Sunday Read Hate crimes rising, says FBI report

GRAPHIC FROM TWITTER

IN 2017, DONALD TRUMP'S first year in office, the number of hate crimes jumped up 17% from the previous year for a total of 7,175 hate crimes, the highest increase since 9/11.

It was the third year in a row that the FBI Hate Crimes Report has shown an increase. Part of the reason for the hike in hate crimes is that 1000 more jurisdictions are taking part in the voluntary program.
However, given that reporting hate crimes to the FBI is not mandatory, the FBI statistics likely represent only a fraction of such violence. Civil rights groups link the increase to Donald Trump statements and policies.

The report released Monday (Nov. 12) found that the majority of hate crime perpetrators were white, 50.7% followed by African Americans 21.3%.

Of the 4,832 single-bias hate crime offenses were motivated by race/ethnicity/ancestry, 3.1% were directed against Asians.

Of those hate crimes motivated by religion, the majority, 58%, were directed at those of the Jewish faith. Anti-Muslim, anti-Sikh and anti-Buddhist, faiths usually associated with Asians and Asian Americans, were targetted in 21% of the hate crimes.

"This report is a call to action—and we will heed that call," said Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. "The Department of Justice’s top priority is to reduce violent crime in America, and hate crimes are violent crimes. They are also despicable violations of our core values as Americans,” 

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Some say Donald Trump's rhetoric has emboldened racist movements in the United States. He said that "there were fine people on both sides," when he addressed the Charlottesville violence.

“I am particularly troubled by the increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes—which were already the most common religious hate crimes in the United States—that is well documented in this report.“

As alarming as the hate crime stats are, the actual number is likely much, much higher because of inconsistencies of the definition of hate crimes among the different agencies that choose to report the incidents. Also, not all law enforcement jurisdictions bother to gather the stats or even to report them to the FBI.

The Anti-Defamation League said some police departments in major U.S. cities didn’t report hate crimes as part of the annual report, including the Honolulu Police Department, Indianapolis Police Department and police in Kansas City, Kansas. Other departments, like the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and police in Miami, Florida and Newark, New Jersey, reported zero hate crimes.

There were also notable hate crimes missing from the FBI report. 

For instance, the murder of Indian American tech worker Srinivas Kuchibhotla is missing. According to FBI statistics, no hate crimes were reported last year in Olathe, Kansas. But on February 22, 2017, Kuchibhotla was killed at a bar in Olathe when a man shot him because of his perceived national origin. His friend Alok Madasani was also targeted but survived the shooting, as did a man named Ian Grillot who attempted to intercede.

The shooter, Adam Purinton, was convicted on federal hate crime charges but the local law enforcement agency didn't officially report it to the FBI as a hate crime. The FBI depends on those local agencies to report hate crimes in their jurisdictions.

Another example that was included in the FBI report was the car attack in Charleston that killed Heather Heyer. Heyer, who was protesting against the Unite the Right demonstrators, was killed when white supremacist James Allen Fields, Jr. drove his car into a crowd.

Although Fields was convicted of a hate crime under state law but authorities failed to include the incident to the Feds as a hate crime.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring on Thursday unveiled legislation aimed at preventing hate crimes and white-supremacist violence as reports of such incidents increase around the country.

It is his third attempt to pass similar legislation. The proposals have so far been blocked by Republicans in the state legislature concerned that they were overly broad and restricted gun rights.

"It is well past time to acknowledge the threat posed by hate and white-supremacist violence and take action to stop it," Herring said.

Next year, FBI personnel will provide training for law enforcement officers on how to identify bias-motivated incidents and report that data to the FBI’s UCR Program. Additionally, the Department of Justice launched a new hate crimes webpage, which has information for law enforcement on reporting incidents.

Some of the highlights of the FBI report includes the following:

Of the 6,370 known offenders: 

• 50.7% were White 
• 21.3% were Black or African American 
• 19.1% race unknown 
• Other races accounted for the remaining known offenders

Of the 5,131 known offenders for whom ethnicity was reported: 

• 25.0% were Not Hispanic or Latino
• 8.8% were Hispanic or Latino 
• 1.6% were in a group of multiple ethnicities 
• 64.5 ethnicity unknown 

In 2017, law enforcement agencies reported that 4,832 single-bias hate crime offenses were motivated by race/ethnicity/ancestry. Of these offenses:

• 48.8 percent were motivated by anti-Black or African American bias.
• 17.5 percent stemmed from anti-White bias. 
• 10.9 percent were classified as anti-Hispanic or Latino bias. 
• 5.8 percent were motivated by anti-American Indian or Alaska Native bias. 
• 4.4 percent were a result of bias against groups of individuals consisting of more than one race (anti-multiple races, group). 
• 3.1 percent resulted from anti-Asian bias. 
• 2.6 percent were classified as anti-Arab bias. 
• 0.4 percent (17 offenses) were motivated by bias of anti-Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. 
• 6.5 percent were the result of an anti-Other Race/Ethnicity/Ancestry bias. 

