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We’re Calling You Out, JPMorgan Chase
Last week I learned that JPMorgan Chase donated $500,000 to the Southern Poverty Law Center and I was disgusted. I’ve been writing for weeks that we need to speak out against foolish and dangerous Leftist activities. Well, my husband and I have accounts at Chase, and I had to speak up. I doubt that the following letter will have an impact, but if we don’t take a stand in our own lives, we have no reason to complain about the state of the United States. Here is what I wrote:
Dear Mr. Dimon,
I was extremely disappointed to learn that Chase, where we have been banking for over ten years, has decided to donate $500,000 to the Southern Poverty Law Center. There are several reasons for my concern, as described in an op-ed piece by Kimberley Strassel in the Wall Street Journal. That essay may be found here:
Your decision indicates to me the following:
- J.P. Morgan Chase is prepared to finance a far-left organization that bases its list of “hate groups” on political hatred of those on the conservative Right. Either you did not do your homework on this group before your donation, or your company has no problem demonstrating your support of Leftist politics.
- The SPLC has created a list of 917 organizations without any supporting data for labelling them hate groups.
- Their list includes the Family Research Council, the Center for Security Policy, and the Center for Immigration Studies, all mainstream organizations.
I don’t expect Chase to support conservative organizations, but I do expect you to at least support non-partisan organizations. There are many non-profit organizations that would benefit from your generosity.
As a result, my husband and I are asking you to rescind your donation to SPLC. If that doesn’t happen within 30 days, we will move our accounts to a different financial institution. If you would like to discuss this matter further, you may reach us at —
For those of you reading this OP, feel free to lift any part of this letter and use it in your own emails to those organizations that need to hear from you.
Have any of you taken similar steps?
Published in Politics
This is fascinating, IWalton. It’s not the bank’s money, IT’S MY MONEY! And they have a responsibility for caring for it properly. The question is, do I have any say over how they use my money?
Good for him! For those of you who didn’t see this link, the fellow is raising money to sue SPLC for their attacks. Check it out.
Thank you SO MUCH, genferei. You make a very good point, which I’ll comment on more later. Actually, I’ll do it now. (I got a PM from a friend with a comment and I don’t have permission to use his name.) Anyway, he suggested that our actions might be just the kind of thing that the Left is doing. And others in this OP have commented on boycotts. I think you illustrate precisely why this is not like the Left, and I have not called for a boycott. I simply acted (as has my husband) on my own conscience, and suggested that others could write about their disappointment to Chase or to any other institution with which they are unhappy. I think our actions are quite different from the Left; thank you for helping me clarify this for myself.
Very witty!!
There are plenty of other brands just as good if not better than Ben and Jerry who are not major donors to the Democrats. I stopped using Estée Lauder products for the same reason.
Perhaps it’s taken us a long time to realize we are in a culture war that is being won by the other side as we see daily in our schools and in Hollywood. We must rise up as a group and shout loudly from the rooftops in order to counter their narrative. Smugly quoting Locke and Burke may make our philosophy appear to be be intellectually superior as we nod our heads to the few pundits who do so in the media, but it will not appeal to the masses we are trying to save.
I’ve been thinking about this and I want to fight the culture war without making conservatism a totalitarian ideology. Please remember that the left lost the culture war in football because they couldn’t shut up and let people enjoy sports.
Dennis Prager has been thinking about this for a long time.
That being said I love iWaltons ideas about democratizing power. To quote him a few posts back,
That way we could let individuals voluntarily be stupid with their money rather than having corporations force decent people to be stupid with their money.
I was arguing with a leftist who wanted to change the Constitution to include hate speech exceptions cause of Nazis he didnt know the number of. I quoted from the ADL about Nazis and he laughed at them.
I am sorry you cant take the Anti-Defamation League as a serious source I cant talk to you.
Well, that’s the end of that, TWW. If the Left says it doesn’t count, it doesn’t matter, it’s not important, well, gosh, I guess it’s not!
My knee-jerk reaction was to cancel my Chase card. I clicked on the map (first time) randomly here and there, then looked at the supposed hate groups they are making aware. First, I never realized how many KKK locations there were, since they seem to hide in the shadows, I assumed there were far fewer. Also, not keeping up with who s alt-right or alt-left, I don’t know the names of these groups, but they spell them out
They pinpoint many white separatist groups, black nationalist groups, anti-Semitic groups, and I found it hard to find any that were not questionable. If they have some that are questionable, might it be better to contact them and find out, rather than Chase? I also wonder if these legitimate hate groups are gaining fuel (funding, radicalizing youth thru social media) etc. and if the attorneys and people identifying this may be correct in doing so? I don’t think hate groups will ever be eliminated, but there has to be a way to fight back, and maybe this is a way? Just asking – I find this post a great forum to address it – thanks Susan.
Did you click on the one in southern Arizona? It’s the border patrol for crying out loud!
