If there's one thing the coronavirus outbreak has given us, it's a greater sense of perspective. More than 600,000 American fatalities linked to covid is sobering to consider, especially in the context of other leading causes of death.
That's why the latest report from the FBI of hate-crime incidents seems even more like manufactured news than in years past. We now know the kind of numbers any true pandemic-type affliction racks up, and in relative analysis it's painfully obvious that hate crimes are the furthest thing from epidemic proportions.
If covid had claimed the same number of lives as hate crimes last year--only 22 nationwide, and zero in Arkansas--it would never have made even local headlines, much less commanded national attention.
And yet, most every media outlet feels compelled to report on hate crimes, often with LARGE HEADLINE treatment, despite its decidedly tiny population profile.
"Hate crime reports in U.S. surge" read a CNN headline. "Arkansas hate crimes spiked in 2020" declared a Yahoo News headline. The Makato, Minn., Free Press posted "Our View: Climbing rate of hate crimes affects all of us."
Let's take a closer look at Minnesota's worrisome hate-crime rate. There were a grand total of 194 hate-crime incidents in the 2020 FBI report for the 5.7 million residents of Minnesota. In the traditional "per 100,000 population" metric, that's a rate of 3.4.
Among the worst violent hate-crime categories, there were zero murders, zero rapes, one negligent manslaughter, five robberies and 44 aggravated assaults, for a rate of 0.88 per 100,000 population.
Across the same regular (non-hate) violent-crime categories in Minnesota for 2020, there were 14,589 incidents, with rates rapidly climbing in three of the four categories. The 185 murders (a new state record) were 58 percent higher than 2019, 3,885 robberies were 26 percent higher and 8,203 aggravated assaults were 22 percent higher.
Minnesota's overall violent-crime rate is 257.9, which is nearly 300 times (30,000 percent) higher than its violent hate-crime rate.
And yet, in its editorial, the Free Press says any hate crime is one too many. But more than 14,500 violent crimes isn't?
As is commonly the case, Minnesota's violent crime is centered within its largest cities. Of its 185 murders, for example, 114 (62 percent) occurred in Minneapolis-St. Paul. No other police jurisdiction reported criminal homicides in double digits.
This inverse relationship contrasting an absence of newsworthy numbers with over-sensationalized presentation is particularly galling in states like Arkansas where hate crimes are more rare than snake bites. The Arkansas "spike" Yahoo News crowed about involved an additional 11 incidents over the previous year--but only two additional violent hate crimes.
Eleven. Spread out across three million Arkansans in 75 counties spanning 53,179 square miles. Percentage-wise, Yahoo could whine, an increase from eight incidents in 2019 to 19 in 2020 really is a statistical spike (more than double). But why use percentages (which multiply by 100) instead of whole numbers? And why only look back one year?
2020's hate-crime incident number is only three more than 2018, and five less than 2017. Combining the last five years, Arkansas' 2020 hate-crime count is less than three incidents above the average figure.
Since 2016, with some 3 million Arkansans jostling around in a political environment besieged by and saturated with racial tension, violent hate crimes have averaged less than one per quarter.
Over the past 10 years in Arkansas, there has been exactly one hate-crime murder. Exactly one hate-crime robbery. Exactly one hate-crime weapons violation.
For the 80 percent of the population that only reads headlines, it might look like Arkansas has a hate-crime problem. The actual data scream otherwise.
During the last decade of FBI Uniform Crime Report numbers, however, Arkansans have seen very real "spikes" in regular violent crime, not the Yahoo imaginary kind. Murders for the last four years were all higher than any year going back to 1997.
Aggravated assaults have increased steadily since 2016, and set a new record high each year. The overall violent-crime index for Arkansas reached its highest point ever in 2019, which is also a 29 percent increase since 2013.
There were more murders last year (and in each of the last four years) in Arkansas than there were total hate crimes (violent and nonviolent) over the past combined 10 years.
The omission or lack of perspective taints the truth in anything and can villainously distort perception.
From the start, hate-crime legislation was a flawed political statement that made some victims less precious than others.
"It's not hate that we criminalize by hate-crime laws, but the mistake of directing it against the wrong groups," Paul Greenberg wrote.
The real news is that hate crimes are among the most rare crimes in America. Despite a national population increase of 65 million people since 1995, there were a couple hundred fewer hate crimes in 2020 than there were 25 years ago.
That fact won't get any headlines. And that's the problem.
Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.