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,679 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-biased offenses showed:

• 58.1 percent were anti-Jewish. 
• 18.7 percent were anti-Islamic (Muslim). 
• 4.5 percent were anti-Catholic. 
• 3.2 percent were anti-multiple religions, group. 
• 2.4 percent were anti-Protestant. 
• 1.8 percent were anti-Other Christian. 
• 1.4 percent were anti-Sikh. 
• 1.4 percent were anti-Eastern Orthodox (Russian, Greek, Other). 
• 0.9 percent (15 offenses) were anti-Mormon 
• 0.9 percent (15 offenses) were anti-Hindu. 
• 0.8 percent (13 offenses) were anti-Jehovah’s Witness. 
• 0.5 percent (9 offenses) was anti-Buddhist. 
• 0.5 percent (8 offenses) were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc. 
• 4.9 percent were anti-other (unspecified) religion.

Civil rights organizations that maintain their own data on hate crimes, such as the ACLU,  the Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Center, Council for American-Islamic Relations and South Asian American Leading Together mention the harsh rhetoric coming from the White House and Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric as a catalyst for behavior based on prejudice.

“While everybody should be horrified by these jaw-dropping statistics, these numbers still fail to paint a complete picture of the enormity of the problem,” said Sikh Coalition Legal Director Amrith Kaur.


The omission of the Kuchibhotla murder was spotlighted by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) in its critique of the report. 

In SAALT's 2018 report Communities on Fire report found that perpetrators of hate violence referenced Trump, a Trump administration policy, or a Trump campaign slogan in one out of every five hate incidents documented. 

"White supremacist violence, fanned by the flames of racist rhetoric and policies at the federal level, has devastated marginalized communities," said SAALT in a press release.  "Until this administration confronts this crisis, we will continue to face a surge in hate crimes aimed at our communities."

California had the greatest number of hate crimes, but that was due to the fact that it also had the greatest number of jurisdictions reporting hate crimes.

“America’s elected president has mocked the disabled, called Mexicans rapists and murderers, executed a Muslim travel ban, issued disparaging remarks about women and African Americans, and is working to roll back protections for members of our transgender community,” San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón told the San Francisco Chronicle. “The country’s increase in hate crimes should be a surprise to no one, but it should be alarming to all. We look to our elected leaders to set an example.”

As of this writing, Trump hasn't said anything about the FBI report.
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Trump's biggest blunder to date: No to climate change

Business Insider graphic

What San Francisco's waterfront could look like if no action is taken against climate change.

THERE'S NO way of parsing words to say this diplomatically: Donald Trump announced today (May 31) to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate agreement may be his stupidest action yet.

Front page of the Daily News

Stupider (is that a word?) than hiring Michael Flynn at national security chief even though the FBI and a then-cooperative President Obama warned Trump not to do it? Stupider than hiring Steve Bannon, a white supremacist, as senior advisor? Stupider than firing James Comey, who was in the middle of the investigation of the extent of Russia's role in messing around the U.S. presidential elections? Stupider than putting Betsy Devos, a woman who doesn't like public schools -  never attended a public school, never sent any of her children to public school, - in charge of the Department of Education? Stupider than - in a show of playground braggadocio - than revealing classified information to the Russians?

Yes. That's a lot of stupid, (and I can go on and on) but pulling out of the Paris climate accord hammered out after years of negotiations and signed on by every country on the planet (except Nicaragua, which actually wanted stronger sanctions, and Syria) tops them all.


"This is a reckless and foolish mistake, and our kids will pay the price.," said Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resource Defense Council. "The Paris climate accord is a triumph of American leadership. It’s about doing what’s best for our people at home—spurring clean energy innovation and creating millions of good-paying jobs, while protecting our children and communities from pollution. And we got the whole world to join us.

“This is not putting America first: It’s putting fossil fuel profits ahead of the national interest," said Suh, one of the most prominent Asian/American figures in the environmental movement.'

"The world is a very complicated place these days for a lot of reasons, but climate change is the one thing the world agrees on. North Korea signed the Paris accord. Everybody agrees on this," said Suh.

An excellent article by Skeptical Science on the so-called debate over scientific evidence of man's influence on climate shows that it is really no debate at all.

This so-called debate, a fore-runner of the "fake news" strategy being employed to discredit any news artucke critical of the present administration, called for another study for a consensus on the numerous studies being used to argue for or against climate change.

What was concluded by the study by climate scientists - EXPERTS, mind you, not people off the street in disagreement - is that the so-called studies being cited by climate deniers  like Trump and EPA Secretary Soctt Pruitt, are from non-experts, as opposed by the studies by the EXPERTS, which say man is a huge factor in the warming of our planet.

"Pulling out of the Paris Agreement is an irrational decision that is a disastrous step backward, threatens the future viability of our planet for future generations, and abdicates our role of leadership," said California Sen. Kamala Harris.

We all have a stake in stemming the warming temperatures of our planet. Outside of the obvious - that we have nowhere else to go - Earth temperatures are rising faster than normal and will have disastrous impacts around the world. Among the earliest victims of climate change are the island nations such as the Philippines, Samoa, Fiji and the Maldives.

