Peter Brimelow, VDARE, and Tom Tancredo

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo is notorious for his views on immigration, but one man he has esteemed as being a “professional journalist” with “solid credentials” is getting flack from a civil rights group for running what is being described as a “hate site.”

Peter Brimelow is a book author and the creator of VDARE.com, a conservative web log with writings from different contributors, including himself.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an Alabama based civil rights group, labeled VDARE as a “hate site” in 2003, and maintains that Brimelow’s web space has given a voice to white supremacy numerous times.“It has partly to do with the types of people that Brimelow publishes on his page,” said Heidi Beirich , a SPLC spokeswoman and investigator. “[The website] includes Jared Taylor, who is an open white supremacist, a guy named Kevin McDonald who is an ant-Semite, and members of the Council for Conservative citizens-that’s an organization that the Republican Party has condemned as white supremacist.

But it’s not just who writes for the site, but also the controversial nature of the content, the SPLC notes.

One author, Brenda Walker, was quoted calling Hmong people “drug-addicted polygamists” on VDARE.

Another writer, the late Sam Francis, was quoted saying the following in one article:

Actually, the question should be, why does the U.S. government, so eager to round up and kick out the decent Steenkamp family despite all the gabble about being “a nation of immigrants,” allow and even encourage the garbage of Africa to come here at all and do nothing to force them out?

In another VDARE article, he said this:

Once Secretary Powell’s “precious Mexican population” has engulfed all that remains of the United States, high teenage birthrates, poverty, ignorance, and disease will be what remains. 

And don’t expect the constitutional government that is part of the American and Western heritage to last long either.

The Council of Conservative Citizens lists Francis as a former editor in chief and describes him as a “prolific writer on issues of public policy.”

Rep. Tom Tancredo did not see a problem however in June of 2003, when he wrote a letter challenging criticism to Brimelow brought by Salon magazine:

“Nonetheless, I can say that I was aware of editor Peter Brimelow’s solid credentials as a professional journalist, and I had no reason to believe that this online magazine is anything but a legitimate contributor to the vast library of resources on this vital issue. After looking over Vdare’s recent work, I have not changed this opinion.

According to story dates, both of Francis’s comments had been created before Tancredo’s letter was published.

Brimelow recently defended his site in the Rocky Mountain News, from critics calling it “white nationalist,” stating that while there were white nationalist authors, “they are not white supremacists. They do not advocate violence. They are rational and civil. They brush their teeth. But they unashamedly work for their people – exactly as La Raza works for Latinos and the Anti-Defamation League works for Jews.”

Also see: CO Media Matters on Brimelow

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.

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