FSC, each person has decide for himself or herself. I think that everyone knows that Neo-Nazi groups and so on are hate groups. But if you look at the group more carefully, you see groups that they target because they are conservative, not pushing hate
If you total the General Hate groups, Christian Identity groups, Anti-LGBT and Anti-Muslim, there are 250 groups, many of whom are legitimate. There are probably lots more in the list that we wouldn’t call hate groups, too. In fact, I’d suggest they use the ones that are obviously hate groups as an excuse to condemn those that you and I might support.
I’ll take a look more closely – and I am prompted to find out which ones specifically are not (like the one you identified), and contact this organization and call them out on it. I would be interested in knowing the criteria that they use to determine making their list specifically, and making this group accountable. I can’t say they are all bad at this point – I googled some of the identity groups I was not familiar with, and some have questionable affiliation. Your pinpointing their mis-information is hugely important and I thank you – I am going to contact them when I get more information, as well as Chase.
Part of the reason you see so many is that the KKK (and the Nazis) tend to have small organizations, and share membership. When you see a listing for a KKK or Nazi group, remember that they’re often just “those four guys who hang out together and like swastika tattoos.”
Even the ones with higher membership numbers tend to have ballooned rosters due to (surprise!) the internet. Some guy with a “Supreme Exalted Order of the Eastern United KKK” website would be listed, and have a couple of dozen members – but only a few of them have ever even met, and a lot of those guys belong to a long list of different chapters.
So when you see “ten chapters of the KKK,” think of it as “the same twenty guys who belong to ALL of those chapters.”
For scale, remember that of those many, many “white supremacist” groups, many of which were in easy driving distance to Charlottesville, they only got a couple of hundred people to show up, max. Then there was that “national white supremacists meeting” that got the same number. That’s about how many people come to the local Food Truck Day a block from my house, each week.
The KKK in the US has no more than 8,000 members (probably a fraction of that) spread across 130 or so different groups.
On the other hand, the biggest organized militant racist group in America – Nation of Islam – has at least 20,000 members, and could have as many as 50,000. Nation of Islam is also allied with the New Black Panther Party, which is more noticeably militant, and is about the same size as the KKK. Both of these groups have active, public links to Democrat politicians.
If you look at the bottom of the “hate list” page, you’ll find general criteria. From what I understand, they don’t list specific criteria–but if you locate that on their site, please let me know. It could be eye-opening. Thanks, FSC.
A very insightful response, @cirby. I want as much information as we can get to make sure that we are being thorough and fair.
All good points, and the Nation of Islam and the new Black Panther Party are listed on their site as hate groups –
I plan to contact them when I have researched it more, thanks to your insightful post. I certainly plan to ask them when they plan to add Antifa.
Oh, yeah, they certainly list them.
But when they talk to the news, the SPLC will go on and on about a ten-person Klan rally, while not really addressing NOI or related groups at all.
Their “news” stories will always cover how some anonymous person wrote a threatening letter to a mosque, but it takes a front-page murder (or several) for them to write about NOI itself.
They also include NOI in their yearly “extremism” list, but that’s about it.
UPDATE ON MY EMAIL TO CHASE:
First, I wanted you to know that I did write to my local branch manager about my email to Chase’s CEO. So I don’t know how that factors in. This afternoon I received a call from the main executive offices of Chase to inform me that my communication had been sent to the legal department (I don’t know why) and also to the executives at Chase who make the decisions on donations, so that they will consider this feedback the next time recipients are identified.
I have no idea if my email will make any difference. I am surprised that I received the call acknowledging it. It makes it a little harder to go forward on our original decision, but I don’t believe I’m prepared to back off. Just thought you’d all want to know.
Susan, first, I want to thank you for your piece, as it spurred me into action by writing the following message, to which I am sure ( :-) ) I will get a very quick response! I wrote it before re-reading your great post (Darn! Doggone! Heck! — C of C Compliant!) or I would have just totally plagiarized your much more succinctly written piece. Thanks again!
This message is for Mr. Jamie Dimon and the top executives in the Louisiana area of Chase concerning the recent “grant” of One Million Dollars to the disgraceful and despicable Southern Poverty Law Center; please route it through the appropriate channels:
As a long- time customer of and account(s) holder with Chase, I write to express my very strong condemnation of what I understand to be a “grant” by Mr. Dimon (by the way, where did that money come from?) of One Million Dollars to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization which “has lot its way” from being formerly a true civil rights organization to a disgraceful money raising machine now, sitting on an endowment of 200 million dollars and revenue in 2015 of $54 million. It deems anyone with whom it disagrees “extremist” and even recently deemed Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a true heroine if there is any meaning left to that word, a “propagandist far outside the political mainstream”, about which she recently wrote in the New York Times. Her op-ed contains the following interesting observation: “If Tim Cook and Jamie Dimon had done their due diligence, they would know that the SPLC is an organization that has lost its way, smearing people who are fighting for liberty and turning a blind eye to an ideology and political movement that has much in common with Nazism.” Mr. Dimon would have done well to have read such recent articles as “Southern Poverty Law Center money machine cashes in on Charlottesville” (http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/08/southern-poverty-law-center-money-machine-cashes-in-on-charlottesville/) before helping this hateful group of money grubbers add to their pile of ill-gotten gains, much of which is being sent to offshore banks according to other recent sources. Again, I ask the question, as a long -time customer of this Bank: where did that Million come from, and why was it given to a proven smear-machine which has been consistently given the lowest grade possible by CharityWatch, and independent organization that monitors and rates leading nonprofits for their fundraising efficiency.
