Mark Potok Quotes (21 Quotes)


    Americans ignore the threat of these groups at their peril. Eleven years ago, a pair of extremists carried out a mass killing that included the murder of 19 children. If we're not careful, it could very well happen again.

    So it's a belligerent religion ... that demands that its followers take up the gun.

    This case could have been made 36 years ago. ... (The FBI) knew what had happened,

    It is difficult to understand how the leaders of our major national security organizations can see it this way.

    A few years ago, a Klansman needed to put out substantial effort and money to produce and distribute a shoddy pamphlet that might reach a few hundred people, ... Today, with a 500 computer and negligible costs, that same Klansman can put up a slickly produced Web site with a potential audience in the millions.


    It has become the propaganda venue of choice, ... It allows Klansmen who a few years ago could reach only 100 people with a poorly produced pamphlet to reach an audience in the millions.

    You often see these groups spring up in response to demographic changes. Some people feel threatened, and they look for a group to blame.

    I think there is irony in the fact that the computer is both their chief venue of communication and propaganda and also the mother of all their fears,

    People expect that these kinds of incidents won't happen in schools and universities.

    I mean from Germans to Irish Catholics to Jews to Hispanics virtually the same kinds of things have been said. The sooner we get this cycle over with, the happier I'll be.

    I don't mean to diminish their activities. They've caused huge property damage and there is very little question they will kill someone these days.

    Very typically these days we see white supremacists, hate groups, trying to use the words of King and other civil rights leaders to try to advance their agendas,

    It is simply ludicrous to describe animal rights and eco-terrorism as the No. 1 threat.

    Their tone against homosexuality has become quite amazing after the Lawrence decision. What was really striking was while the Klan and neo-Nazis spoke out against the Lawrence decision, the really vicious statements came from well-known leaders of the Christian right.

    The movement is interested not so much in developing street thugs who beat up people in bars, but college-bound teens who live in middle-class and upper-class homes.

    I don't see any evidence that these fires are hate crimes. Anti-Christian crimes are exceedingly rare in the South. It's more likely to be teenagers or a mentally ill person.

    meeting with extremist anti-government groups and inoculating them against anthrax.

    It's very likely they didn't have direct or public connections to hate groups. It's very likely this was a troubled young man who was attracted to images of power.

    I don't think there's anything thus far to suggest a hate crime.

    Hard-line Identity adherents believe that in order for Christ to return to Earth, the globe must be swept clean of satanic forces -- meaning Jews, homosexuals and a whole laundry list of other enemies.

    Most agree that the prosecution of killers whose identity was an open secret has had a salutary effect. But with witnesses and suspects dying off, there are not likely to be any more successful prosecutions, said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which built a monument to civil rights martyrs in Montgomery, Ala. The point of doing all of this is so that we as a society can move forward, ... And the time is really coming when we really are going to turn and face the future.


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