RACE-BASED HATE CRIMES

Black Americans Are Still Most Likely Victims of Hate Crimes

Our society has never uprooted racist worldviews

AI-generated image of a Black man standing near a group of buildings | created by author using CANVA

It may surprise some to learn that Black Americans are still the most likely victims of hate crimes in this country. Many are convinced that we’re living in a post-racial society or that racial violence is a thing of the past, something we only reflect upon in watching films like Mississippi Burning (1989) or The Great Debators (2007), but they’d be sorely mistaken. Race-based hate crimes are by far the most prevalent in this country, and based on FBI-reported data, anti-black incidents were “three times higher than the next racial or ethnic category.”

Of course, researchers have cautioned that the FBI is only providing an estimate since police departments do not uniformly report hate crimes. As Sergio Olmos wrote for NPR, “Only 11,883 agencies out of 18,812 city, state, municipal and tribal law enforcement agencies around the county sent data to the FBI, down from 15,138 in 2020.” Their analysis demonstrates that many police departments are failing to report hate crimes and ensure they’re classified properly. Combined with the fact that many are hesitant to report incidents because of negative experiences with law enforcement, it’s likely the rate of hate crimes represents…