Craig’s letter to the Southern Poverty Law
Center sent along with DVD

9/17
Michelle;

I will be curious to know your organization’s opinion concerning my film.

I’ve spent this last year promoting it. And in that year of promotion I discovered your organization.

Many people who have bought my DVD have told me that your group is nothing but a highly-funded, and protected “hate-group”, and that the target of the SPLC’s hatred is American white people!

They do make a compelling argument. I have yet to see the SPLC recognize any white grievances as legitimate. Nor have I seen your group recognize any advocates for the interests of white people as legitimate advocates. According to your group, anyone acting on behalf of whites, is in fact, full of “hate.” But those advocating for blacks, browns or any others, are simply seeking their “civil-rights.” In other words, non-white advocacy equals progress, while white advocacy equals hatred!
In the film, I call that a disconnect, or a double-standard.

Your group advocates “diversity,” yet only in areas where whites are the majority. I hear no calls for “diversity” in Japan or China or Syria or any African nations, yet loud demands that all of the formerly white nations of Europe open their borders to the flood of non-whites who prefer to live in nations founded by whites. And as a result, will dilute even further, the last remaining reserves of white genetic materiel.

If America accepted your positions on matters of race and “racism,” white people truly will become first, an American minority, and ultimately, extinct. And this is why so many pro-white citizens are against your organization; They hear you calling for their very destruction. They see you as having declared war on them! Can you blame them? Would you blame blacks for anger over a Klansman’s wish for their destruction?

I’m sending this note in hopes you look at this effort with an open mind, and that you may actually concede that just because a person is a white-advocate doesn’t mean he has any more “hate” in him than a black or brown advocate does. To believe differently would be a textbook definition of racial-bigotry and prejudice.

Sincerely,

Craig Bodeker

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$PLC

Craig learns of SPLC attack

It’s interesting that the SPLC didn’t notify me of their “review,” of my film; “A Conversation about Race,” when it was done, even though I sent a personal note along with the DVD they ordered. I had to hear of this critique from a third-party. (Evidently the same way the SPLC collects it’s “evidence of hate.”) Maybe they figured I wouldn’t notice when a wealthy group of powerful, Governmedia-funded shakedown-artists call me a racist….?

The readers can see the film for free on Google Video, and judge for themselves. Is it hate or debate?

You can read the positive reviews from such hate-filled publications as American Thinker, Issues and Views, and The Mike Rosen Show. You can feel the racism, spewing from such reviewers as Human Events’ Warner Todd Huston and the Denver Post’s Ross Kaminski.

Ask yourself, should I judge this film on it’s merits? Or judge it on some surgically-edited, usually sarcastic, and certainly out of context “quotes,” provided by, “an astute Hatewatch reader…”

People can ignore this documentary. That is what the SPLC hopes you’ll do. Just take their word for it. Craig Bodeker is a hater!

But a lot of us are done taking the word of the “racism” industry.

Craig Bodeker
A Conversation About Race.

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Craig Bodeker responds to James Taranto
of The Wall Street Journal

(full article)
October 27th 2009

In an October 26th article defending Dr. Carol Swain’s support for my documentary film, A Conversation About Race, Mr. Taranto remarked, “…Mr Bodeker makes a compelling case…” And that he, “…sees the film’s value in illuminating the subject of race in America.” The case I made was that the term, racist has no real definition, and that it is used too often today to intimidate whites.

Mr. Taranto then called me a racist.

His evidence of my racism? The exact same anonymously sourced, third party “quotes” that the SPLC used to determine I was a racist, in their vicious attack on Dr. Swain.

Just how does one defend himself against anonymous, third party attacks? It’s not easy to defend surgically selected bits of three dimensional conversations in the two dimensional confines of a newspaper or a quick soundbite. Those “quotes” would indeed be highly inapropriate in a newspaper or on the TV, but they weren’t made on either of those 20th century forums.

