I found these two sections of the much ballyhooed and ultimately worthless anti-bigotry resolution passed on Thursday to be interesting:
Whereas in 2017 the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported a 37 percent increase in hate crimes against Jews or Jewish institutions and found that attacks against Jews or Jewish institutions made up 58.1 percent of all religious-based hate crimes;
and
Whereas the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that hate crimes against Muslims or Muslim institutions in the United States increased by over 99 percent between 2014 and 2016;
Why are FBI stats for antisemitism only quoted for 2017, comparing to 2016, while the stats for anti-Muslim hate crimes are only quoted for 2016 compared to 2014?
Because anti-Muslim hate crimes actually went down in 2017, while antisemitic hate crimes soared! So the resolution authors cherry picked statistics.
In 2014, there were 609 anti-Jewish incidents and 154 anti-Muslim incidents.
In 2016, there were 684 anti-Jewish incidents and 307 anti-Muslim incidents.
In 2017, there were 938 anti-Jewish incidents and 273 anti-Muslim incidents.
But a 77% increase in anti-Muslim incidents from 2014 to 2017, bad as it is, doesn’t sound nearly as bad as the 99% increase from 2014 to 2016. In raw numbers, the increase in antisemitic incidents in 2017 dwarfs the increase in every other kind of bias incident.
This is just is another data point that the resolution is about posturing and not about anyone actually caring about bigotry.
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