Anti-Asian hate crimes decreased 33% from 2021 to 2022, according to FBI's latest report released last week. The drop reverses the surge of anti-Asian crimes that since 2020, when the pandemic began and the Donald Trump administration began using using anti-Chinese slurs in blaming COVID-19 on China. Because the nation's supposed leader used racist rhetoric in referring to the pandemic, that gave those with racist tendencies to unleash their hidden racism against AANHPI.
Despite the drop in reported hate crimes, Asian American communities remain worried that the trend could reverse quickly depending on deepening tensions between the US and North Korea and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC).
“Anti-Asian hate crimes … are often tied to national security or other kinds of U.S. foreign policy that heightened attention to Asian Americans in the U.S.,” Janelle Wong, senior researcher at the data and civic engagement nonprofit AAPI Data,tells NBC.
“We will expect them to go up again at some point, depending on what the national and international context is and the degree to which places in Asia are cast as a threat to the US.”
Nevertheless, the decrease from 746 to 499 hate incidents does suggest a trend. is attributed to several factors, including diminished opportunity for Covid-related scapegoating, less inflammatory rhetoric from leaders and reporting fatigue, experts say. But not every group saw similar drops.
These reports involved 11,634 criminal incidents and 13,337 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. There were over 11,000 single-bias hate crime incidents involving 13,278 victims and 346 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 433 victims. In 2022, the top three bias categories in single-bias incidents were race/ethnicity/ancestry, religion, and sexual-orientation.
The top bias types within those bias categories by volume of reported hate crime incidents is anti-Black for race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, anti-Jewish for religious bias, and anti-Gay (male) for sexual-orientation bias.
The FBI report only counts those attacks that meet the legal definition of a hate crime, which is a minority of hate incidents that occur against AANHPI. It does not include the verbal and physical harassment, bullying and micro-aggressions that AANHPI have to endure almost daily.
Groups that monitor hate incidents note the increase of attacks against Muslims and South Asians since the start of the Israeli-Hamas War on Oct. 7.
The FBI reports that it “has seen an increase in reports of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions” and said that “recent events have increased the possibility of potential attacks against individuals and institutions in response to developments in the Middle East.”
Jews, Palestinians and Muslims in the US told CNN they’re experiencing a growing fear about bigotry and hatred in the wake of the Hamas attack.
The Anti Defamation Lague reported to CNN that over 312 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7-23, almost a five-fold increase over the same period in 2022.
At the same time, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it is collecting data and has seen an uptick in reports, but did not have numbers to release. “We haven’t had time to do tallies, but we are responding to incidents around the clock,” said CAIR Research Director Corey Saylor.
In a memo to law enforcement agencies in Washington, D.C., the Department of Homeland Security warned that the "escalations in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas almost certainly will increase the threat of terrorism and targeted violence" in the US.
Already, in addition to vandalism and other assorted aggressions against mosques and synagogues, the Middle East conflict likely motivated the stabbing death of a 6-year old Palestinian American boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, in hicago and what appears to be the assassination of Samantha Woll, a Jewish American leader in Detroit.
"Last year’s data also shows that overall hate crime levels remained steady, and hate crimes targeting Asian Americans fell by 38% after I signed legislation to combat anti-Asian hate," said President Biden. "But there’s more to do when it comes to ending hate-fueled violence. That means coming together and speaking out against hate and bigotry in all its forms. All Americans deserve to live their lives with dignity, respect, and safety.
"The data is a reminder that hate never goes away, it only hides," said Biden in response to the FBI report. "Any hate crime is a stain on the soul of America."
“Anti-Asian hate crimes … are often tied to national security or other kinds of U.S. foreign policy that heightened attention to Asian Americans in the U.S.,” Janelle Wong, senior researcher at the data and civic engagement nonprofit AAPI Data,tells NBC.
“We will expect them to go up again at some point, depending on what the national and international context is and the degree to which places in Asia are cast as a threat to the US.”
Despite the lower number of anti-Asian hate crimes, members of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities caution that the FBI data underreports the number of attacks against AANHPI.
