate groups and in fact some of these groups are truly hateful.

Others not so much, I read what some of these “Hate Groups” say and think, “that’s not something I would agree with but I wouldn’t call it hate.” I would call what a lot of these so called “Hate Groups” are saying as, “Not Main Stream”. Perhaps even a little nationalistic.

But they’re not espousing the hateful rhetoric of the KKK, or Muslim Extremism. Which to my mind are two peas in the same pod.

In my world view anyone that says another group is “Less Than” because of color, national origin is racist.

I don’t care what your skin color is, If you’re saying someone with a different skin color is bad, solely on the basis of their skin well you’re a racist.

If you disagree with someone who happens to look different than you do, and that disagreement has nothing to do with skin color, then you have no grounds to call them a racist and they have no grounds to call you a racist.

You’re presumably adults who have different opinions. That is not racism, that is a disagreement.

But I digress.

I have noticed that some of these groups have really interesting logos, and art pieces with messages emblazoned over the art.

Advertising / Merchandising… “May the Swartz be with you…” I smile when I think about Mel Brooks in Space Balls.

I would suggest to many of these groups, check your spelling and punctuation. (I’m bad with both myself)

Your message may be muddied by typos. If your message is riddled with poor punctuation and typos, you’ve set yourself up to be cast as ignorant, racist, hayseed, or whatever, by people like those at the SPLC. Bad spelling and punctuation prove their assertions.

To the right are a couple of the images that I saw just today.

The best image I’ve seen today accompanied a Twitter post about lockdowns. I don’t know if this was an accident, or if it was staged. Either way it made me laugh.

I hope everyone is having a good day.