Civics: Using FBI data, I computed black and white perpetrators of hate crimes as a percentage of men 18 to 44 years old in their populations

Robert Cherry:

Using 2019 FBI statistics — the most recently available data — I computed black and white perpetrators of hate crimes as a percentage of men 18 to 44 years old in their populations. The black rate was 40 percent, 76 percent and 303 percent higher than the white rate for hate crimes against the Asian/Pacific Island, Latino and LGBTQ communities respectively. Even more troubling, black rates for hate-crime assaultswere 94 percent higher while for property destruction and vandalism, they were 14 percent lower than white rates. 

Evidence from Los Angeles verifies the limited reach of white supremacist actions, particularly with regards to violent crimes and those perpetrated against Asian/Pacific Island, Latino, or LGBQT communities. Its Human Rights Commission found:

‘After declining for two years, white supremacist crimes…accounted for 22 percent of all [2019] hate crimes. Seven out of 10 white supremacist crimes involved vandalism and more than half targeted persons from the Jewish community.’

Disproportionate black behaviors extended to all violent crimes. For 2019, black arrests per male for murders and all violent crimes were, respectively, 4.94 and 2.73 times white arrests per male. And these numbers are before the unprecedented 2020 homicide spike.

Additional commentary via Joshua Chaffin:

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Discrimination against Asians in America was legislated as far back as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited immigration by Chinese workers.

Yet many Asian Americans complain that they are overlooked in the discussion of America’s racial injustices. “In the popular imagination, Asian Americans inhabit a vague purgatorial status: not white enough, nor black enough; distrusted by African Americans, ignored by whites, unless we’re being used by whites to keep the black man down,” writes Cathy Park Hong, the poet and critic, in her recent book of essays, Minor Feelings.

Asian Americans are often regarded as a “model minority” for the economic success achieved by some of their members. It is a label that Hong and others argue is deployed as a means to downplay their suffering.

It certainly does not fit the circumstances of the women murdered in Georgia, four of whom were of Korean descent. Massage parlours often rely on undocumented labourers with few rights or protections.