In a paper presented to a scientific gathering in Manila last month, Dr. Josefino "Joey" C. Comiso, a prominent and well-respected Filipino/American senior research scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States concluded:

"At the current rate of decline, the perennial ice in the Arctic, which has persisted in summer for at least 1,450 years, is likely to melt completely within this century and cause drastic changes in the ecology of the region and alterations in the thermohaline global ocean circulation. 

"The rate of sea level rise has increased from 2 mm/year to 3 mm/year but the main concern is the vulnerability of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets which could cause a few meters increase in sea level causing big disruptions in coastal cities around the globe. 

"Warmer sea surface temperature is also expected to cause a higher frequency of heat waves and of extreme events like super-typhoons and flooding. A warmer climate will lead to increases in areas affected by drought and fire and the loss of crop yields and biodiversity. Resiliency to catastrophic events and strategies for adaptation to our changing climate will be discussed."

Current data show an increase in sea surface heights. Scientists say this is due to the melting of ice sheets in northern portions of the globe like Antarctica and Greenland. Sea level rise by 4 to 6 meters can submerge low-lying communities like Tacloban City which stands only 3 meters above sea level.

The creation of tropical cyclones is already being recorded in areas where the phenomenon had never been observed. On Nov 8, 2013, Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), said to be the strongest storm in recorded history, devastated cities in the Visayas region.

NASA

Island nations will be the first to feel the impact of global warming.

If that sounds frightening, the impact on the smaller island nations will be even more disastrous. Kiribati, with a population of 11,000 in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, bought 20 square miles of land on Vanua Levu, one of the Fiji islands, about 2,000 km away as a possible refuge when their country goes underwater.

Other countries or islands in the Maldives, Polynesia and the Philippines will have to deal with mass migrations of people as they abandon their homes to the ocean. This drastic action will set off a chain reaction around the world dealing with climate refugees.

The United States will also suffer. Its coastal communities such as San Francisco and New York City, will have to mitigate the rise in their waterfronts, huge swaths of Florida and Louisiana will go under water including the cities of Miami and New Orleans.

The economic argument used by Trump and his supporters also ring hollow. His own economic advisors, including former Exxon chief and current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and corporate leaders like Tesla's Elon Musk and Disney's Bob Iger have argued to stay with the climate accord. Hours after Trump made his announcement, Musk and Iger resigned from Trump's council of economic advisors.

The job growth in the alternative energy industries are mushrooming and dwarfs any employment lost in coal mining jobs. 

"You look at (it) economically — I talked about fuel economy standards. Tesla was just valued as the highest-valued motor company in the U.S.," said Suh. "That means renewable energy and the clean-tech economy is really present. It’s not just some far-flung thing, both within the context of electric vehicles and within the context of wind and solar. Beyond our electricity grid, we are creating millions of new jobs in the clean and efficient energy sector. Do we need the domestic leadership out of our president and the White House and Congress to take advantage of that and grow that more, or are we going to cede that economic advantage to countries like China and India? I think that’s the larger question."

RELATED: COP21, What does it mean?

But he's turned a deaf ear to the overwhelming evidence and advice in favor of short-sighted demagoguery and the quick and fleeting "win," with his base supporters. The anti-science and anti-intelligence attitudes that have been hallmarks of his campaign and presidency thus far, preferring to tweet those positions as "leftist elitism." 

Trump's announcement will undoubtedly please his base by turning the argument away from the science of climate change to the art of the deal. He claims the U.S. is being economically screwed by the agreement, ignoring the fact that the U.S. is one of the biggest polluters in the world but has profited most from dirtying the air that contributes to the changing climate.

Trump did some bashing of China and India to justify leaving the accord saying these two Asian countries are not doing their share of cleaning up their own industries neglecting to mention that according to the Paris agreement, each country could set their own goals. He could easily have lowered the U.S. goals. (Incidently, blaming those two Asian countries  also satisfies the xenophobes who are afraid of anything foreign.)

The U.S. GDP dwarfs every other nation's, therefore it is only logical to have the country with the greatest ability to contribute, and the country that creates the much of the world's pollution do more and pay more to stem global warming.

Trump tried to appear open to renegotiations but that rings hollow because Trump knows that the other industrial countries would not agree to that. If the world had to start from scratch to reach an agreement, it could be up to the next president to finish the negotiations.

Millions of people around the world took part in the Climate Change march held last April 29.

While Trump gives his supporters what they want, the showman may just be giving them a show. Under the terms of the Paris accord, the U.S. must wait until November 2019 to formally submit his intention to withdraw. At that point, the U.S. enters a one-year waiting period before it’s formally removed. The decision could be reversed by the next president -- or even Trump himself. As a result, the issue will certainly be used against the GOP in the 2018 midterms and in the 2020 presidential election campaign.

"Whatever is agreed within the United States today, with China (the two largest sources of CO2emissions), it will not have a bearing on our future, because already, it's too late for us ... And so we are the canary. But hopefully, that experience will send a very strong message that we might be on the frontline today, but others will be on the frontline next," said Kiribati President Enote Tong in an interview on CNN.

Trump's decision is just plain ... STUPID! But hey, the U.S. is not completely alone. Thank goodness for Syria and Nicaragua to keep Trump company.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, observations, rants and raves from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd