From the deadly attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, to the viral videos of Americans harassing their black neighbors undertaking the most pedestrian activities, 2018 has continued to give us more reasons to confront an ugly truth: incidents of racism and intolerance appear to be more common.
But what’s really happening? Is what we’re seeing the result of increased news reporting? Is the growing use of social media a factor? To put things in perspective as we head into a new year, we turn to 10 figures released this year that give us a more nuanced look into the real state of hate today.
31
Number of far-right terrorist attacks in the U.S. in 2017. The most infamous of these attacks was the vehicular attack on protestors in Charlottesville by a white supremacist. More than 30 people were injured, and one person, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, was killed. Between 2007 and 2011, there were five or less such attacks each year; the numbers have been rising ever since.
32
Number of federal hate crime indictments between January 2017 and June 2018. The Department of Justice also convicted a total of 32 defendants on federal hate crime charges in that time period. By contrast, in the last 10 years, the DOJ indicted 88 defendants in 42 hate crimes cases with 64 convictions.
71
Number of times Robert Bowers — the man who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh — used his Gab account to link to racist and anti-Semitic YouTube videos.
148
Number of times Identity Evropa propaganda appeared on college campuses across 26 states in 2017. The white supremacist group’s propaganda continued to surface on dozens of college campuses this year.
387
Number of people killed by domestic extremists in the U.S. between 2008 and 2017.
7,175
Number of hate crimes in 2017 that were reported to the FBI, up from 6,121. Of the 16,149 law enforcement departments that report crimes to the FBI, only 2,040 reported any hate crimes.
20,000
Number of members in just one Facebook group that the company banned in 2018 because it was tied to the violent far-right.
2.72 million
Average monthly unique visitors to the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website.
$1.8 million
Cryptocurrency donations to white supremacist Weev (who runs the technical side of the Daily Stormer website alongside editor Andrew Anglinthe and whose real name is Andrew Alan Escher Auernheimer).
4.2 million
Anti-Semitic tweets and retweets in English over the 12-month period ending in January 2018.
Sources: 1. “The Rise of Far-Right Extremism in the United States,” Center for Strategic & International Studies2. Department of Justice3. “Two years after #Pizzagate showed the dangers of hateful conspiracies, they’re still rampant on YouTube,” The Washington Post4. Anti-Defamation League profile5. “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2017,” Anti-Defamation League6. FBI Hate Crime Statistics7. “Neo-Nazis benefiting from dramatic rise in racist websites to spread hate and incite violence, UN warns,” The Independent8. Self-reported by the Daily Stormer, June 2018.9. "Bitcoin Donations To Neo-Nazis Are Climbing Ahead Of This Weekend's Unite The Right Rally,” Forbes 10. ADL’s Center on Extremism