Armed White Lives Matter Group Protests Outside Houston NAACP Office
Earlier this month there was an incident in which a White Lives Matter protest occurred in front of the NAACP office in Houston's Third Ward.
Well, the ignorance of those protestors has been dealt an incredible blow: the White Lives Matter group will be listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
"I can't speak to how many chapters will be listed, but it's clear that the leadership of the group, the ends of the group — it's just a flat out white supremacist group," said Heidi Beirich, director of the center's Intelligence Report, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. "The ideology behind it, the racist leaders, everything about it is racist."
Turns out one of the leaders of the White Lives Matter movement is Rebecca Barnette, a 40-year-old woman who also serves as the vice president of the women's division of the skinhead group Aryan Strikeforce.
"Her background, the rhetoric of the group, the hangers on of the group are white supremacist," Beirich said. "The only question is how widespread they are, how many chapters there are."
From previous reports of the protest it was obvious that the White Lives Matter group was racist. Although most of the protestors claimed that they were just celebrating their southern heritage, a lot of what was being displayed embodied America's racist and violent past.
With members waving Confederate flags and holding signs with the phrase "14 words" written on it ("14 words" is a reference to the popular white supremacist slogan "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children"), the White Lives Matter group failed to see the irony in what they were trying to do.
Fortunately, come February of next year, the movement will be listed as a hate group in the SPLC's Hate Map that's released annually.
