ELI5: Bigoted hate groups believe that their causes are just and openly admit to them. The KKK hates black people, Westboro hates gay people. GamerGate supposedly hates women, under the guise of relentlessly going after corrupt journalism. Why would all of GG bother with such a long, elaborate ruse?

Well, the OP seemed like he was willing to have a decent conversation, so I'll give it a shot. I hope I don't get censored or doxxed for expressing a contrarian viewpoint or anything. /kidding

There's no conspiracy to be had. It's only the extreme of the extremist folks that would proudly proclaim themselves a bigot. Most normal people are simply blind to their own bigotry; I'll say some insensitive things myself at times, but the important thing about bigotry is to first be able to recognize it as a problem before attempting to correct for it. If I didn't realize I was being a bigot, I would not have apologized to the person I've offended later on.

KKK doesn't necessarily hate black people, in fact they love black people and have invited a few members of the black community to join their group. What they're primarily concerned with is the willingness of the black people to play the race card (read: professional victimization) when they don't get the same "benefits". To justify their racist ideas to themselves, they use the "White Man's Burden": they think they're doing black people a favor by "reeducating" "dumb" and "ignorant" blacks, so that the blacks won't harm themselves and we could all go back to the old days of slavery.

Similarly with the Westboro Baptist Church: they'll say they don't necessarily hate gay people, but they in fact love them. They'll quote from the bible "Hate the sin, love the sinner" and go on about how they're trying to "save" gay people from burning in Hell, or at least prevent others around them from falling into the same sin. To justify themselves, they'll talk about "protecting" "family values" and their fellow Christians from sin. To even talk about helping out gay people is in their eyes an assault on "family values".

Do you think "family values" is a conspiracy? Do you see the pattern emerging? In all cases, the group will use the excuse of "protecting" X in order to attack Y, even though Y may have nothing to do with X. For KKK, they are protecting the "White Man's Burden" by attacking black people; for the WBC they are protecting "family values" by attacking gay people; and for GamerGaters they are protecting "journalism ethics" by attacking feminists/SJWs.

/r/KotakuInAction Thread