Congrats! A Voice for Men and Return of Kings have both been designated hate groups by the SPLC

By David Futrelle

A big round of applause for two websites that have featured here on We Hunted the Mammoth from the beginning: A Voice for Men and Return of Kings have both been officially recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups. 

The hate-monitoring group announced the news in its latest “Year in Hate” report yesterday. “[F]or the first time,” the report declared,

the SPLC added two male supremacy groups to the hate group list: A Voice for Men, based in Houston, and Return of Kings, based in Washington, D.C. The vilification of women by these groups makes them no different than other groups that demean entire populations, such as the LGBT community, Muslims or Jews, based on their inherent characteristics.

Both groups have more than earned this long-overdue designation. If you need to be reminded just how, take a stroll through the archives here for literally hundreds of examples of hateful rhetoric and actions by both AVFM and RoK, and/or their respective founders, Paul Elam and Roosh V.

You may also notice, in your stroll through the archives, that both AVFM and (especially) RoK have embraced some of the most noxious views of the racist alt-right directly. Indeed, one of the most notorious participants in the racist Charlottesville march last year — a man jailed for his assault on a counterprotester — was a former contributor to AVFM.

Elam’s response so far to his recognition as a hatemonger by the SPLC has actually been somewhat tame, at least by his standards.

https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/966383611841859586

https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/966386487846686725

He also retweeted this lovely sentiment from someone whose Twitter handle is a not-very-subtle reference to the c-word.

https://twitter.com/KruntFrucker/status/966385645743755264

This dude was even more pissed:

https://twitter.com/has_baal/status/966405995999227904

Roosh’s response to his inclusion on the list was a bit, shall we say, ironic as well:

https://twitter.com/rooshv/status/966402313341595652?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Thanks for proving the SPLC’s point, guys!

The SPLC report also notes a number of other discomfiting facts, starting with this one:

The SPLC’s Year in Hate and Extremism report identifies 954 hate groups – an increase of 4 percent from 2016.

Some of this increase, the report says, was due to a resurgence of fringe black nationalist groups — which the SPLC is quick to distinguish from “activist groups such as Black Lives Matter and others that work for civil rights and to eliminate systemic racism.”

But the real danger comes from the racist right.

[B]lack nationalist groups lagged far behind the more than 600 hate groups that adhere to some form of white supremacist ideology – and they have virtually no supporters or influence in mainstream politics, much less in the White House.

Within the white supremacist movement, neo-Nazi groups saw the greatest growth – from 99 groups to 121. Anti-Muslim groups rose for a third straight year. They increased from 101 chapters to 114 in 2017 – growth that comes after the groups tripled in number a year earlier.

Ku Klux Klan groups, meanwhile, fell from 130 groups to 72. The decline is a clear indication that the new generation of white suprem­acists is rejecting the Klan’s hoods and robes for the hipper image of the more loosely organized alt-right movement.

The overall number of hate groups likely understates the real level of hate in America, because a growing number of extremists, particularly those who identify with the alt-right, operate mainly online and may not be formally affiliated with a hate group.

These groups not only spew hatred; they have helped to spur a frightening rise in racist violence — and murder.

A separate SPLC investigation, released earlier this month, found that 43 people were killed and 67 wounded by young men associated with the alt-right over the past four years. Seventeen of the deaths came in 2017.

So AVFM and RoK are in some pretty shitty company here.