NOTE: Faculty, if you are interviewed and quoted by news media, or if your work has been cited, and you have an online link to the article or video, please let us know. Contact us at news@csusb.edu.    

James Fenelon: An advocate for social justice around the world
High Desert Daily
Nov. 16, 2020

Through his writings and his work with the Native American community, James Fenelon, CSUSB professor of sociology and director of the university’s Center for Indigenous Peoples Studies, is an advocate for social justice around the world.

“Social justice, when delivered nationally or globally, is linked to peoples and nations and ethno-racial groups who work for a better more just world for themselves and others,” said Fenelon, who is Lakota/Dakota from Standing Rock (Nation). “Usually this means they are progressing out of colonialism and domination, often in social movements linked to international organizations and structures with justice and equity for all peoples.”

Read the complete article at “James Fenelon: An advocate for social justice around the world.”

CSUSB library faculty member shares research on podcast about 19th century U.S. diplomat Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb
Consolation Prize (George Mason University podcast)
November 2020

Brent Singleton, a faculty member and coordinator for reference services in the John M. Pfau Library at Cal State San Bernardino, served as an expert on two episodes of the podcast Consolation Prize, a program from the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in Virginia.

The programs centered on Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb, a 19th century consul to the Philippines who later led a mission to the U.S. to spread Islam. Singleton is the editor of the book “Yankee Muslim: The Asian Travels of Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb” (Borgo, 2007), as well as the author of many journal articles and chapters relating to Webb, Abdullah Quilliam and the Liverpool Moslem Institute, West African Islam, and Muslim slaves in the Americas.

The episodes that can be heard online are:

Political rhetoric cited by CSUSB professor as a contributing factor to increase in hate crimes
The New York Times
Nov. 16, 2020

Hate crimes in the United States rose to their highest level in more than a decade last year, while more murders motivated by hate were recorded than ever before, the F.B.I. said on Monday.

“Politics plays a role,” said Brian Levin, a professor at California State University, San Bernardino, and the director of the university’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

“The president’s rhetoric has been identified in a series of actual attacks,” Levin added, “but moreover the day-by-day ticks of F.B.I. hate crimes shows there are increases after sustained and fervent remarks by the president that enter into an online feedback loop that also ends up in other discourses, both at the water cooler and on television.”

Read the complete article at “Hate crimes in the U.S. rose to highest level in more than a decade in 2019.”

The Times’ report was picked up worldwide by other news media.

Latest FBI hate crime report ‘signals a new brutal landscape,’ CSUSB professor says
BBC
Nov. 16, 2020

Hate crimes in the US rose to the highest level in more than a decade last year, according to an FBI report. Hate-motivated murders also rose to a record high in 2019, with 51 deaths - more than double the 2018 total.

Hate crimes have been increasing in the US almost every year since 2014. Campaign groups warn this comes amid rising bigotry and racist rhetoric.

"The latest rise in hate crime signals a new brutal landscape, where targeted attacks against rotating victim groups not only result in spikes, but increases are also being driven by a more widely dispersed rise in the most violent offenses," said Brian Levin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, in an interview with VOA News.

Read the complete article at “US hate crime highest in more than a decade – FBI.”

The BBC report was picked up by news media worldwide.

‘We’re in a new era of hate crime and domestic extremism,’ CSUSB professor says
The Orange County Register/Southern California News Group
Nov. 16, 2020

Hate crimes in the United States surged to the highest level in more than a decade in 2019, a year that also recorded the highest number of hate-motivated killings, according to the FBI’s annual report on hate crimes released Monday, Nov. 16.

One of the most disturbing trends in the 2019 hate crimes report, according to Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, is the fact that aggravated assaults rose for the sixth straight year to the highest level since 2001.

Such attacks rose 5.9% from 818 in 2018 to 866 in 2019, and have increased 47% since 2013, the center said Monday in a report analyzing the FBI data.

“The aggravated assaults bothered me the most,” Levin said. “What the data is reflecting is how widespread and diverse the violence is. Even if the massacre in El Paso had not been included, 2019 would have been a record year based on FBI enumeration.”

As with previous years, white supremacist ideology was the main driver behind the deadly incidents, Levin said.

“We’re getting an X-Ray, which when overlaid on to a template of other data, tells me that we’re in a new era of hate crime and domestic extremism,” Levin said.

Read the complete article at “Hate crimes in 2019 reached highest level in a decade, FBI report shows.”

Across-the-board increase in assaults in hate crime report a concern, says CSUSB professor
Daily Kos
Nov. 16, 2020

The website’s David Neiwert wrote: “The deluge of hate crimes unleashed by Donald Trump’s presidency continued unabated during 2019, according to statistics just released by the FBI: The numbers of bias-motivated crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade, with some 7,314 incidents reported, and increase of about 3 percent in an already elevated plateau that began after Trump’s election. It was also the deadliest year on record for hate crimes, part of a trend toward increasing attacks on persons and increasing lethality.

"Not only are hate crimes rising from elevated levels not seen in over a decade, they are increasingly more lethal and violent as white nationalists and other grievance sectors become more aggressive," Brian Levin of the CSUSB Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism told Daily Kos. "Of concern is the across the board increase in assaults, even among groups experiencing overall declines."

Read the complete article at “Even as U.S. hate crimes continue to rise under Trump, police participation continues to decline.”

The interview with Levin was also in a related Daily Kos article, "El Paso white supremacist terror attack hangs heavily over latest FBI hate crimes report."

CSUSB professor comments on violence at weekend pro-Trump demonstration in Washington, D.C.
KBAK TV Bakersfield/Sinclair Broadcast Group
Nov. 16, 2020

The battle over the 2020 election spilled violently into the streets of Washington, D.C. Saturday, as crowds backing President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen clashed with left-wing counter-protesters amid growing concerns about political violence in the United States.

Even after the results of the election are certified, the political strife could get worse before it gets better. Cal State San Bernardino extremism researcher Brian Levin told NPR he feared the D.C. march signaled a “multi-headed hydra” of opposition that would remain active once Biden took office.

"Irrespective of the crowd," Levin said, "the fact that this is being organized shows that the hard, hard right is angling for some kind of activity to show that they have some potency."

Read the complete article at “After violence at DC 'MAGA March,' experts say divisions run deeper than Trump.”

These news clips and others may be viewed at “In the Headlines.”