I would sincerely appreciate a response to this inquiry, preferably, although I know the chances of this range between slim and none, from Mr. Dimon himself.
Thank you,
James A. George
George and George, Ltd.
A Professional Law Corporation
Counselors At Law and Admiralty
346 Shady Lake Parkway
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70810
Cell: 225-270-3182
Website: http://www.georgeandgeorge.com
E-mail: jimg@georgeandgeorge.com
Jim, this is fabulous!! So much more complete and full of facts to back you up!!! As you saw in my comment #80, I did hear back. Please let me know if you do–I was totally stunned. Of course, Dimon himself didn’t contact me, it was a young whippersnapper from the executive offices, but still, it was a response. Well done!
@susanquinn, after this exchange (many thanks for the kind words; I’ll consider them fairly worthwhile if I get even half the response you got!) I happened upon a superb piece by Roger Kimball, which is, in my humble opinion, the only kind he writes, entitled Inebriates of Virtue, from the recent issue of The New Criterion, which is generally about the passing scene and all the virtue signalling from college campuses but which also contains some most interesting observations about our favorite non-profit (?), the Southern Poverty Law Center and refers to it at one point, along with Pro Publica, as “lefish thugs” which have “expanded their witch hunts.” It is a bit on the long side, but is a brilliant survey of what is happening on the censorship front; unfortunately, a great deal is happening and this seems to be a time when the First Amendment is under as severe an attack as anyone can remember. I’ll let you know just as soon as I get my nice letter from Jamie Dimon! :-) All the best, Jim.
For those who are still uncertain about the reputation of the Southern Poverty Law Center, read here.
Methinks something fishy is going on with these people. Out of millions in donations very, very small amount going to their stated mission.
@susanquinn, I got a very vapid response to my letter, telling me they were immediately researching all issues raised by same ( shame they didn’t do that before gifting those grifters with all that money, but reading any one of probably dozens of well-researched articles which have come out recently, including the Federalist article you just cited!) and would have a further response as soon as their “research” is completed. I will promptly let you know when (if?) I receive a response of a more, shall we say, substantive nature. I love her descriptive phrase: “a glorified direct-mail scam that profits from hate-mongering”! I’m beginning to think I may have found a brand new cause at which to tilt my cyber-spear!
Good for you! Who used that phrase–the person from Chase who answered you? Did they say they would get back to you when the research was done? That’s more than I got! Keep me posted.
I think it is from The Federalist article.
No, as @mlh pointed out, it was from the Federalist article; I’m quite certain if I do get a further response from Chase, it will be loaded with weasel-worded blather and a lot of PC verbiage. However, I’m planning to do another letter to them quoting at length from the article Susan cited to this morning along with the Daily Beast article and also Ayan Hirsi Ali’s op ed in the NYT, which I’m glad Legal Insurrection linked to as I would have never seen it since I may look at something from what Klavan refers to as the New York Times, a former newspaper, once every few months. I also started this afternoon on a draft of a letter to the Editor of our local paper, citing the fact that Chase, one of our largest banks in our area, is sending piles of money so it can be, in turn, sent off to Bermuda and the Cayman Islands! This should prove of interest to a lot of their local customers. While I have no illusions about effecting any kind of change in an organization of this size, perhaps if they heard from enough customers and shareholders there could be some slight chance it might make a difference. I believe in miracles. I’ve seen too many of them in lo these many decades not to.
Hi Susan,
By way of background, I’m a retired investor relations officer (from one of the big pharma companies). Just sent an email regarding SPLC to JPMC’s head of Investor Relations, Jason R. Scott. Also copied the regional media person for NJ (Erich Timmerman) and the fellow who manages private client business for JPMC in our area. The IR officer has a duty as an “outside insider” to flag potential share-price moving issues to management; they ignore these at their own peril. Very few people in any corporation (except sales people) have as much exposure to members of the public and makers of markets as the IR officer; they speak with credibility. Hoping that adding the media person and the local guy will turn up the gas a wee bit, especially the latter as we were just about to give JPMC some of our investment business when we saw your post. Will happily share the reply if one is forthcoming. At the very least I expect I’ve given the local guy a particularly bad case of agita!