Why would America's biggest banks let the Southern Poverty Law Center decide who gets a bank account? Because the @splcenter made a business out of leveraging the accusation that white, religious conservative were racists. This puts the bank at a crossroads: risk the racist charge or dissociate from these racists. The SPLC began this witch hunt of sorts by putting mainstream Christian groups on the "hate map" along with KKK groups. And the banks never checked to see if these groups were truly racist or not. Seeing them on the "hate map" was enough. As the federal review revealed, "mere allegations" were enough, "even in the absence of any validation of the underlying facts." An employee from PNC said, "I think it becomes really difficult to justify aligning ourselves with a company whose owners have built very public personas around opinions very contrary to PNC's beliefs/values." That's not risk management. That's the white guilt terror of being called a racist, a bigot, a hater, written into bank policy.
— Eli Steele (@Hebro_Steele) October 24, 2026
