Hate in the Mainstream

"Evolution … leads to a belief that they are superior over the weak. … Adolf Hitler duped an entire generation using Darwin's evolution." 
— Recent St. Petersburg, Fla., City Council member BILL FOSTER, in a letter to the Pinellas County School Board made public on Jan. 12, arguing that teaching evolution leads students to violence

"America has been the best country on earth for black folks. … We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?" 
— MSNBC commentator PATRICK BUCHANAN, in his Jan. 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Day syndicated column, discussing complaints about slavery and segregation

"Martin Luther King Jr. was … manufactured and maintained by the Communists who … then (probably) eliminated him when exposure made him a liability." 
— ALAN STANG, in his Jan. 21 column for the right-wing website News With Views, in a lengthy attack on King and the civil rights movement

"If I see someone with brown skin and has an accent … I think they're illegal." 
— Utah Minuteman spokesman ELI CAWLEY, quoted in a Jan. 21 newspaper account, arguing that the overall Latino community should be targeted for immigration enforcement efforts

"[A]pparently, he was suicidal. … I think he watched the Clinton-Obama debate last night. I think he was an Edwards guy." 
— Host JOHN GIBSON, on the Jan. 22 edition of his Fox News Radio broadcast, in a long tirade mocking Heath Ledger on the same day the 28-year-old actor who played a gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain" was found dead

"When these Katrina so-called refugees were scattered about the country, it was just a glorified episode of putting out the garbage." 
— Host NEAL BOORTZ, on the Jan. 30 edition of Cox Radio Syndication's "The Neal Boortz Show," attacking victims of Hurricane Katrina and residents of New Orleans, a black-majority city he described as "a welfare city … a city of parasites and leeches"

"Steve Cohen and the JEWS HATE Jesus. … Christians must unite [so] … ONLY one black Christian faces this opponent of Christ." 
— GEORGE BROOKS, a black Murfreesboro, Tenn., pastor, in a widely circulated flyer attacking Memphis congressman Cohen that was made public Feb.11

"Studies show immigration accounts for 40% of the decline in the employment of black men." 
— Former Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Executive Director FRANK MORRIS, in a Coalition for the Future American Worker TV ad launched nationally on Feb. 11, making a claim that experts said exaggerated by at least 10 times any job losses caused by immigrants quotes on this page were compiled from media accounts, web pages, e-mail groups and media matters for america, a website that monitors the far right.