Tuesday, November 1, 2011

What Will 2010 Hate Crime Stats Show? (Shining yet more statistical light on the dark fantasy of Islamophobia)

Remember the hysterical furor over "Islamophobia" last year? Remember the dire predictions and hyperbolic claims about a wave of hate-crimes against Muslims? Well, sometime this month the FBI plans to release its annual report of Hate Crime Statistics for the year that was 2010, the year of the "Ground Zero Mosque".

I have a non-dire prediction: hate crimes against Muslims will continue to be a negligible fraction of all hate crimes. Meanwhile, hate crimes against Jews, gay people and African Americans will continue to far outnumber those against Muslims.

Here is a direct link to the relevant page at the FBI website:
FBI -- Hate Crime Statistics

In the meantime, check out my overview of last year's FBI report on hate-crimes, along with a few other relevant posts:
Also check out this amusing item just posted at the "Islam In Europe" blog:
France: Prophet Mohammed to 'guest edit' satirical weekly. That's where I got the image at the top of this post.

Finally, let me just point out that the only way to meaningfully contextualize the number of hate crimes committed against Muslims in the US is to compare these tiny, almost statistically insignificant numbers, with the scale of fratricidal bloodshed that Muslims visit upon each other in all of the societies in which they make up the majority. Muslims are far safer, far freer, and far more prosperous in the United States of America than they are anywhere else in the world.