The report, for those who missed it.
We’re not off to a great start when it starts out, in big bold letters, with:
That church-burning turned out to have been done by a black church member, and is now believed to have not been politically-motivated (cite)
Whatever though, I’ll keep reading.
Since you apparently have some animus to the New York Times and Washington Post, I won’t quote them. Instead I’ll link to the newspaper of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner:
NYPD Reports ‘Huge Spike’ in Hate Crimes Since Donald Trump’s Election
I’m with HurricaneDitka on this one. The many reports in which groups of white men roam the streets and randomly beat up women and minorities while shouting that they’re doing so because of Trump, those I would expect are all completely false. (If there’s evidence to the contrary, I’ll acknowledge it.) For other hate crimes, typically minor acts of vandalism rather than violent assaults, I’d expect that a few were genuine incidents, although I haven’t actually seen any case in which the police confirmed that a hate crime was tied to Trump. Per the link from Kimstu, the number of hate crimes total in 2015 was between 1 and 2 per 100,000 people. (Thus the USA should feel proud of having extremely rare hate crimes, but most of the media doesn’t seem to see it that way.) I expect it will be nearly the same for 2016.
The reason for starting the thread is about the media and how they are trying to shape the narrative. It must be about how Trump ran his campaign around appealing to angry, violent, white men, and the media propagates the story of the fictional hate crime wave to drive that narrative. Likewise the obsessive focus on the KKK. (If every Klansman in existence voted for Trump, they would account for about 0.005% of his voters.) Likewise the claim that David Duke endorsed Trump and Trump refused to reject the endorsement. (A blatant lie.) Likewise the claim that Steve Bannon is a white nationalist, based on a couple Breitbart headlines that he may not have had anything to do with. This is the narrative that the media is pushing all over the place, and it is much more important for the future of the country than a handful of vandalisms.
To regain the public’s trust, the media needs to give up on its false narrative.
Have you examined this claim of yours carefully? Because I can blow it out of the water (except for the “that I read” part), but if you’ll just admit you might have a wee bit of confirmation bias going on, taht won’t be necessary.
Like I said (in the rest of the post that you snipped) “If someone has one or more actual incident they’d like to discuss, I’d be delighted to do so.” I certainly haven’t undertaken an exhaustive effort to prove or disprove every Trump-related hate crime allegation, but the big ones, like the church burning that was the subject of the opening paragraph of your SPLC report, and the couple of “hijab attacks” that got the major media attention, seem to now be proven #FakeNews. Given that there appears to be a dearth of statistical information about post-election hate crimes, if there’s a particular incident you’d like to discuss, “I’d be delighted”.
ETA: and if you don’t have any, maybe we can talk about this one
I’m not participating in this thread, only reading. But I’ll throw this one out.
This sounds awfully like just telling people what they already believe is what is true.
As far as I can see, the current weight of the evidence is that since Trump’s win, bigotry has become more open, as I showed in #23. I’m also open to the idea that faked bigotry is also on the rise, but I go by statistics, not anecdotes.
It is early yet to say that Trump has definitely coarsened America. There isn’t time yet for good peer-reviewed studies to appear. They will.
As far as regaining the public’s trust, why do you think the media lost it?
My answer is that when people payed for their local newspaper – and until quite recently, most people did – they would have to see themselves as fools if they felt they were frequently paying for fake news. People don’t like to see themselves as chumps, so there was an incentive to think that Associated Press reporters actually gather news before they write it down. Now that most Americans are news consuming freeloaders they have an incentive to believe the news isn’t worth much.
Does this point to a way to get people to regain trust? Not at all. It means that regaining trust is not, to a great degree, possible.
However, the uptick in newspaper subscriptions, since the election, is positive. I hope it continues.
Just as long as you recognize there’s more than one false narrative going around. You seem to be buying into the other one, the one where Trump and his cadre are utterly blameless in stoking the fires of public sentiment against minorities and we’re all just hand-wringing about nothing. That narrative is equally untrustworthy, and every bit as manipulative.
(I’m inclined to trust the FBI stats - hate crimes appear to be going up, more generally, but we can’t say for sure what’s been happening since Trump’s election. I don’t fundamentally mistrust SPLC’s numbers on the sole basis that it has an agenda, that would of course be silly, but I do find the anecdotal methodology as discussed here problematic.)
One thing we seem to be missing here is that hate crimes (or, if not crimes, let’s say acts motivated by bigotry) are really not okay regardless of who is committing them and for what reason. Not too long ago, egregiously threatening and racist messages were sent to almost every incoming freshman black student at the University of Pennsylvania, prompting an FBI investigation. I was none too happy about this as a former Penn student, and I believe it was Ditka who assumed, with zero evidence, that this was all perpetrated by some bitter liberal, but honestly I don’t fucking care. Those students were hurt by the actions of whoever did it and even if all of conservatives’ delusional fever dreams came true and every single incident was made up, I’m still pretty fucking concerned that the state of race relations have plummetted so far that people feel they have to make things up for anyone to take racism seriously. (This would NOT excuse the perpetrator’s actions, only explain them.)
