The number of hate groups in America grew by 4 percent last year, a bump thats a result of racially-charged political rhetoric and organized reaction to that rhetoric from African Americans and others, the Southern Poverty Law Center said Wednesday. In its annual Hate and Extremism Report, the Alabama-based nonprofit counted 954 groups nationally including 75 in California that it said spout racism, bigotry and other forms of speech that demonizes everybody from Muslims and Jews to women, gays and immigrants.