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.

CSUSB professor discusses former NBA player’s sharp criticism of sports media
The Washington Post
June 2, 2021

Thomas Corrigan, associate professor of communication studies, was interviewed for a column on former NBA basketball player Kwame Brown’s sharp criticism of three former players-turned-media sports pundits. Among their comments in a podcast about Brown, the former Washington Wizard who was the first high school player ever to be drafted No. 1, was that he was a failure as a player. Brown responded, in part, that there were bigger issues to talk about than his career.

“With Kwame … you’ve got these ad hominems and naming names sort of exchanges between him and other players, and former players and the media,” said Corrigan, who studies political economy and sports media at California State University San Bernardino, in a phone conversation about Brown’s response. “And it increasingly moved into culture war topics, like how Black athletes are treated.

“It raises questions about the extent to which diversification of newsrooms leads toward more diverse fare,” Corrigan said. “If the assumptions that are baked into what we cover, and how we cover it, are sort of institutionalized across the journalism landscape, it’s hard to step outside of regardless of your background. It’s not to suggest that newsroom diversity isn’t valuable, but it might have limits in terms of its capacity to shift narratives.”

Read the complete article at “Kwame Brown’s critics turned him into a caricature. He responded as a human.”

CSUSB professor consulted in creation of Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s ‘extremist awareness’ training
The Guardian (U.K.)
June 4, 2021

Brian Levin, director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, and Pete Simi, a professor at Chapman University, were two outside experts brought in by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to assist in creating a training program to make its personnel aware of extremist groups and to avoid affiliating with them, the newspaper reported.

Both professors told the Guardian they provided input at several initial meetings with the department, but did not write the presentation or review a final version.

“The focus for me was really the current threat posed by far-right insurrectionist organizations,” Levin said, adding that he didn’t recall discussing Black Panthers or having any major conversation about Antifa (an extreme left-wing movement), and if there were any substantive discussions about the left, he would have made clear that the department should focus on white supremacists.

Training documents reviewed by the Guardian show the Orange County department is also warning about the “extreme left” and Black Panthers, raising concerns about false equivalency.

Read the complete article at “California sheriff warns officers not to join far-right extremist groups, records reveal.”

Global issues fueling a rise in hate crimes across the U.S., CSUSB professor says
KTUL TV Tulsa, Okla./Sinclair Broadcast Group
June 1, 2021

Hate crimes are on the rise and many incidents are caught on camera. Video captures an Asian woman walking innocently down the street and then punched in her face. Other video captures an elderly man pushed to the ground and even an Asian American police officer being assaulted.

Crimes against Asians began increasing during the start of the pandemic, while a recent rise in anti-Semitic incidents is linked to the recent conflict in the Middle East.

Professor Brian Levin the from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism told the National Desk’s Angela Brown these attacks may not slow down.

“Restrictions were lifted and people who were having their ideas validated online are now going out,” said Professor Levin.

The center’s latest data found that anti-Asian hate crimes increased 189% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to first quarter of 2020. The data tends to be worse for larger cities, for example, New York City saw a 262% increase.

Professor Levin says this rise can be attributed to a number of combined factors saying, “we see a combo of different variables influencing a spike in hate crimes, a catalytic event, the reaction to it online and political leaders and how is it sustained over time.”

Watch the segment at “Global issues fueling a rise in hate crimes across the U.S.”

CSUSB professor’s previous interview about the MyMilitia group cited in article
Patch
June 3, 2021

An article about the far-right online group MyMilitia included a previous interview about the group with Brian Levin, director of the CSUSB Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. “MyMilitia has been identified as a key platform that's helped anti-government groups ramp up more support and power than they've had in years,” the news site reported.

In a November 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, Levin said “the MyMilitia site connects people wanting to form militias in their area. He referred to it as ‘almost like Tinder for militia folks. …  I don't want to suggest everyone on there is a bomb-throwing lunatic,’ Levin told the Rolling Stone. ‘But if I were a bomb-throwing lunatic, that'd be a place I'd want to check out.’”

Read the complete article at “Suburban man runs website for far-right extremists.”

 

The CSUSB Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism’s latest research on hate crimes against Asian Americans was cited in the following:

 

Hate crimes, shooting incidents in New York City have surged since last year, NYPD data show
CNN
June 4, 2021

Hate crimes against Asian people in New York City have increased by 335% this year when compared to the same period last year, according to the latest New York Police Department (NYPD) crime statistics report. From Jan. 1 through May 31, the city recorded 87 hate crimes against Asians, compared with 20 such crimes for the same period in 2020, city statistics show.

The news comes amid a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes nationwide this year. Last month, the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State University San Bernardino reported that hate crimes against Asians in 16 of the nation's largest cities and counties were up 164% since the same time last year.

 

Baltimore arts collective focused on Asians emerges from the devastation of the pandemic
The Baltimore Sun
June 2, 2021

The pandemic made the Asian Pasifika Arts Collective rethink the way it does things. The Baltimore collective dedicated to amplifying Asian American and Pacific Indigenous (AAPI) artists had to cancel in-person meetups, happy hours, showcases and workshops. They held a creative writing event online and for the first time reached artists abroad in the UK, Cyprus and India. It also focused on hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.

In Maryland, more than 51 hate crimes against people in the Asian community have been reported. Between March 2020 and March 2021, over 6,600 incidents in the U.S. were reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition addressing anti-Asian racism. Anti-Asian hate crimes have spiked almost 150% since the pandemic began, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino.

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