By David J. Rusin
Friday, January 11, 2013
A detailed analysis of FBI statistics covering ten full
calendar years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks reveals that, on a per capita
basis, American Muslims, contrary to spin, have been subjected to hate crimes
less often than other prominent minorities. From 2002 to 2011, Muslims are
estimated to have suffered hate crimes at a frequency of 6.0 incidents per
100,000 per year – 10 percent lower than blacks (6.7), 48 percent lower than
homosexuals and bisexuals (11.5), and 59 percent lower than Jews (14.8).
Americans should keep these numbers in mind whenever Islamists attempt to
silence critics by invoking Muslim victimhood.
The federal government defines a hate crime as a
“criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by
an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin, or
sexual orientation.” Though statutes mandating harsher punishments for
hatred-inspired acts raise the specter of thought crimes, emphasize group
identity over the individual, and seemingly favor certain victims over others,
the FBI’s tracking of such deeds shines important light on the state of the
nation. Annual reports assembled from local law-enforcement data are accessible
on the website of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Especially useful
is Table 1 of each compilation, which summarizes the number of incidents,
offenses, victims, and known offenders for hate crimes committed against
members of different groups.
No class of hate crimes has seen more fluctuation than
anti-Muslim ones. The norm was a few dozen incidents per year in the late
1990s, but the number jumped from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001, a spike attributed
to post-9/11 backlash. However, it dropped to 155 in 2002 and held remarkably
steady through 2006, before falling again to 115 in 2007, 105 in 2008, and 107
in 2009.
Anti-Muslim incidents rose to 160 in 2010, an increase
that Islamists and their mouthpieces eagerly blamed on rampant “Islamophobia,”
particularly opposition to a proposed giant mosque near Ground Zero. Based on
freshly released FBI data, there was little change in 2011, with 157 incidents,
175 offenses, 185 victims, and 138 known offenders. Mark Potok of the reliably
leftist Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which puts foes of radical Islam in
the same category as Klansmen and neo-Nazis, has declared that “hate crimes
against perceived Muslims . . . remained at relatively high levels” as a result
of “Islam-bashing propaganda,” anti-Sharia legislation, and ongoing resistance
to new mosques, relaying that “several were attacked by apparent Islamophobes.”
Note the key word: “several” in a country with at least 2,106 mosques, a few
million Muslims, and 300 million–plus non-Muslims.
As hinted above, the dark portrait of America as a nation
of violent bigots uniquely hostile to Muslims does not withstand quantitative
scrutiny. To smooth out year-to-year variations, consider the past decade
(2002–11) of FBI-recorded hate crimes. There were 1,388 incidents against
Muslims during this span, compared with 25,130 against blacks; 12,030 against
homosexuals and bisexuals; 9,198 against Jews; and 5,057 against Hispanics.
Even majority whites endured 7,185 incidents, while Christians (Protestants and
Catholics combined) were targeted in 1,126 incidents. Adherents of “other religions”
faced 1,335, very close to the anti-Muslim tally.
Due to the different sizes of minority groups, however,
raw numbers cannot tell the complete tale. More insightful are per capita
rates. Some back-of-the-envelope calculations follow.
The U.S. Census Bureau derived the total, Hispanic, and
black populations for 2000 and 2010 from direct counts. Approximating their
evolution with linear models, one can obtain estimates for any non-census year
and, most important, the 2002–11 averages: total (299.2 million), Hispanic
(45.2 million), and black (37.4 million). Surveys indicate that around 3.5
percent of American adults identify as homosexual or bisexual; applying this
percentage to the total population gives a 2002–11 average of 10.5 million. Two
studies have pegged the number of American Jews at about 6.5 million in 2010.
Figures for 2000 vary (5.3–6.2 million), so for simplicity we set the average
Jewish population between 2002 and 2011 at 6.2 million to account for moderate
growth. As for Muslims, whose population estimates have a convoluted history,
reputable recent numbers have been provided by the Pew Research Center (2.75
million in 2011) and the Association of Statisticians of American Religious
Bodies (2.6 million in 2010; full data extractable here), which agree on the
current size and growth rate (around 100,000 per year). The 2002–11 average is
roughly 2.3 million Muslims.
Adding the FBI data yields per capita frequencies of hate
crimes for the past decade. Of the five main minority groups discussed above,
Jews were most likely to experience hate crimes, with 14.8 incidents per
100,000 Jews annually. Homosexuals and bisexuals (combined) came next (11.5),
followed by blacks (6.7), Muslims (6.0), and Hispanics (1.1). Rates for majority
whites and Christians were much smaller.
With hate crimes befalling Muslims far less often than
they do Jews or homosexuals and bisexuals and slightly less often than they
befall blacks, it is clear that anti-Muslim incidents are disproportionate to
those targeting other minorities only in terms of the hype generated on their
behalf. A closer look reinforces this conclusion.
First, despite claims about a surge of prejudice,
anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2010 and 2011 merely returned to the typical
post-9/11 (2002–06) pace of 150–160 incidents per year. Further, a similar number of hate crimes in 2002 and
2011 implies a lower per capita rate in 2011 because of strong population
growth.
