Sounds Like Hate

Join award-winning journalists, producers and filmmakers Geraldine Moriba and Jamila Paksima — who are behind the new SPLC podcast, Sounds Like Hate — as they tell the stories of people grappling with the rise of hate across country.

Getting Out begins with the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. But this isn’t about that white supremacist rally — it’s about a woman named Samantha, who worked behind the scenes to support this violent alt-right march. This chapter leads us through the story of how Samantha became the women’s coordinator of Identity Evropa, a white nationalist group, and why she decided she had to get out.

Part two takes Samantha’s story from the privacy of chatrooms to the corridors of power. What was the cost of her neo-Nazi separatist views? How did she contribute to the spread of deadly lies? And why did she decide to get out?

Not Okay takes us inside Randolph Union High School in Vermont, where 95% of students are white. The high school is at the center of two linked battles that are tearing their community apart: whether to remove a mascot some say bears a disturbing resemblance to a hooded Klu Klux Klansman charging on a horse and whether to fly the Black Lives Matter flag.

In part two, we return to Randolph, Vermont, as activists nationwide protest the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Sean Reed, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery and countless others by police and vigilantes. As tensions escalate, what will happen when a battle erupts to remove the Galloping Ghost, the school’s mascot resembling a KKK knight on a horse? Can educators protect students of color from ongoing racist threats?

This is the truth about the Base, an international terrorist group plotting for a race war. With 83 hours of exclusive secret audio recordings, Part I goes inside their “vetting room.” We expose their methods of recruiting deliberately from the U.S. military, the ways they encourage terroristic behavior, and their expressions of paranoia. It’s also about one reporter who infiltrated this network strategizing for the collapse of America.

Part II exposes the efforts of the Base, a white nationalist group, to develop paramilitary training drills. Using artificial intelligence we uncover patterns of deception found in the exclusive secret recordings from the “vetting room” of these homegrown neo-Nazis. It’s about how they intend to use paramilitary training to instigate the collapse of America. We expose the Base’s underground international network of deceit and terroristic schemes.

Using secret recordings, Part III reveals what you don’t know about today’s increasingly violent white supremacists, including the Base, one of the most violent neo-Nazi groups in America. It’s about why crimes by these extremists are not properly addressed by law enforcement and how close we’ve come to attempts at mass murder. It’s also about efforts to prevent their apocalyptic fantasies from happening — and about how the Base began to unravel.

In a sneak peek of Season Two’s Baseless, we hear portions of a harrowing conversation with the father of a white supremacist leader who operated The Base’s training compound in Bad Axe, Michigan. Podcast hosts Geraldine Moriba and Jamila Paksima are guided by the compound leader’s father as they tour what remains of the headquarters after an FBI raid. Poring over the remains of the group’s preparations for a race war and the fall of society as we know it, they discuss youth radicalization and white supremacy.

We continue our coverage of the neo-Nazi, accelerationist group The Base with two new episodes of Baseless. This time, Sounds Like Hate examines what parents should be doing to prevent radicalization. With exclusive access to The Base’s headquarters and tactical training grounds in Bad Axe, Michigan, we interview the father of a white supremacist as he explores The Base’s Michigan compound after an FBI raid. 

Part five of Baseless continues the story of a young white supremacist and the family members who tried to intervene after it was too late. We also follow a 21-year-old recruit from Massachusetts who was radicalized in high school to explore the phenomenon of white supremacists who tactically switch from one group to the next. This trail leads us to a New England nationalist socialist group that claims they were at the U.S. Capitol insurrection to protect white people. 

In the first 5 episodes of Baseless you listen to secret recordings of over 100 white supremacists applying for membership to a violent neo-Nazi hate group called The Base. In this bonus episode you’ll hear the latest about the founder, Rinaldo Nazzro, who roams freely, and the members who have been arrested and are now behind bars or awaiting trial.

“Monumental Problems,” Part I, brings us to Florence, Alabama, where a large Confederate monument has loomed in front of the county courthouse since 1903 – but perhaps not for much longer if community members like Camille Bennett get their say. Bennett is the founder of Project Say Something, a local civil rights organization that is rallying the community to decide the fate of the Confederate statue. We follow Bennett as she travels to Montgomery to speak one-on-one with Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill about community control of public spaces and monuments.

