Southern Poverty Law Center thinks it’s hit the jackpot

Below is a recent exchange of e-mails between racism investigator Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center and me. It is not the first time that my gal Heidi, whom I affectionately refer to as Heidi Beria, has tried to smoke me out and I told her I had nothing to say to her.

Also on the subject of Heidi Beirich, here is an item about how she got Kevin Lamb fired from Human Events, and here is my article arguing that the only way immigration restrictionists can free themselves of the threat of the racism charge is to meet its underlying premises head on.

From: “Heidi Beirich”
To: Lawrence Auster
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 1:33.p.m.
Subject: John Tanton

Hi there, I have been wading through the extensive archives of John Tanton’s correspondence that he has lodged at the University of Michigan. Several of Tanton’s letters, some of them his most interesting, were written to you and I was wondering if you would be willing to talk with me about them. I’m writing a story for the Intelligence Report about the letters and I’d be much appreciative if you would be willing to comment.

Best,
Heidi Beirich, Ph.D.
Director of Research and Special Projects Intelligence Project
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave. Montgomery, AL 36104
(334) 956-8309

From Lawrence Auster
On 9/1/08 12:44 PM,

May I ask you something?

Please tell me why it would be in my interest to discuss these matters with you, given that your interest is not in writing journalism or history, but purely in labeling me and others as racist haters?

From: “Heidi Beirich”
September 01, 2008 1:49.p.m.

Well, obviously I disagree heavily with your characterization about what my interest is. I thought you might want to comment in your own words with your own characterizations.

From: Lawrence Auster
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 1:58.p.m.

Then how would you characterize what your interest is? What does your organization do, other than expose purported racists?

From: Heidi Beirich
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 2:04.p.m.

Leaving aside our legal work on immigrant rights and juvenile justice and many other things that I assume you either don’t know about or don’t care about, and assuming that you are referring only to my department, we certainly do expose racists, anti-Semites, etc. We conduct work as journalists and our bailiwick is the radical right. In fact, we are the only publication that is wholesale dedicated to the topic of American extremism. And that extremism is not only in the form of white supremacists. Our current issue, which came out last week, is about an anti-Semitic and anti-white group, the Black Hebrew Israelites.

Please let me know if you want to comment, otherwise enjoy your Labor Day weekend and I won’t contact you again.

September 13

Ron K. writes:

Heidi Beirich told you, “In fact, we are the only publication that is wholesale dedicated to the topic of American extremism.”

This is simply not true. Laird Wilcox has been doing the same thing—better and more evenhandedly—for decades. He puts out his own report. Someone should just sit down with that and SPLC’s and compare the two for accuracy and fairness.

He also gives a lot of attention to hate-crime hoaxes. SPLC doesn’t believe they happen!

Terry Morris writes:

So this woman casually contacts you from time to time asking if you would like to discuss email conversations you’ve had with various individuals under the firm’s investigation? That’s great.

Greco writes:

You obviously handled that one right, Lawrence. They are hard-core leftist ideologues. (Dare I say … “community organizers?”) Last year when I was doing a lot of reading about Mexican immigration, I encountered a hilarious contradiction at the SPLC site. One day, in an article unrelated to immigration, the SPLC said it was racist to suggest that blacks are more criminally inclined than whites … and that the disparity in crime rates, while true, is because of poverty, not race. Then, a few days later, the SPLC said it was racist and false to suggest that Mexican immigrants commit more crimes than U.S. citizens.

I wanted to say: “Wait a minute … aren’t most Mexican immigrants poor? By your own liberal definition, poverty leads to high crime rates. So how can it be false, let alone racist, to suggest that a mass influx of impoverished Mexicans will lead to more crime? Your own theory of crime says that it will!”

Adela G. writes:

No need to rush to judgment. I don’t think the SPLC thinks it’s hit the jackpot, I just think Heidi really likes you. The old “I wonder if you’d be willing to discuss your correspondence with me” ploy is sure sign of a woman’s interest. She was probably hoping you’d invite her out for a latte or something instead of throwing her question back at her.

You have to look at it from her perspective.

Any gal who spends her time contacting strange men all over the country has just got to be lonely. Why not send her a friendly yet not overly personal email? Something like, “So, Heidi, have you exposed any haters lately?”

LA replies:

By “the jackpot” I meant the archive of John Tanton’s papers.

Van Wijk writes:

Heidi Beirich wrote:

“In fact, we are the only publication that is wholesale dedicated to the topic of American extremism. And that extremism is not only in the form of white supremacists.”

This is possibly the most amusing thing I’ve read all month. If a pocket of Western people who want to see their own survive as a culture and as a nation qualifies as extremism, what could possibly be mainstream? What is normal to a person like this?

Perhaps she could write a book entitled Western Civilization: 3500 Years of Extremism.

I pray that Ms. Beirich lives to see her revolution annihilated; its fields razed, its cattle and flocks taken, and its city walls smashed.

Adela G. writes:

You wrote: “By ‘the jackpot’ I meant the archive of John Tanton’s papers.”

I see. Thank you for clarifying. I googled John Tanton and find my opinion of poor Heidi’s loneliness and aimlessness confirmed by the info in his Wiki entry. The leaked memo that led to his resignation in 1988 from U.S. English seems to be the only blot on his record, and of the excerpts from it quoted in Wikipedia only the last statement is actually objectionable on grounds of mild vulgarity.

From Wikipedia: “Will Latin American migrants bring with them the tradition of the mordida (bribe), the lack of involvement in public affairs, etc.?”, “What are the differences in educability between Hispanics (with their 50% dropout rate) and Asiatics (with their excellent school records and long tradition of scholarship)?”, and “On the demographic point: perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down!

In the intervening two decades, we have seen the dismal results of failing to ask, answer and act on the two questions Tanton raised. Whether an ethnic group can assimilate into the receiving country and whether it has specific educational needs is of vital interest to that country.

LA replies:

The 1988 Tanton “Affair,” in which he was forced out of U.S. English, which he had founded, over that memo, was absurd. There was nothing objectionable in what he said. Tanton grew up on a farm, and regularly uses down to earth expressions to convey ideas. His idea was valid and obviously true, expressed in an earthy way. The storm against him should have been resisted much more strongly. Instead, people ran from it, and U.S. English was lost.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 12, 2008 07:48 PM | Send