There are so many vectors in legislation, much of it already passed, where racial, ethnic, religious and gender discrimination are both enabled and specifically sanctioned. For example, the United States Supreme Court clearly supported laws (6-3) that legislatures intended to and did restrict minority voters, but lacked specific language naming the discriminated class. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021). The Court reversed a 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruling that the Arizona voting law disproportionately restricted voting access to Black, Latino and Native American voters. In short, if you choose your words well, you can create laws that allow clear discrimination in fact.
As leading GOP political figures embrace “replacement theory” (that minorities hovering at the border are vying to continue to replace White traditional voters), White Christian Nationalism (that Christianity is our national religion, and Christian Whites should control the country, with guns if necessary), QAnon (that there is a deep state of pedophiles trying to usurp traditional White Christian governance) or an anti-CRT/culture war (that we cannot admit to any current gender, racial, ethnic or religious discrimination or teach the countervailing tolerance to our young public school children), hate crimes are soaring. And those dedicated to keeping such issues outside the classroom are pretty much eliminating one of the most basic cures for discrimination and hate crimes.
From its leadership down to grassroots efforts, the Republican Party also has refused for decades to accept any significant legislation, even proposed by its own president (G.W. Bush, for example), to address serious and obvious failures of our current immigration policies. The GOP also tells you that rioters who have killed and injured in trying to take the Capitol to reverse election results are “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” and that the Second Amendment (passed in an era of flintlocks and muskets) allows citizens to own military grade semiautomatic assault weapons as part of a right violently to overthrow a government that does not accede to their right-wing demands.
Even as a significant number of police and sheriff departments have failed to report their 2021 hate crime statistics to the FBI (like Los Angeles and New York City), the numbers that have been received tell is that those hate crime incidents are hardly going away. Roughly 2/3 of these crimes target individuals, and almost a 1/3 are property crime… with a tiny sliver railing at society in general. The above FBI chart breaks down those individual personal attacks. As social media and right-wing mass media provide a well-lighted national platform for hate speech and degrading bias, demonization of people just being themselves becomes acceptable, regardless of the often-violent consequences.
Lest blue state leaders and voters believe that this is simply a red state phenomenon, the facts are quite startling… and different. Shimmeringly blue California is no exception. Even bright blue Los Angeles. Writing for the December 15th Los Angeles Times, Libor Jany and Richard Winton tell it as it is: “Hate crime reports across Los Angeles are up 13% over last year’s record-setting levels, according to LAPD Chief Michel Moore, who said he believes inflammatory rhetoric on social media was contributing to the increase.
“The new statistics, presented at Tuesday’s Police Commission meeting [12/13], showed that with less than two weeks left in the year the city will almost certainly top 2021’s total of 615 reported hate crimes. That tally was the most among large U.S. metropolitan areas, and the third-highest annual total in any U.S. city since the 1970s.
“So far in 2022, crimes against LGBTQ people have risen to 30 from 19 at this time last year, and those against Jewish people have jumped from 72 to 88. But as in other major cities, Black Angelenos remain the most targeted group, the department’s figures show. The number of hate-related incidents involving Black residents jumped 36% to 279, according to the figures.
“The only groups to see a decrease in the number of attacks or other crimes were the city’s Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups, which were victimized in 20% fewer incidents compared with a year ago, when they experienced a sizable uptick in incidents. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta referred to last year’s numbers as ‘an epidemic of hate.’
“These are troubling numbers for L.A. as well as for the region,” Moore said during his presentation… The Los Angeles Police Department deems a hate crime any criminal act motivated by gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or disability.
“Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, said the most recent statistics put L.A. in line with other major cities across the U.S., which have seen increases in reported hate crimes. He said that a significant number of offenders in Los Angeles are people with mental health issues.
“Later in Tuesday’s meeting, Moore blamed the rise, in part, on the growth of racist and bigoted speech online — which often goes unchecked… ‘As I talked to law enforcement professionals and educators on this issue, they believe one of the largest drivers is the expansion of social media and the lack of checks and balances because expression of hate and the fact that it has given individuals who would otherwise have no voice a tremendous platform,’ Moore said… He singled out Kanye West, the performer who now goes by Ye and is facing a backlash because of a recent series of antisemitic and conspiracy-filled rants… ‘We see Kanye West and others that have gone to Twitter and other social media platforms and we’ve seen other platforms such as Parler that have been created solely ... for people with extremist views to have a platform,’ Moore said during Tuesday’s meeting. ‘And that, I think, is dangerous.’”
“Moore’s comments came on the heels of a report last week [early December] by the county Commission on Human Relations that found that hate crimes surged countywide in 2021 to their highest level in two decades.” What is increasingly troubling is the escalation of cultural leaders’ embracing discrimination – even condoning violence – combined with politicians like Ron DeSantis choosing words and policies that seem innocuous on their own, but are bastions of justification for right-wing vitriol, bias and demonization of people being themselves and of no threat to anyone. Particularly those words relating to culture wars, immigration and anti-CRT legislation. As Twitter explodes with ramped-up racism, antisemitism and gender bias.
I’m Peter Dekom, and if you want to eliminate hate crimes, you have to stop teaching and legitimizing hatred… or giving bigots a major platform to spread that hate and bias.
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