Second, what of the Muslim-population estimate? In hopes
of inflating their presumed clout, Islamist groups routinely assert the
existence of around 7 million American Muslims, three times as many as the more
objective measurements. Note, however, that this Islamist-promoted figure
actually would weaken their narrative of anti-Muslim hate crimes, because a
higher population reduces the per capita frequency, thus painting them as even
less significant in a statistical sense.
Third, though 2001, whose rash of hate crimes against
Muslims was an outlier tied to a unique event, has been excluded from the above
analysis, the 2001–11 rate for Muslims was just 7.4 incidents per 100,000 per
year, still far short of that applying to Jews or homosexuals and bisexuals.
Self-pitying Islamists also want us to forget that in spite of 9/11-related
anger, anti-Jewish hate crimes outnumbered anti-Muslim hate crimes that year by
more than two to one.
Fourth, could incomplete data affect the finding that
Muslims are victimized less often than many non-Muslim minorities?
Theoretically, yes, but evidence for this is scant. SPLC talking heads
regularly cite a 2005 Justice Department study, using surveys of victims’
perceptions of whether prejudice had motivated crimes against them, to argue
that the FBI underestimates overall hate crimes by an order of magnitude. Yet
even if those claims are valid, nothing suggests that anti-Muslim crimes are
more or less likely to be ignored than others, which would be necessary to
alter the relative frequencies of hate crimes against different groups. Another
source of incompleteness is that not all local law-enforcement agencies take
part in the FBI’s tabulation, but once again there is no obvious bias here that
would preferentially diminish hate crimes against Muslims. Also note that the
percentage of participating agencies (see the FBI’s Table 12) is large and
slowly climbing, covering 86 percent of the U.S. population in 2002 and 92
percent in 2011, meaning that improved reporting could have helped elevate the
number of FBI-recorded hate crimes in later years. Although this impact is
probably small, it further chips away at the meme of rising hate.
Fifth, consider hate crimes with the worst possible
outcome: death. The subject has been in the headlines after a deranged woman
suspected of murdering a Hindu man, Sunando Sen, by pushing him from a New York
subway platform on December 27 told police that she “hate[s] Hindus and
Muslims,” whom she collectively blames for 9/11, and that she believed Sen to
be Muslim. Following the initial rush to label Sen’s murder a hate crime,
journalists have learned that the alleged murderer had a long history of severe
mental illness, had received only intermittent treatment despite numerous pleas
for help and warnings from the family, and had repeatedly gone off her
medication.
As the usual voices fault “our oversaturated Islamophobic
environment” and “growing anti-Muslim hate,” they neglect to mention how rare
it is for an actual or perceived Muslim to die in a hate crime. By the FBI’s
count, 74 people were killed in hate crimes (“murder and nonnegligent
manslaughter” in Table 4) from 2002 to 2011, but not a single one in an
anti-Muslim incident. Indeed, the FBI lists no anti-Muslim fatalities since
1995, corresponding to the earliest report available.
Why do Islamists obfuscate? The false picture of an
epidemic of physical assaults on Muslims distracts Americans from Islamist
hatred and enshrines Muslims as the country’s leading victim class, a strategy
intended to intimidate citizens into remaining quiet about Islamic supremacism and
lay the groundwork for granting Muslims special privileges and protections at
the expense of others. In short, anti-Muslim hate crimes are a powerful
Islamist weapon.
At its extreme, the desire to achieve victim status in
this manner has fueled the phenomenon of fake hate crimes, through staging,
blatant misrepresentation, or both. An illustrative example is the March 2012
murder of Shaima Alawadi, a hijab-wearing California woman found beaten to
death at home with a note calling her a terrorist beside her body. Islamists
and their credulous media allies pounced at the opportunity to condemn the
supposed tidal wave of “Islamophobia,” even as marital problems emerged as a
potential motive. In November, police arrested Alawadi’s husband.
Genuine hate crimes committed against any group are
deplorable, but they must be placed in the proper context. First, hate crimes
are uncommon across the board. Second, despite hyperbole about “anti-Muslim
violence spiralling out of control in America” and producing “one of the most
hostile moments that the Muslim American community has ever experienced,” the
real story is the amazing tolerance and restraint of the American people.
Imported Muslim fanatics murdered thousands on 9/11, the threat of homegrown
jihad has crystallized, and Islamists abroad continue to slaughter innocents
daily. Though Americans could find no lack of excuses to strike out at their
Muslim neighbors, almost nobody does – and thankfully so. As such, the annual
victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes average between three and four per U.S.
state and would have trouble filling a decent-sized jetliner.
Many Americans take a critical view of Islam, but
virtually all restrict their negative sentiments to the domain of words and
ideas, as civilized human beings should. People are free to have opinions,
including anti-Islamic ones, regardless of how Islamists long to muzzle them.
Islamists, in turn, are entitled to their own opinions about life in America.
But they are not entitled to their own facts.
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