One reason for the report is flawed is that law enforcement agencies are not required under the law to report hate crime data to the FBI. Only 14,660 of 18,888 participating law enforcement agencies in the country reported their data to the FBI with a population coverage of 91.7% submitting incident reports. In addition, many crimes are simply never reported to police, says the Southern Poverty Law Center which tracks hate incidents throughout the nation.
Though 46 states and the District of Columbia have hate crime laws, the laws vary widely. In addition, each jurisdiction has its own definition what constitutes a hate crime. Many of the smaller law agencies tend to underreport hate incidents because they don't want to taint the reputation of their community.
One reason for the report is flawed is that law enforcement agencies are not required under the law to report hate crime data to the FBI. Only 14,660 of 18,888 participating law enforcement agencies in the country reported their data to the FBI with a population coverage of 91.7% submitting incident reports. In addition, many crimes are simply never reported to police, says the Southern Poverty Law Center which tracks hate incidents throughout the nation.
Though 46 states and the District of Columbia have hate crime laws, the laws vary widely. In addition, each jurisdiction has its own definition what constitutes a hate crime. Many of the smaller law agencies tend to underreport hate incidents because they don't want to taint the reputation of their community.
Nevertheless, the decrease from 746 to 499 hate incidents does suggest a trend. is attributed to several factors, including diminished opportunity for Covid-related scapegoating, less inflammatory rhetoric from leaders and reporting fatigue, experts say. But not every group saw similar drops.
These reports involved 11,634 criminal incidents and 13,337 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. There were over 11,000 single-bias hate crime incidents involving 13,278 victims and 346 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 433 victims. In 2022, the top three bias categories in single-bias incidents were race/ethnicity/ancestry, religion, and sexual-orientation.
The top bias types within those bias categories by volume of reported hate crime incidents is anti-Black for race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, anti-Jewish for religious bias, and anti-Gay (male) for sexual-orientation bias.
The FBI report only counts those attacks that meet the legal definition of a hate crime, which is a minority of hate incidents that occur against AANHPI. It does not include the verbal and physical harassment, bullying and micro-aggressions that AANHPI have to endure almost daily.
Groups that monitor hate incidents note the increase of attacks against Muslims and South Asians since the start of the Israeli-Hamas War on Oct. 7.
The FBI reports that it “has seen an increase in reports of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions” and said that “recent events have increased the possibility of potential attacks against individuals and institutions in response to developments in the Middle East.”
Jews, Palestinians and Muslims in the US told CNN they’re experiencing a growing fear about bigotry and hatred in the wake of the Hamas attack.
The Anti Defamation Lague reported to CNN that over 312 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7-23, almost a five-fold increase over the same period in 2022.
At the same time, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it is collecting data and has seen an uptick in reports, but did not have numbers to release. “We haven’t had time to do tallies, but we are responding to incidents around the clock,” said CAIR Research Director Corey Saylor.
In a memo to law enforcement agencies in Washington, D.C., the Department of Homeland Security warned that the "escalations in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas almost certainly will increase the threat of terrorism and targeted violence" in the US.
Already, in addition to vandalism and other assorted aggressions against mosques and synagogues, the Middle East conflict likely motivated the stabbing death of a 6-year old Palestinian American boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, in hicago and what appears to be the assassination of Samantha Woll, a Jewish American leader in Detroit.
"Last year’s data also shows that overall hate crime levels remained steady, and hate crimes targeting Asian Americans fell by 38% after I signed legislation to combat anti-Asian hate," said President Biden. "But there’s more to do when it comes to ending hate-fueled violence. That means coming together and speaking out against hate and bigotry in all its forms. All Americans deserve to live their lives with dignity, respect, and safety.
"The data is a reminder that hate never goes away, it only hides," said Biden in response to the FBI report. "Any hate crime is a stain on the soul of America."
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me at Threads.net/eduardodiok, @DioknoEd on Twitter or at the blog Views From the Edge.
No comments:
Post a Comment