Ah, hate. In one sense, it’s talked about way, way too much. In another, it’s not talked about enough.
In the wake of last week’s march to protest the Justice Dept.’s handling hate crimes, the FBI has released a report that indicates hate crimes were up almost 10 percent.
Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from the 7,163 incidents reported in 2005…
Only 12,600 of the nation’s more than 17,000 local, county, state and federal police agencies participated in the hate crime reporting program in 2006 and neither Jena nor LaSalle Parish, in which the town is located, were among the agencies reporting.
This stats don’t include Jena, and they also don’t include any of the acts of hate that have occurred in 2007, which might win the prize for being the most hateful year we’ve experienced in the 21st century. Although, I’ll have to check the stats on how Arabs fared around 2002-ish to be sure. []
Not just the Arabs. Check for Indians, Sikhs, Greeks, Italians and anyone who could possibly be confused for an Arab. We know racists aren’t the brightest.