Fundamentally, the problem in this country is a lack of empathy for anyone outside our tribe. That’s the true threat the media presents, as it chooses its target audience and does everything in its power to make that audience feel righteous. Trump perpetuates the hell out of that, as do certain liberal media sources, and the hysteria and blunted empathy on both sides of the fence are examples of how fundamentally disconnected we have become.
Thanks!
There seem to be three incidents there. Let’s take them in reverse order of severity.
I know Gov. Cuomo doesn’t like dissenting opinions, but I’m pretty sure that distributing flyers and business cards, no matter how distasteful the organization, is protected by the 1st Amendment (maybe that doesn’t apply in NY anymore, I don’t know). No hate crime here (I think).
Did they ever catch the people who painted swastikas on the train? A (really quick) google search didn’t turn anything up for me. If not, then I’d say there’s just as much of a chance that this is another false-flag operation as the Mississippi church burning. I’m certainly open to the possibility that this was a Trump-inspired hate crime, but we’re a really long ways from “proven” at this point. If there hadn’t been a rash of demonstrably-false incidents similar to this in recent memory, it might be easier to accept it uncritically, but far too often these “i’m-the-victim” stories end up being “i’m-a-liar”, so I’ll have to adopt a wait-and-see-approach here.
As for the last one, it certainly doesn’t fit the normal mode of operation of these false-flag incidents (injury). One thing that’s surprising to me is that this could happen in Grand Central and not be captured on video (or, at least, no video released yet). I just sort of assumed they’d have cameras covering every conceivable angle there. The injury adds a point of credibility in my mind, the lack of video deducts a point. Could be real, might be another fake. I just don’t have any way of knowing.
This is part of what’s getting conflated here. What Shodan, and others, are missing, is that SPLC tracks not only crimes, but also legal hate speech. To be clear: legal hate speech is and should stay legal. We should also be concerned about it. We should not be as concerned about it as we are about actual physical attacks, but we should still be concerned.
If you disagree–if you think that hate speech is hunky dory and not a matter for concern–that’s a different debate.
For me, the idea that a significant amount are hoaxes puts a cloud over all other claims. It’s similar to how continual charges of racism at the slightest hint of provocation or even lack thereof weakens all other claims.
I’d prefer to eliminate the legal concept of a hate crime all together. It’s the crime itself that should be criminalized, not the thoughts while perpetuating them.
In neither case is this salubrious. Hoaxes are despicable actions by stupid people, of course, and if the only point is that there are stupid people across the political spectrum, I agree. But the existences of hoaxers is a known thing. No claim about an instance of hate speech, an instance of a welfare fraud, an instance of Muslims cheering 9/11 on the rooftops of New Jersey, or whatever should be accepted as gospel based merely on a claim.
That said, there ARE instances of hate crimes that have evidence to support them. The SPLC is gathering preliminary data (including a helpful list of likely false reports); the DOJ will gather data more slowly. The OP’s methodology is to scan rightwing cites for as many hoaxes as he can find, mention none of the verified hate crimes, and draw conclusions from only the hoaxes. That’s absurd.
Sure, but that’s another discussion.
SPLC’s Hatewatch is a helpful resource; look especially for their daily roundups.
Their most recent one is from 12/20/16, and links to these stories (summaries are mine):
Third Suspect arrested in the racially-motivated murder of a black musician by three white men
A bunch of leftist activists chanting slogans got attacked by a bunch of dudes chanting “Trump Trump Trump” and the like. (I notice a very strange lack of video here and wonder why; these guys may have been more aggressive than they’re admitting).
Swastikas in Long Island.
Florida woman shouting racial epithets and pointing gun at black people.
So that’s one day’s worth. Two stories are pretty unambiguously hate crimes; two may or may not be.
Their list of false reports doesn’t appear to include the church burning in Mississippi (which was the subject of the opening paragraph of their report). Does that surprise you? It shocked me.
Would it surprise you to see that your cite is dated 12/21/16, the SPLC list was published 12/16/16, and they’ve mentioned going on holiday on 12/20/16?
In my opinion, the influence of certain political events on hate crime should be studied over longer periods of time. In this way, one can see whether there is indeed a specific trend developing under certain conditions.
ITR:
I can see that you THINK you are being rational, but you are not. You even mishandled the analysis your opening post anecdote.
Among your errors, is the assumption you’ve made that if Trump’s various shortcomings as a leader, or the misbehavior of his fanbase really exist, that statistics would show an immediate significant increase in hate crimes. You go on from there, to declaring complete doubt that any of the concerns expressed about the meaning of the recent election results, have any validity at all.
In addition, you have conflated a number of different specific concerns, and a number of individual expressed worries, as though the people who you are talking about are an organized group, who have carefully coordinated everything they talk about before complaining about it.
Ironically, you are yourself performing one of the primary concerns that serious people should, and do have, whenever a “naysayer” takes a leadership role. Someone like you, if put in a position to do so, might assume that all reports of abuses are false, until proven otherwise, and therefore you would encourage anyone willing to abuse and then cover up, to go ahead and do so.
Yes. I did not know / notice that. It’ll be interesting to see if they correct their report quickly or not. Here’s a chance for SPLC to gain considerable credibility in my eyes, or further damage their own reputation. I’ll check back later to see how they handle it.
What’s your take on the Manslaughter/Murder point as regards this?