"The Southern Poverty Lie Center"

   In her paean to the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC], Barbara Kligerman (July 10 letter) says nothing about the SPLC’s modus operandi, so I will: Using its own criteria, which have a trigger level of essentially zero, SPLC names Person P a “racist.” Person P publishes an article in Journal X. Then if Person Q also publishes in Journal X, Person Q is a “racist” too. It’s an open-and-shut case of guilt by association.

   In recent years, the SPLC has focused on labeling as “haters” or “hate groups” entities that advocate systematic enforcement of our immigration laws and reduced legal immigration — e.g., the Federation for American Immigration Reform [FAIR]. Poll after poll shows that large majorities of American citizens agree with what FAIR propounds, but the SPLC would put this vast swath of public policy, with its enormous implications for the national future, out of bounds for public conversation. To be consistent, the SPLC should dub most individual Americans as “haters.”

   In contrast, the SPLC has shown no heartburn over MEChA (Spanish acronym for the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, with Aztlan the mythical ancestral home of the Aztecs). MEChA, with chapters at hundreds of American colleges and high schools nationwide, has a governing document, El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, that includes such ethnocentrisms as “We are a bronze people with a bronze culture.” And the group’s famous motto is “Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada,” which translates as “For the Race, everything, outside the Race, nothing.” That’s evidently too brazen to attract SPLC’s attention as it sleuths everywhere for “racists” and “white supremacists.”

   The SPLC’s headquarters in Montgomery, Ala., is widely lampooned as the “Poverty Palace,” for good reason. Barbara Kligerman could delve into that, but I won’t hold my breath.