Is Hate Crime a Problem in Long Beach?

Since the inauguration of Donald Trump in January, mainstream political discourse has been rocked by the appearance and proliferation of far-right voices and groups. These groups often espouse racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic views in order to further their agendas. In the midst of this disturbing new climate, multicultural organizations and police departments have warned about the rise of hate crimes and hate incidents across America. Los Angeles is generally thought of as a hub progressivism and tolerance, but a series of press reports about rising hate crime in Long Beach seemed to seriously challenge that notion.

Last August, the LA Weekly published a story by Dennis Romero entitled "L.A. Hate Crime Continues to Surge, but it Has Exploded in Long Beach". The story asserted that Long Beach was experiencing a "preliminary surge of 700 percent this year". Although he cites "preliminary midyear data" from California State University, San Bernardino's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, Romero doesn't actually mention the numbers behind the 700% figure and could not be reached for comment for this story, but it appears to be a comparison between first two months of 2016 versus 2017.

You can scan that QR code and see "I Appreciate and Respect You" in American Sign Language.

When it comes to hate crime in the community and its perceived increase, Sergeant James Richardson of the Long Beach Police Department said, "We like to keep it in perspective. Sometimes it's reported as percentages, and the percentages look larger than they actually are. The rise is minimal."

Two reports by the Long Beach Press-Telegram note that hate crime is rising in Long Beach, but fail to explain the reason for the spike. An earlier article mentions a wave of threats called into local Jewish community centers by an 18-year-old in Israel, but claims that that set of incidents alone does not account for the rise. When asked for comment by the Press-Telegram, Long Beach police Deputy Chief Richard Conant characterized the uptick as "modest" and "extremely small". Richardson said that the threats were "a big part of the uptick." He added, "the numbers speak for themselves."

The "I Appreciate and Respect You" project at CSULB

Is there really a hate crime problem in Long Beach? Is it unprecedented? What's causing it? As of now it's difficult to determine the answers to any of these questions. There has been data reported on by the Long Beach Press-Telegram from public records requests. "Long Beach police received eight reports of hate crimes in the first two months of 2017," they said. "Since then, there have been only four, but all of them have been violent." Richardson said that the total number for this year has now risen to fifteen.

When looking at the potential causes of the spike, one potential answer is that the early-year surge is correlated to the election. CSUSB's research shows that similar increases took place in other US cities. And according to the data, hate crimes seem to have tapered off in intensity since February. Further, between 2015 and 2016, hate crimes actually decreased in Long Beach by 2.

On the campus of California State University, Long Beach, however, hate incidents have been growing in intensity. On Sept. 16th, death threats were called in to members of the La Raza Student Association on campus. The next day, fliers with pictures of Adolf Hitler and the phrase "finish what he started" were place on the windows of the school's multicultural center. Miranda Andrade-Ceja, editor-in-chief of the school's student-run newspaper the Daily 49er, said that she "feels like it has escalated this year." For her, "graffiti on the bathroom walls used to be the norm, and now plastering Nazi fliers is the new norm." In January of this year, a CSULB student found the words "Wetback Lives Don't Matter" in graffiti in a bathroom on campus.

"Prospector Pete" has become a flashpoint of controversy on the CSULB campus.

In response to previous debates about inclusivity and diversity on campus, faculty and members of the campus community created a project called "I Appreciate and Respect You" which seeks to translate the titular phrase in as many languages as possible and place the translations around campus. One of the main locations for them is around the "Prospector Pete" statue, which has drawn criticism in its own right as a mascot. For many, the figure of the "prospector" symbolizes the expropriation of Native American land and racism towards Chinese-Americans.

For Andrade-Ceja, the efforts on campus are insufficient. "I don't think a project like that really has any impact," she said. "I feel like it promotes this eternal tolerance which pushes us away from the conversation that our students are trying to have."

So how can organizations and communities effectively deal with hate in shared spaces? For Peter Levi of the Anti-Defamation League, one of the major parts of the solution is education. "I don't believe anyone is born a bigot," he said. "If certain biases are being cultivated and it's coming out in acts of bigotry, they learn it somewhere so it can be un-learned. And that is the mission I am on."

Levi also views law enforcement as an important component of the community's response to hate crime. "Certainly we have seen a wonderful responsiveness from law enforcement," he said. Levi cited an open town hall held with police and members of the Long Beach Jewish community in the wake of the bomb threats. "Law enforcement doesn't want this in their neighborhoods," he said. "They get it."

Hate crime and hate incidents are certainly present in Long Beach, as in many other communities across the country in 2017. It's still unclear whether or not there is anything specific to the city that is contributing to the spike, or if it is simply an inflated number due to a national wave of bomb threats. Regardless, community groups and law enforcement are working to combat the trend. "We're finding a lot of interesting cooperation to take on this new expression of hate that we are seeing," Levi said. "There's a lot of organizing of folks who want to say there's no place for hate in our communities."

Banner photo credit: Don Ramey Logan, Wikimedia Commons