After prolonged campaigning by advocates for the Sikh-American community, the FBI announced this week that they would start monitoring hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindus, and other religious groups, as well as Arab-American and Middle-Eastern communities, according to The Washington Post [2]. Harpreet Saini [1], whose mother was murdered at the mass shooting in Oak Creek, WI last year, said, “This is a step in the right direction to ensure that no one else will have to suffer what my brother and I suffered after losing our mother to a hate crime last August.”

In this video from HuffPost Live [3], anti-hate advocates and Sikh-American advocates discuss the significance of the change, and what more will need to be done to prevent hate crimes and create safe communities in the long term.

Why do people commit hate crimes?

A recent article in The Huffington Post [5] explores the origins of hate violence, arguing that most hate crimes and violent incidents are carried out not by politicized groups but by individuals operating alone. Many of these people are young men who feel alienated by economic hardship and social change.

The article also discusses Puzzles: When Hate Came to Town, a new documentary film that investigates a violent 2006 anti-LGBT hate incident in Bedford, MA, and the divide between the town’s LGBT community and its population of low-income youth, some of them members of a neo-Nazi group. Filmmaker David Pavlosky said, “Puzzles...shows that even the most horrendous crime can be a catalyst for a community to change, grow, and deeply connect.”

 

A new report by Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy [6] reveals some interesting statistics about Asian American, Pacific Islander and Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian (AMEMSA) boys and young men.

 

Certain groups, for example boys of Samoan descent, are often targets of racial profiling. Over half of Asian-American boys are bullied at school, though few report the bullying. For South Asian boys who wear turbans, the rate is 74 percent. The report describes AAPI and AMEMSA boys as being on a “sinking playing field,” with multiple factors including economic inequality, difficulties in education, and racism putting them at a serious disadvantage compared to their white counterparts.

 

See Colorlines [7] for more information on the report.

 

 

A 24-year-old man who attacked a Bangladeshi taxi driver with a knife after making anti-Muslim comments in New York City in 2010 has been sentenced to nine and a half years in prison according to WNYT [9]. The incident took place around the time of the “Ground Zero mosque” controversy.

“This was a horrendous crime against an innocent New Yorker," said District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. in a statement Tuesday. "The victim, a native of Bangladesh and the father of four children, has been working and living in our diverse city for nearly three decades. There is no place for bigotry in New York City."
[9]