Friday, December 15, 2017

Ignoring the Truth About Hate Crimes, and Scapegoating Muslims

Here is a very interesting and important statement from MPAC, the primary lobbying organization in Washington on behalf of the American Muslim community:

I have found the work of MPAC in recent years to be credible, important, and well grounded in common American constitutional values.

It raises a very troubling issue, covered in some of the press, that the current administration has formally and as a matter of government policy equated violent extremism with Islam, to the exclusion of other forms of violent extremism.

In America most violent acts of hate are racial, according to the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report, Hate Crimes publication. That said, within then religious hate crime category, the most common form is anti-Semitic in nature, perpetrated by non-Muslims against Jews.

See Hate Crime. (2010, July 15). Retrieved December 11, 2017, from https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/

If we want to make America safe from hate crimes, we must not exaggerate a single and convenient scape goat for political advantage. We must look at the actual facts and patterns of real violence, and organize government policy accordingly.