Hate Crimes and The Rise of White Nationalism 2.0

Following the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on hate crimes and white nationalism on April 9, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law held a panel on April 25 to continue the discussion.

The panel, which took place at the Rayburn House office building, featured four speakers: Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Cassie Miller, Research and Investigations Specialist at the Southern Poverty Law Center; Alfred A. Wilson, Co-Founder of the Heather Heyer Foundation; and Maya Berry, Executive Director of the Arab American Institute.

Clarke acknowledged that the Lawyers’ Committee’s work to stop hate crimes stands among its most important work. She also spoke to the rise in reported hate crimes across the board, and called on Congress to work to stop hate crimes.

“As we face the challenges of increased hate crimes we need the government to use all of its tools to address this problem,” Clarke said. “These are dark times, white supremacy is surging in the United States.”

She said it is critical that a government agency examines enforcement efforts amongst the FBI and the Justice Department, and stated that the Lawyers’ Committee remains focused on the hate crime crisis in front of us all.

Miller described how, amidst a record number of hate groups in existence, there was a nearly 50 percent increase in white supremacy groups specifically in 2018, jumping from 100 to 148 reported white supremacist groups.

“The internet is doing a tremendous job of radicalizing white nationalists,” Miller said. “Without any meaningful content moderation, we can only expect more young white men to carry out these senseless acts of violence.”

She spoke more on where radical white supremacists organize on the internet, and the efficacy — or lack thereof — of actually keeping their content off of sites that have supposedly banned them, calling the failure to moderate a “direct threat to democracy.”

Wilson had the unique perspective of not only seeing his community change after the deadly Charlottesville rally, but of personally knowing the victim. Heather Heyer worked for Wilson, and they were close friends. Wilson said he still gets a different look from people when he tells them he’s from Charlottesville.

“Hate crimes not only impact people, they impact communities,” Wilson said. “Charlottesville is a prime example of this.”

He went on to say how Jasper, Texas — where James Byrd was brutally murdered by white supremacists over 20 years ago — is still suffering in the aftermath. He thinks Charlottesville will be no different.

“They were there to promote fear; they were there to hurt people,” Wilson said of the white supremacists who rallied in Charlottesville.

Berry, who spoke after Wilson, compared Heyer’s murder to the murder of Khalid Jabara, who was shot to death on his front porch in Tulsa, Oklahoma, exactly one year to the day before Heyer was murdered in Charlottesville. Both killings were acts of white supremacism.

Berry also spoke about a study done by the Arab American Institute that shows a 100 percent increase in hate crimes against certain groups (like Arab Americans), and the overarching 20 percent increase in hate crimes in the past two years based on data collected by the federal government. Even with these shocking numbers, Berry explained how hate crimes are often not categorized properly, and thus reported inaccurately and in lower numbers than actually occur.

“It is undoubtable, based on what you heard from my colleagues and myself, that there is a resurgence of hate crime and hate groups,” Berry said.