They were made on the Internet, on discussion boards and, virtually every one of the terrible “quotes” attributed to me was said either rhetorically, in irony, or sarcasm. (Does anyone seriously call blacks monkeys today?) But why is it racist to call President Obama a monkey, but not President Bush? Might that be another of the disconnects the film illustrates? Real communication suffers if we continue to view all Internet content through 20th century, broadcast TV filters.

For nearly a decade, last-century media companies, including The Wall Street Journal, have been working to turn the Internet into another form of television. Want to watch a video? Here’s a commercial first….. Thankfully, their efforts have been largely unsuccessful. If the dinosaur-media had their way, the Internet, the last remaining arena of free speech on the planet, would become just another passive-viewing tool, used for keeping up with the likes of Keith Obermann and Al Sharpton.

At one point in the film I corrected an African-American man who complained that my forefathers came to America and, “…did their dirty deed.” (No family members of mine have ever owned slaves or killed Indians.) Mr. Taranto says this somehow contradicts another part of the film in which I demonstrate that most people today feel that it’s OK to blame whites for historical wrongdoing, yet simply horrible to credit whites for any positive achievements. Finding contradiction there seems like quite a stretch to me.

Mr. Taranto appeared livid when addressing the film’s segment concerning interracial-rapes. The film uses a Justice Department statistic showing that in 2005 there were over 37,000 black-on-white rapes or sexual assaults in America, versus less than 10 white-on-black rapes or sexual assaults. He gets so wrapped up in the semantics of what does or does not constitute a hate-crime that he cannot see the larger issue here; the rampant rape and assault of white women by black men today. Whether you define rape as a hate-crime or a love-crime becomes less important when you consider the numbers; 37,000 to 10. Eldridge Cleaver told it like it is. Just how can a normal person be expected to be concerned about the rare and ill-defined racism of whites toward blacks, yet at the same time be oblivious to the more common, and clearly defined criminality of blacks toward whites?

It’s discomforting questions like this that the film addresses. We can continue to ignore them, as our legacy-media have done for decades in their increasingly biased treatment of whites, or we can choose to include them in the conversation. My choice is evident.

Mr. Taranto appears to confirm that A Conversation About Race does succeed in pointing out that the term, racism has become an ellusive “shut-up word” for whites. He also seems to acknowledge the legitimacy of my demonstration of the many disconnects we all experience when closely examining the sensitive subject of race. In fact, it appears that his only real problem with the film, is his own personal dislike for me.

I can accept that. I knew when I decided to produce the film, that mocking the racism industry was a sure way to make enemies in the 20th century media.

Craig Bodeker
A Conversation About Race.

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Craig Bodeker Refutes the SPLC

Sept. 18 2009

On October 8th, and again on October 9th, Sonia Scherr, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, published two separate and scathing attacks on me and my documentary film, A CONVERSATION ABOUT RACE, on their HATEWATCH website.

Ms. Scherr made eight specific points regarding the film’s “errors,” before concluding that I am, in fact, a “racist.” Most critics agree the film does an excellent job pointing out the vagueness of that term, and that how it has recently morphed into the intellectual equilivent of calling me a “poopyhead.”

But I will still address Ms. Scherr’s eight points here.

Point 1

“Bodeker never says whether he believes that discrimination found by courts and government commissions also doesn’t ‘really amount to anything.’”

That’s because I don’t. What’s more real to you? Spontaneous answers from real people, or proclamations issued by courts and government commissions?

Point 2

“He makes no effort to examine the scientific findings on intelligence and race, which have yet to produce convincing evidence that IQ differences are caused by genetics.”

That’s because neither I nor any of the subjects said anything about causality. Nearly every interview-subject stated clearly that they believe blacks outscore whites in basketball, but that whites outscore blacks on standardized tests, and that Asians outscore whites on those same tests. Are these “beliefs” really radical and bigoted? Or are they mainstream?

Point 3

“After trying to get interviewees to admit that blacks are more criminal than whites. . . .” See the film. I don’t “try” to get anyone to admit anything. Each subject was chosen for their candor.

Point 4

“What he neglects to mention is that it’s unclear how many, if any, of the black-on-white rapes were hate crimes—that is, motivated at least in part by racial bias.”