In “Monumental Problems,” Part II, Sounds Like Hate producer Jordan Gass-Poore tells a personal story about her Texas Hill Country family. Gass-Poore is the descendant of Confederate veterans, and the choices made by her ancestors generations ago continue to impact the family today. We follow Gass-Poore home to Texas as her family embarks on a painful reckoning with the past. 

Stone Mountain, Georgia, sometimes called the “Mount Rushmore of the Confederacy,” is home to one of the largest stone carvings in the world: An image of Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson is etched into the side of the mountain. “Monumental Problems,” Part III, focuses on Stone Mountain and the “Lost Cause” narratives still widely spread by powerful families and corporations, and how these falsehoods fan the fires of white nationalism. 

In this exclusive sneak peek at Sounds Like Hate's third season, we travel to the deadliest border crossing in the nation, along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, where undocumented migrants are crossing in record numbers. Humanitarian organizations are attempting to help the migrants, venturing into the Sonoran Desert to distribute food and water – but groups of vigilantes are patrolling the same territory, trying to catch them. While these extremists are not sanctioned by the government, some U.S. Border Patrol agents look the other way or even work in partnership with them. 

In this episode, we visit Georgia to investigate a devastating new voter suppression law and meet the activists and community members who are fighting its deliberate and calculated suppression of people with disabilities and other marginalized groups.

In Florida, many people who have previously been incarcerated have had their right to vote taken away by discriminatory legislative measures. In this episode, we meet some of these people who have served their sentenced time and simply want their rights back – and are bravely fighting to be heard by lawmakers and to give voice to others who share their struggles.

In 2018, Philadelphia tried to change its policies to prevent discriminatory treatment of LGBTQ parents in its foster care system – and got sued by a religious right organization over it. This episode unravels the ongoing legal battle over the future of queer parents in Philly's foster system and includes interviews with some of the kids and parents who have been directly affected.

In part II of “Fostering Hate,” we tell the stories of LGBTQ parents and children navigating a foster system with a history of anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Too often, foster parents are not adequately vetted or trained. In this episode, we meet LGBTQ people who have been deeply impacted by issues of bias, rejection and queer identity in the foster system – each of them ultimately connected by their desire for a chosen family where LGBTQ identities are accepted and celebrated. Children and families must be protected, not discriminated against in our system.

This special bonus episode of Sounds Like Hate provides an exclusive update on The Base, an international “white power” terrorist group that we've been tracking since Season 1 of the podcast. Since then, some members of The Base have been arrested and charged with hatching violent plots – here are the details of the disturbing crimes these extremists were planning to commit.

In Part I of “The Unwelcome,” we're on the southern border in Arizona, where armed militia groups stalk migrants traversing harsh desert conditions. In some cases, militia members arm themselves with guns, scopes and motion activated video cameras seek to capture migrants and destroy their water sources, putting migrants' lives at an even steeper risk.

The Season 3 finale of Sounds Like Hate centers on the small town of Arivaca, Arizona, just 11 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Here, residents have taken a decidedly pro-migrant stand – but armed anti-migrant militia groups continue to operate nearby, and more anti-migrant residents are moving in. Can Arivaca's commitment to embracing inclusivity survive in a shifting, politically polarized world?

In this special episode of Sounds Like Hate Season 4, we travel back to the months leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, to track white supremacists as they plan, prepare and execute their violent plot to attack the U.S. Capitol and overturn an election. Listen now as we examine the events that should have been 'red flags' in 2020 as the hate and extremism movement reached a boiling point in the lead up to Jan. 6, 2021. 

This exclusive trailer for season four of Sounds Like Hate (coming June 14) takes you inside the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, where an independent investigation exposed a longstanding culture of systemic racism. Alumni and students demanded change – including the removal of memorials glorifying the Confederacy. Now, for the first time in 182 years, a Black superintendent has been appointed to lead at VMI. Will he be able to implement real change?

The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington is a college embedded in Southern military tradition – which includes an unquestioning respect for the Confederacy. But in the spring of 2020, a racial reckoning came to VMI after students of color and some alumni began to air their frustrations and demand change. In this episode, you'll discover how those students and alumni exposed racism and false historical narratives. This state school with intimate ties to Virginia politics provides insight into how our country grapples with the legacy of the Confederacy.

This episode opens with Matriculation Day at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington – the start of school for first-year students. Racial justice protests in 2020 promoted a state-ordered independent investigation documenting an institutional culture of racism and sexism. What has changed at VMI since then? Have the changes gone far enough in addressing systemic racial inequality?  And will the new governor, Glenn Youngkin, threaten VMI's progress?