The White Lives Matter group, which started as a pointed response to the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality, is now classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
White Lives Matter touts its role combating the “white genocide” caused by immigration, “integration by force,” and “24/7 race mixing propaganda.”
“The White Lives Matter website says their movement is dedicated to the preservation of the white race. That tells you all you need to know,” Heidi Beirich, the director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project, told the Times. “They’re against integration, immigration. This is standard white supremacist stuff.”
According to SPLC researchers, White Lives Matter, which grew out of the #WhiteLivesMatter rebuke to Black Lives Matter’s active social media presence, is now backed by the Aryan Renaissance Society, a Texas-based member of the white supremacist network United Aryan Front.
Members of White Lives Matter held a protest last week outside of the Houston offices of the NAACP, where some protesters reportedly showed up toting Confederate flags and assault rifles.
White supremacists have enjoyed a resurgence in the last year because of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Beirich said.
“Trump has given these people hope they didn’t have before that they could influence politics or that they would at least be listened to,” she told the Times.