The "Tidal Wave" Of Islamophobia That Wasn't

In 2009, hate crimes against Muslims accounted for 1.6% of all hate crimes: 128 out of 7,789 "offenses" in the FBI hate crime database (link to 2009 stats). According to newly released data this ticked up to 2.4% (168 out of 7,699) in 2010 (link to 2010 stats).

In other words, there was a very small increase (both in absolute numbers and in relation to hate crimes as a whole) in anti-Islamic hate crimes in 2010. Meanwhile, religiously motivated crimes against Muslims in America continued to pale in comparison to attacks against African Americans (34% of all hate crimes), gay people (19%), and Jews (12%).

Flying bravely in the face of reality, Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center claims (link) that these same data actually show that there was "a dramatic spike in anti-Muslim hate violence":

Anti-Muslim hate crimes soared by an astounding 50% last year, skyrocketing over 2009 levels in a year marked by the vicious rhetoric of Islam-bashing politicians and activists, especially over the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" in New York City.

This is like saying that in the runup to the New Hampshire Republican primary Michelle ("Cazy Eyes") Bachmann (at 2.3% in the polls) is doing "dramatically" better than Rick ("the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex") Santorum, who languishes at a mere 1.8% (stats from RealClearPolitics here). But most people readily understand that what these numbers really mean is that both Santorum and Bachmann are completely irrelevant and safely ignored.

I don't think religiously motivated crimes should ever be ignored, no matter how few in number they (thankfully!) are. All hate crimes should be condemned, and those who commit them should be treated as the worst kind of criminals. But the simple fact is that the 2010 Ground Zero Mosque brouhaha did not "unleash a tidal wave of Islamophobia", and those who hoped that this would be the case are now exposed as either cravenly cynical propagandists or delusional blowhards.

Related posts from this blog:

• What Will 2010 Hate Crime Stats Show?
  
• No rise in hate-crimes against Muslims in 2009
  
• "We plead for the universality of freedom of expression."
• Islamophobophobia Meets Reality: Shining some statistical light on the dark fantasy of Islamophobia
• "most Americans do not buy the 19 fanatics story"
• The right to oppose Islam

[Pie charts were made using the ahndy tool found here: http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_183_g_1_t_1.html (The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives).]