FBI Figures: Still No ‘Wave of Islamophobia’
Hate crimes reported to U.S. law enforcement agencies declined six percent from 2010 to 2011, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual statistics. The 6,222 reported hate crimes were the fewest since 1994.
“Nearly half of hate crimes reported in 2011 were racially motivated,” The Baltimore Sun noted (“U.S. hate crimes decline,” December 11). Religious bias accounted for nearly one-fifth of the total. “Thirteen percent of the 936 religious bias crimes were anti-Islamic, but the large majority [63.2] were anti-Semitic in nature.”
Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin (“Right Turn,” “Hate-crime incidents down,” December 11) asserted that the total number of religious hate crimes, for a nation of more than 310 million people, “is tiny.”
This comparatively good news contradicts claims, like those made previously by CAIR and others that following al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the United States has experienced a wave of “Islamophobia.” (See, for example, CAMERA’s Special Report, “The Council on American Islamic Relations: Civil Rights, or Extremism?” page 9). If the statistics reported to the FBI are representative, then regardless of war in Afghanistan (and recently Iraq) and terrorism and attempted terrorism by Muslim extremists at home, America remains a pretty tolerant place.
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