The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday provided The Associated Press with a new report that found white supremacist propaganda surged across the country in 2020. There were a reported 5,125 cases of racist, anti-semitic, anti-LGBTQ incidents, plus other disturbing messages that were shared online through stickers, posters, banners and flyers. These incidents led directly to events like the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The instances referenced in the report amount to nearly double the number of hate crime incidents that occurred in 2019. White supremacist propaganda was found in every state, with the exception of Hawaii. The states that saw the highest levels of white supremacy propaganda were Virginia, California, Washington, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
News of the Anti-Defamation League’s report about white supremacist propaganda comes after eight people, including six Asian women, were killed Tuesday evening at three Atlanta-area massage parlors. Robert Aaron Long, 21, the White man accused of committing the murders, told Atlanta police the shootings were not racially motivated, according to the AP. Atlanta’s police chief, however, says they are investigating the shootings as hate crimes, but that it’s too early to make a determination.
Hate crimes against Asian Americans in the U.S. have been on the rise since March 2020, fueled in part by the racist, anti-Asian rhetoric consistently spewed by former President Donald Trump. Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition that addresses anti-Asian discrimination, released a report that found Asian Americans reported being targeted nearly 4,000 times nationwide over the last year. Some Asian Americans say they experienced verbal harassment, shunning, physical assault and had their civil rights violated in the workplace.