Hate crimes against Muslims spiked in 2015, according to the FBI. And Donald Trump, who has proposed a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., seems to be making Islamophobia even worse. Immediately after the election, many Americans encountered hate speech, some of which was caught on camera, and on Tuesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center released two new reports that confirm what many have already experienced: There's been a wave of hate incidents nationwide since Trump won the presidential election.
One of the reports, titled "Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election," covers 867 bias-related incidents that happened in the ten days after the election. The other report, "The Trump Effect: The Impact of the 2016 Presidential Election on Our Nation's Schools," surveyed over 10,000 educators (including K-12 as well as college) about how the election has affected their school's climate.
According to the "Ten Days After" report, the 867 incidents happened in a variety of places to a wide variety of people:
Some of the incidents include reports of black children being told to sit in the back of school buses and a church with many immigrants in the congregation being tagged with "Trump Nation" and "Whites Only" graffiti.
According to "The Trump Effect" report, 90 percent of educators said their schools were negatively affected by the election and 80 percent reported that minority students were especially anxious and concerned about how their families might be impacted by Trump's victory.
With that said, the new survey isn't scientific and doesn't represent a random sampling of teachers nationwide, according to CNN. Since educators who are seeing problems are more likely to respond to the survey, the survey might over-represent the levels of anxiety. But there are clearly issues in many of America's schools and classrooms because of the election.
That report also found that 2,500 educators reported specific incidents of bigotry and harassment that were directly traced to election rhetoric:
And both reports suggested Trump is responsible for a significant portion of the incidents:
SPLC President Richard Cohen said in a statement: "Mr. Trump claims he’s surprised his election has unleashed a barrage of hate across the country. But he shouldn’t be. It’s the predictable result of the campaign he waged. Rather than feign surprise, Mr. Trump should take responsibility for what’s occurring, forcefully reject hate and bigotry, reach out to the communities he’s injured, and follow his words with actions to heal the wounds his words have opened."
Trump previously told his supporters to "stop it" when he heard of the hate crimes associated with him. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be listening.