According to the Justice Department report cited in the film, blacks sexually assaulted white women over 37,000 times in 2005. Whites sexually assaulted black women less than ten times. 37,000 to 10. How “random” does that sound to you?

Point 5

“Moreover, Bodeker asserts that Latinos are deliberately taking away whites’ majority status. ‘If we object to the stated agenda of replacing whites as the racial majority in America with Hispanics, it’s us who get called the racists,’ he says, ‘not the people who are openly and actively working to change the racial makeup of our country.’” I don’t really see the criticism here. Have they heard of La Raza?

Point 6

“The South Carolina Council of Conservative Citizens—a white supremacist group whose national conference Bodeker attended in June in Mississippi—recently hosted a big-screen showing of the movie in three locations.” And they told me they were Conservative Citizens. . . .! (I did actually ask the organizer if the CofCC was a “white Supremacist” group. He said absolutely not.) According to the SPLC, white organizations cannot be trusted to accurately stereotype themselves.

Point 7

“Since the documentary’s release last year, Bodeker has given interviews to the Romanian National Vanguard News Agency (motto: ‘International News for People of European Descent’), Mark Dankof (a radio broadcaster who also contributes to the anti-Semitic American Free Press), and The Political Cesspool, an overtly anti-Semitic, racist show whose guests have included former Klan boss David Duke, neo-Nazi April Gaede and Holocaust denier Mark Weber”

How dare I seek publicity for my documentary! Why don’t I just calmly wait ‘til CNN or PBS calls me to air it? Seriously, though, am I now to be held personally responsible for every word ever uttered by the staff, or even by the guests, of any radio show that I’ve appeared on? I accepted the generosity of those few in today’s media that actually understand the concept of free speech, warts and all!

Point 8

“On The Political Cesspool’s Jan. 31 show, for instance, one of the hosts asserts that ‘everything that is good about civilization—just about everything that is good, from literature to works of art to law is something that came from our [white people’s] minds.’ Bodeker’s response? ‘I have to agree.’”

What part of “just about” don’t you understand. . .?

On the next day, October 9th, Ms. Scherr released her follow-up attack. But rather than offer any stronger, or legitimate criticisms of, A CONVERSATION ABOUT RACE, she chose a different tactic. She relied upon an anonymous cyber-stalker to gather “quotes” attributed to me from the comments section of unrelated political videos from Youtube. She called this piece of journalism “A Peek Behind the Curtain: Views of a Racist Filmmaker . . ,”

Some pretty strong statements were quoted—as well as MIS-quoted, surgically and deceptively edited,, taken out of context, and even made up! And once again, these “quotes” that represent proof of my “racism,” were found on the comments section of Youtube.

Have any readers ever been to the comments section on Youtube? Does anyone NOT KNOW what a mosh-pitt of “free expression” it is? There are, sometimes, actual screaming matches, even though they’re conducted in written form. Sometimes people say harsh, mean things there, in that last remaining refuge of Free Speech. Am I to assume that the SPLS’s Sonia Scherr has never made a sarcastic comment? Or even a distasteful one? Or that anyone who EVER has should be stereotyped, marginalized and disenfranchised? This seems to be what the SPLC suggests. . . .

Most who have viewed A Conversation About Race, say it succeeds because of its fairness and clarity. American Thinker’s Larry Miller said, in his positive review of the film, “. .. . People in America have no idea how to define ‘racism.’ The word flits about like an evil spirit in our national vocabulary—but none of us knows exactly what it means.”

So I will take it as a compliment, that the Southern Poverty Law Center, after viewing A Conversation About Race, (no doubt through a legal microscope) cannot find any genuine aspects of it to criticize, and end up instead having to resort to that same, tired conclusion, “Craig Bodeker is a Racist.”

Call me optimistic, but I see that as progress. They cannot refute the film’s basic premise, even though it contradicts the very essence their stated mission!

So instead they call me a poopyhead.

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Elizabeth Wright of ISSUES and VIEWS responds to the SPLCs attack on Dr. Carol Swain and
A CONVERSATION ABOUT RACE.

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