Bias crimes appeared to increase in some cities following the November 8 election of Donald Trump, a trend that has extended into this year with a wave of bomb threats and desecrations of Mosques and Islamic establishments as well as synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, according to California researcher Brian Levin. The White House could not be reached immediately for comment on the research.
The new numbers, collected from police departments, reverse a trend toward fewer hate crimes in many of the cities in recent years. Among US cities, New York reported the greatest number of hate crimes at 380, a 24 per cent increase from 2015, while Washington, D.C., had the largest percentage rise at 62 per cent to 107 incidents.
Overall, there were 1,037 incidents, a 23.3 per cent increase from the previous year in the nine areas researched: New York, Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montgomery County, Maryland, Columbus, Ohio, Seattle, Long Beach, California, and Cincinnati.
Trump in recent weeks has more forcefully denounced the anti-Semitic and other racially motivated incidents, notably at the start of his address to Congress on February 28. Trump has also expressed how he was personally affected, since his daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism and he has Jewish grandchildren.
While some Jewish leaders have suspected the bomb threats may be linked to a higher profile for white nationalists animated by the Trump’s campaign, Levin did not draw that direct link. Bias crimes against Muslims and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people accounted for much of the growth in hate crimes that were reported. Experts say many hate crimes go unreported and caution against drawing conclusions from such data, which have small sample sizes.
By highlighting issues such as race, religion and national origin, the presidential election campaign could have influenced both the number of incidents and frequency of reporting them to police, Levin said. The rhetoric fueled campaign inspired white nationalists to think that America should become a homogenous country – thus leading to attacks against minorities. This has led ultra right leaders like Richard Spencer to say that Trump was in fact a member of the alt-right movement, the name for the far-right racist fringe movement that often subscribes to anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and anti-feminist ideologies.
We must say all such far right nationalists and hate mongers must be opposed vehemently and resisted by the present administration to ensure that further crime rates don’t go up in the near future. The administration must preserve the multi-racial character of the US society at all cost.
