Census data stir up white supremacists
By Patrick McMahon, USA TODAY
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SEATTLE — Census data showing increased racial diversity in the USA are providing fuel for white supremacists and outspoken foes of illegal immigration.
"THE CENSUS PROVES WE ARE BEING INVADED," says an e-mail alert sent to 8,000 supporters by the American Patrol, run by a Sherman Oaks, Calif., organization that opposes illegal immigration.
"This is not a rehearsal. This is the real thing," wrote group leader Glenn Spencer, who says his organization is multiethnic and not a hate group. "The numbers are in, and there is no doubt. If we do not speak out now in the face of this reality, we deserve to be overwhelmed."
Similar alerts have been part of e-mails, Web pages and news summaries circulated by other groups after 2000 Census figures showed a surge in Hispanics and other minority groups.
"I have no doubt that the 2000 Census will light up the right," says Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors such groups from its base in Montgomery, Ala.
The number of Hispanics grew almost 60% since 1990 to 35.3 million. Non-Hispanic whites' share of the population dropped to 69% from 76% in 1990. Minorities accounted for almost 80% of the increase in U.S. population.
Many white supremacist groups have long decried growing multiculturalism, and they have seized on Census reports to support their contention that minorities are flooding the nation.
Matt Hale, head of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator, based in East Peoria, Ill., e-mailed a news report of Census findings to supporters with a subject line, "Brown Invaders Proliferate."
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to extrapolate the final result of the demographic changes that have taken place just in the 1990s — the white race in the United States is facing extinction," says World Church activist John Bash of New York City, who said the message went to about 3,000 supporters.
Watchdog organizations said they aren't surprised by the reactions of white supremacist groups.
"The Census fits perfectly into their world view, and they have latched onto it as proof," says Devin Burghart, head of the anti-bigotry project of the Center for New Community, a faith-based group in Chicago. "The United States is becoming a truly multicultural, multiethnic, pluralistic democracy. It's something we should cherish. It benefits us all."
Spencer of American Patrol says, "I don't think America really knows what it is up against in coping with illegal immigration. It will unfold as the greatest challenge to our integrity as a nation since the Civil War."
His group seeks tighter immigration controls.
He is urging supporters to demand that President Bush "close the border and deport all illegal aliens."
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