To label an organization a "hate group" isn't something that should be taken lightly, especially in the U.S. But over the last year, with the rise in the Black Lives Matter movement, many people have tried to label the organization and those who stand with it as such.
By definition, provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate groups are those that “have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."
In the United States alone in 2014, according to the SPLC, there were 784 active hate groups, with California having the highest concentration. Of the 784 active hate groups, 72 were active Ku Klux Klan groups and 142 were neo-Nazi groups.
And guess what? None of these 784 active hate groups is the Black Lives Matter organization.
Maybe someone should tell the likes of Elisabeth Hasselbeck this, because according to the Fox host, Black Lives Matter should be labeled a hate group.
On Monday's broadcast of Fox & Friends, Hasselback asked black author Kevin Jackson why Black Lives Matter isn't a hate group.
"Kevin, why has the Black Lives Matter movement not been classified yet as a hate group?" Hasselbeck asked. "How much more has to go in this direction before someone actually labels it as such?"
And Jackson, of course, agreed with her, because why would they have a black person on the show who wouldn't?
"Well, they should do it, but unfortunately it's being financed by the leftists,” Jackson said. "Ironically, it's people that have nothing, really, no concern at all about black lives."
By "much more," Hasselbeck was referring to the recent shooting of a Texas sheriff's deputy and a rally held during the Minnesota State Fair by Black Lives Matter activists, whose chants included references to cops being pigs. Clearly Hasselbeck wasn't aware that the man arrested in the shooting of the sheriff was a career criminal with mental-health issues and not an activist.
If we were going by the definition of the SPLC, the biggest hate-group members getting shine right now would be Donald Trump and his supporters—also known as the anti-immigration hate group. But clearly it would take too much common sense—something of which Hasselbeck and her ilk have already proved to be short on—to realize that.
But for the record, and for those who are interested in knowing exactly which groups you should be worried about in the U.S., click the photo below.