NEW YORK, NY — It can sometimes feel like we're living in a liberal, colorblind(ish) utopia here in NYC, for the most part cut off from the retro, Tiki-lit horrors of Charlottesville and Pikeville and Eddyville and Columbia. But then guys like Upper East Side software developer and neo-Nazi thought leader Mike Peinovich — one of the organizers of last weekend's deadly white-power rally in Virginia — come out of the woodwork, and whatever bubble we might have been projecting is burst.

And Peinovich isn't the only one spewing hate from within the five boroughs, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that monitors "hate groups and other extremists" across the country. For the latest on local extremism and other news that affects you, sign up here to receive Patch's newsletters and alerts for your NYC neighborhood.



Of nearly 1,000 organizations currently active nationwide that match the center's definition of a "hate group," 27 of them are based in NYC. The local groups run the gamut from neo-Nazi outfits like Golden Dawn, a crew of Greek fascists based in Astoria (here's a recent VICE profile), to anti-immigrant brigades and church chapters that actively discriminate against gay people or, in other cases, practice black separatism.

See also: White Supremacists Plan More Rallies Across U.S.

Meet The NYC Neo-Nazi Behind Charlottesville Some may take issue with the decision to lump in groups like the the Nation of Islam and the Black Riders Liberation Party (the modern-day Black Panthers) with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. But the SPLC argues that most strains of black separatism "typically oppose integration and racial intermarriage" and "are strongly anti-white and anti-Semitic." And in the case of the Nation of Islam, the SPLC writes: "Its theology of innate black superiority over whites and the deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders have earned the NOI a prominent position in the ranks of organized hate."

Even without the black separatists, though, NYC still hosts 20 other designated hate groups.

To come up with their list, SPLC researchers say they combed through "publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports" to root out all the American organizations with "beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."