SPLC Kicks Off New Season of 'SOUNDS LIKE HATE' Podcast

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The new season of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) original podcast — Sounds Like Hate — was released today. This season goes deeper into the dangers and peril of everyday people who engage in extremism. It also looks at local communities grappling with the national effort to remove Confederate symbols from public spaces.
 
“For decades we have tracked and analyzed hate and extremism in America in an effort to bring attention and awareness to this pressing problem,” said Susan Corke, Director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. “Now, through this podcast, we are able to shine more light into the dark reality that bigotry and racism are woven into the social fabric and history of our country. Our hope is this series reaches new audiences and encourages them to take action – whether just in their own homes to protect their children from radicalization or in the broader community to address these longstanding issues.” 
 
The first episode in Season Two takes listeners to Bad Axe, Michigan where the hosts, award-winning journalist-producers/filmmakers Geraldine Moriba and Jamila Paksima, have exclusive access, after an FBI raid, to the state headquarters and tactical training grounds of The Base, a neo-Nazi acceleration group. The Sounds Like Hate team continues their exclusive reporting from Season One with two additional episodes of the investigative series Baseless,centered on the stories of two young men, one from Michigan and the other from Boston and their radicalization path into the grips of white supremacy. 
 
It also includes interviews with experts who specialize in radicalization including Pete Simi, sociologist and associate professor at Chapman University; Megan Squire, a professor in computer science at Elon University who studies extremism online, podcaster Daniel Harper; and SPLC’s Dr. Cassie Miller, an expert on white supremacy.
 
The hosts, also follow a 21-year-old recruit from Massachusetts to explore the phenomenon of white supremacists who tactically switch from one group to the next. This trail leads to a New England Nationalist Socialist Club, or NSC-131, who claim they were there at the U.S. Capitol insurrection to protect white people. 
 
“These are not just stories of young men who unashamedly fell headfirst into radical hatred, they provide valuable insight for parents and caregivers on warning signs and can help us, as a country, understand the root causes of radicalization and how to prevent it,” said Jamila Paksima. 
 
SPLC aims to not only expose the harms of white supremacy, but to also equip parents and communities with tools to prevent radicalization. The SPLC in partnership with American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) recently released a guide to help parents and caregivers understand how extremists are target children and young adults with propaganda – especially during times of unrest.
 
In upcoming episodes, the series will shift South as viewers meet activists in Alabama, Georgia and Texas who bring renewed energy and insights to the national effort to remove Confederate symbols from public spaces. 
 
“Today the battle to remove Confederate lies continues in local communities across the nation. It is much easier to say I’m not a racist and be willfully committed to ignorance than it is to admit some of your ancestors fought on the Confederate side to benefit from the continuation of slavery,” said Geraldine Moriba. “Monumental Problems is a three-part story about ending the celebration of treason once and for all.”   
 
In 2020, the SPLC launched the original series exploring the dangers and peril of everyday people who engage in extremism, and ways to disengage them from a life of hatred. Season One included the story of a woman who was a member of a hate group working behind the scenes to support the “Unite the Right” rally but managed to escape radical extremism and analyzed 83 hours of never-before-heard secret recordings of neo-nazi white supremacists group made inside the vetting room of “The Base.”
    
Sounds Like Hate is available on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn and more. 
 
Learn more about Sounds Like Hate and stream it here.