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CSUSB professor reflects on how 9/11 changed Arab and Muslim American
VOA News
Sept. 11, 2021

In the aftermath of 9/11, Brian Levin, director for the Center of the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, said Arabs and Muslims in the United States have had to contend with an increase of hate crimes.  “Anti-Muslim hate crime really had a surge that we hadn't seen before,” says Levin. “So, we went from seeing 30 or less in any given year, give or take, to 481 in 2001, most of them clustered around the two weeks of the World Trade Center and Pentagon (attacks).”

Since then, hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims tend to spike whenever there is an extremist attack overseas, according to Levin, while Muslim achievement often goes unnoticed. 

“What's happened is that anti-Muslim hate and Arabophobic prejudice has been normalized,” he says. “We will see hate crimes rise against various communities, including Muslim Americans and Arab Americans, when there is a significant event going on that in some way casts them in a negative light. … You're not seeing wall-to-wall specials about how we wouldn't have this (COVID-19) vaccine if a Muslim Ph.D. didn't pioneer it. I wonder if we’d see a change in attitudes if we got similar wall-to-wall coverage about Muslim lifesaving.”  

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine was developed by Dr. Ugur Sahin and his wife, Dr. Özlem Türeci, German Muslims of Turkish descent.  

Read the complete article at “How 9/11 Changed Arab and Muslim Americans.”

2020 may be worst year for hate crimes since 2001, CSUSB professor says
USA Today
Sept. 13, 2021

More than 7,700 criminal hate crimes motivated by "bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity" were reported last year, an increase of about 450 incidents since the year before, FBI data shows. In 2020, hate crimes targeting Black people rose to 2,755 from 1,930 the previous year, while attacks against Asians climbed to 274 from 161.

The findings reflect research by the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said center director Brian Levin. The numbers reported by the FBI might even fall short, he said.

“The headlines say 'highest in 12 years,' but if you factor in the limitations of the FBI report, it may actually be more like the highest since 2001,” said Levin, a criminal justice professor.

Levin pointed to discrepancies between the numbers of hate crimes local agencies reported publicly and what is reflected in the report’s state-by-state breakdowns, possibly due to differences in how various agencies defined a hate crime.

Read the complete article at “Amid a rise in hate crimes, Black and Asian Americans are standing together: ‘Solidarity is the answer’.”

Ohio’s completed hate crime data reported to the FBI could make 2020 the worst year for such crimes since 2001
The Washington Post
Sept. 10, 2021

The state of Ohio said it has sent an updated tally of hate crimes to the FBI that would dramatically increase the nationwide total for 2020 to 8,305, the most since 2001 and third-highest since the federal government began tracking such data nearly three decades ago.

Ohio’s new tally of hate crimes was first provided to The Washington Post by Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino, who maintains a database on hate crimes. Ohio’s initial set of data, which reported 34 hate crimes, was short of the actual number of reported crimes, 580, due to a technical glitch.

Levin said Ohio has traditionally provided one of the most comprehensive state accountings of hate-crime data to the federal government. He said the state’s data in the FBI’s initial report was denoted as a partial accounting, which caught his attention.

Read the complete article at “Ohio submits updated hate-crime figures to FBI that would make 2020 U.S. tally highest since 2001.”

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