Trump win may help legitimise such crime
NEWDELHI: The murder of Indian engineer is the sort of hate crime that has increased since the election of Donald Trump. The murderer, after racist taunts, reportedly yelled “get out of my country” before pulling a gun on Kuchibhotla and another Indian. How much of this can be attributed to the election of Donald Trump to the Oval Office?
The Southern Poverty Law Center recorded a surge in hate crimes across the US in the 10 days after Trump was elected. Normally in single digits, the number surged to over 200 postelection day and reached 867 in the next nine days. Many of the attackers in these incidents invoked Trump. The NYPD also recorded a 115% increase in bias crimes after Trump’s election victory.
Though that surge has since levelled off, it has done so at a higher level than where it was before. The SPLC’s says the number of hate groups in the US rose in 2016 because “the radical right was energised by the candidacy of Trump.” New York police said hate crimes were up over a third in 2016 compared to 2015.
Trump has denounced such attacks, calling for such attackers to “stop it”. But his statements, while campaigning and after assuming the presidency, associating Muslim migration with terror attacks in the US, railing against immigrants of all varieties and, worse, appointing people linked to white supremacist views inevitably help legitimise such acts. The SPLC’s Mark Potok recently said, “In Steve Bannon, these extremists think they finally have an ally who has the president’s ear.”
Muslims have been the primary target. Anti-Muslim hate groups have tripled in number between 2015 and 2017. FBI’s figures show hate crimes against Muslims rose 67% in 2015. While much of this is the fallout of terror attacks in US, 2015 is also the year Trump began campaigning.
Hate crime tends to feed on different strands — some racist, some anti-immigrant and some about religious or cultural biases. Economics plays an important underlying cause. Statistical website fivethirtyeight.com showed last year “income inequality was the most significant determinant of population-adjusted hate crimes and hate incidents across US – for both pre-election and post-election data.” Unfortunately, most of these sociological trends are on the rise. Income inequality is set to increase. Terrorist activity will remain a constant. These, in turn, will feed into greater antiimmigrant sentiment. A VoxMorning Consult poll found safety the main reason for antiimmigrant sentiment.
Generally, a countervailing factor is a political leadership that tries to calm such fears and prejudices. Trump, unfortunately, has rhetorically and in his executive actions done the exact opposite.
The administration should recognise such prejudices cannot be aimed against only specific groups. Once the evil genie is out of the bottle, it turns on everyone. His son-in-law and daughter are both Jewish and his administration pro-Israeli. Yet half of the post-election attacks in New York City were directed against Jews. And nearly 10% were directed against Trump supporters. Ultimately, as Coretta Scott King said, hate “injures the hater more than it injures the hated.”