Sunday, November 13, 2016

There's No 'Post-Election Spate' of Hate Crimes Following Donald Trump's Election

The Southern Poverty Law Center is spreading lies about an imaginary "surge" in post-election hate crimes, and mainstream media outlets are spreading the untruths.

See USA Today, for example, "Post-election spate of hate crimes worse than post-9/11, experts say" (via Memeorandum):
What may seem like a dramatic rise in the number of hate harassment and hate incidents happening across the country in the wake of Tuesday's general election is not in anyone's imagination, experts say.

There indeed has been a spike in the number of reports of such incidents, say representatives for two organizations that track such occurrences. A representative for one group, in fact, said the rise appears to be even worse that what was took place immediately after the terror attacks in 2001.

"Since the election, we've seen a big uptick in incidents of vandalism, threats, intimidation spurred by the rhetoric surrounding Mr. Trump's election," Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., told USA TODAY. "The white supremacists out there are celebrating his victory and many are feeling their oats," Cohen said.
More.

And then see Reason, "There Is No Violent Hate-Crime Wave n 'Trump's America': Please stop spreading unsubstantiated stories of Trump-induced terror":

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Let's get this out of the way: there's no doubt that Donald Trump's policies may pose a direct threat to certain classes of American people. But in the wake of his Tuesday night election as president of the United States, there has been a wave of people worrying for the physical safety of Mexicans, Muslims, and anyone else who isn't white, male, and gender-conforming. The fear seems to legitimately be that there are would-be perpetrators of sexual assault and race-based violence that have been well-behaved so far but will now, emboldened by a President-elect Trump, suddenly go wild with the raping and the hate crimes.

Implausible? I think so. But the narrative has been bolstered by a few high-profile incidents of alleged aggression in Trump's America...
More.

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