There is a significant Irish presence on a Southern separatist group known as the League of the South that calls itself Anglo-Celtic and has been featured on the Glenn Beck show on Fox News. Now, The Huffington Post has attacked the group as racist — and Beck for allowing them to appear on his show.
The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled League of the South a "racist hate group" and issued a report filled with allegations of racist statements, especially by the League's president Michael Hill. According to a news article, Hill "welcomed the designation as a 'badge of honor'" and stated SPLC has "a very leftist agenda, these sorts of things are designed to discredit you public.
Hill – the man who appeared on Beck’s show – spoke of his connections with Ireland. “My family emigrated from Ulster back in the 1680s and 1690s,” he said. Hill has spent time in the Republic of Ireland and in the North. “It’s almost like home,” he said, adding that in Ireland “I see an organic, deeply-rooted historical culture that stands at odds with the international global elite.”
Part of the group’s philosophy is its links with Ireland. On its website it sells Irish records from a company called harpofdixie.com, as well as Irish food.
Thomas Ray Floyd is chairman of the group’s Mississippi chapter. “The people who settled the South were Irishmen, Scots, and Welshmen,” he said, speaking to IrishCentral.com. “Most were Christians, and they established the Protestant churches in the South.”
Hill refuted any accusation of racism. “We don’t accept that label. It’s very easy to throw labels around. We’re Southerners, and Southerners, particularly traditional conservatives, have always been cast in that light.”
Sam Stein of The Huffington Post disagrees “Hill's League of the South group is a decidedly white supremacist organization, arguing that the ‘Anglo-Celtic’ culture of the South must be protected and insisting that ‘white men’ must ‘shed the guilt heaped upon them by their opponents and defend their interests.'"
The group has questioned ‘what sort of ammunition is being given to black 'racists' by the media's skewed coverage of interracial crimes.’ Hill himself has been quoted as saying, ‘Let us not flinch when our enemies call us 'racists. Rather, just reply with, 'So, what's your point?’”
Hill said the South needs to maintain what he called its “demographic integrity.
“We’re not trying to exclude anybody, but we are saying the South and Ireland and Mexico would not be those countries if they were swamped by other peoples.”
The group’s views on the Civil War are just as problematic.
“There was not a Civil War,” said spokesman Van Owens. “The Southern government seceded from the North. It had its own currency and its own postal system. The people of the South wanted to do the same thing that our forefathers did when they separated from Britain.”
Although Stein criticized Beck for hosting Hill, the strange thing is that Hill doesn’t even like Beck.
“I don’t feel like I have much in common with Beck,” the president of the right-wing League of the South said. “I’m not sure he’s sincere. He’s alarmist. I don’t have much truck with Mr. Beck.”
Members of the League of the South say its affinities are with Irish culture, not with the culture of the United States. On its website, the group encourages members to “secede from the corrupt and corrupting influence of post-Christian culture in America.”
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