The latest scare being proffered by the media is that it isn’t safe to be an Asian in America. Headlines everywhere read “Asian hate crime is up 150%.”
Is this true? Technically, yes, at least according to the calculations of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino. However, when you look at the actual number of incidents, it becomes clear that violence against Asians is not an epidemic in this country.
The Center notes that there were 49 hate crimes targeted toward Asians in 2019 vs. 122 in 2020 in 16 major American cities (all the while hate crimes in general dropped 7%). That’s right. Only 122 hate crimes. This represents just 0.0000042% of the population in those cities![1] What percentage of the Asian population in these cities experienced a hate crime? Just 0.000035% of the 3,449,737 Asian residents. That means only 1 out of 28,277 Asians in those cities experienced a hate crime (and the bulk of these are verbal harassment or intimidation, not violent crime). An Asian living in these cities is more likely to:
- Get hit by a meteorite (1 in 3000)
- Win an Oscar (1 in 11,500)
- Get drafted by the NBA (1 in ~4100)
- Die in a mass shooting (1 in 11,125)
- Get injured by a toilet (1 in 10,000)
- Bowl a perfect game (1 in 11,500)
than be the victim of a hate crime.
According to the Center’s own data, the percentage of hate crimes directed against Asians was significantly lower than their population in those cities. While Asians constitute 12% of the population, they only constitute 7.1% of all hate crimes. So yes, the percentage of hate crimes against Asians increased in 2020, but the number of hate crimes is very small and Asians are underrepresented in the overall number of hate crimes relative to their population.
The 122 hate crimes reported by the Center were isolated to 16 cities, so the total number of hate crimes against Asians in America is much higher. Only 18.8% of Asian Americans live in those 16 cities. If we assume that Asians living in other parts of the country also experience hate crimes at the rate of 1 in every 28,277 Asians, this would result in an additional 528 hate crimes. Added to the 122 from the 16 major cities, and we arrive at a national total of just 650 hate crimes directed against Asians (out of a population of more than 18 million Asians).
While the media has focused on hate crimes against Asians, what’s more relevant is how often Asians are victim to a violent crime, and who is responsible for that crime. According to the FBI, Asians experience the lowest rate of violent crime at just 7.5 incidents per 1000 Asian people, or 2.3% of all violent crimes. In contrast, black people experience 18.7 incidents per 1000 black people, white people 21, and Hispanic people 21.3. Asians are the least likely racial group to experience violent crime in this country.
Who commits these violent crimes against Asians? If you listened to the media, you would think it is white people and the problem is “white supremacy.” If you look at the statistics, however, this narrative is clearly false. Whites were the offenders 29.6% of the time, followed by blacks at 18.9%, other Asians at 17.5%, and Hispanics at 9.7%.[2] While whites make up the largest block of violent offenders against Asians (29.6%), they are severely underrepresented compared to their population size (76%). The same is true of Hispanics (18% of the population vs. 9.7% of the offenders). However, both blacks and Asians are overrepresented compared to their population size. While blacks only constitute 13.4% of the population, they account for 18.9% of Asian victimization. While Asians only constitute 5.6% of the population, they account for 17.5% of Asian victimization. As a percentage of the population, Asians are most likely to be victimized by other Asians, followed by blacks, then Hispanics, and finally whites. Whites are the least likely to victimize an Asian.
Does any of this justify anti-Asian violence? Absolutely not. I oppose all violence against any race by any race. One instance is too many. What this does demonstrate is that the media narrative is false (and harmful). Asians have little to fear in the way of violence, and they surely don’t have any reason to fear white people. What we need on this issue is perspective, not hysteria.
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[1]The total population of these cities is 28,828,767, which represents 8.8% of the total U.S. population.
[2]From the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, October 2017, reporting on violent victimizations for the period of 2012-2015 (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rhovo1215.pdf, table 1). Violent victimizations include “rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault.”
There was no category exclusively for Asians, so the “Asian” figures also include American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander. The statistics do not add up to 100% because there are also categories for single offenders of mixed race (3.6%), multiple offenders of various races (6.1%), and unknown race (14.5%).
Thinking to Believe 
April 1, 2021 at 11:33 am
OMG, You are so bias. You’re downplaying crimes of hatred because most crimes of hate are called hate incidents. You are not fooling anybody by trying to neglect most of the hatred that is not only epidemic but rampant and pervasive in american society. Your crime is a crime of crime of obfuscation that is a typical ploy of politically conservative, often religious speculators which are what believers are, speculators and proud of it.
Empirical evidence does not support your claims which you only take into account the technical, legal definition of Hate Crime.
Spitting on someone, racial slurs, name calling, graffiti, yelling, harassing, go back to your country remarks, slant eyes, chink hatred, none of which is technically called Hate Crimes because it doesn’t meet the legal definition. So this post skirting around the cloak of deception says more about your support of hatred than your defense of Hate Crimes post that it’s no big deal. You should be ashamed of yourself.
The FBI’s 2019 report contains 8,559 bias crimes reported by law enforcement agencies.(AND THOSE ARE UNREPORTED AND YOOU KNOW IT) But in the National Crime Victimization Survey, victims say that they experienced, on average, more than 200,000 hate crimes each year. This suggests that police are missing many hate crimes that have occurred. And conservatives like yourself just sweep it under the rug like it wasn’t even there and call it religious rights. Christian Speculators are known for this hate tactic while “loving your neighbor” on the other side of your smirk.
It is actually disgusting to Jesus that you act this way.
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April 8, 2021 at 11:27 pm
Everyone has a bias. The question is whether or not one’s biases are formed by the facts or contrary to the facts. In this case, they are formed by the facts.
You accuse me of downplaying crimes of hatred by undercounting hate crimes. I’ll address that charge in a moment, but even if I am undercounting, the two conclusions I offered would still hold true: (1) Asians experience the least amount of hate relative to their population compared to other races, and (2) white people are the least likely to commit hate crimes against Asians. Why would these conclusions hold true even if there are more instances of hatred/crime directed toward Asians than I discussed? Because if you are going to include anecdotal claims, you must do so for all races, not just one. While the number of incidents would increase for every racial group, the ratios to each other would remain relatively the same.
As for undercounting, yes, that’s surely true, since there are always more incidents than official reports. However, when analyzing social issues, the only objective basis for doing so is by consulting official numbers. Hearsay reports cannot be quantified. You focus on the number of hate crimes, but if you’ll notice, I expanded the discussion beyond hate crimes to any violent crime against Asians. Those are much higher in quantity than any supposed hate crimes. So I wasn’t just focusing on hate crimes.
And if we are going to include name calling as hate crimes, then surely Christians would be one of the most persecuted people in this country. In fact, it seems you are guilty of hate against Christians. “Religious speculators” isn’t exactly a compliment the late time I checked. I don’t feel any good vibes coming from you toward Christians.
You say I support hatred and defend hate crimes. What slander! I explicitly condemn such in the last paragraph. I’m not defending hate crimes or harassment. What I am defending is the truth against those who peddle the false narrative that violence against Asians is an epidemic in this country and that those responsible for it are white people. People like you immediately charge people like me, who try to put things into perspective using real data vs. a panicked “the sky is falling” response to specific incidents, as hateful or racist. Nonsense. It’s not an either-or. One can still think that certain acts are wrong while pointing out that they are not as widespread as perceived. If a few Christians were killed for their faith every month in this country, I could see many Christians concluding that it was an epidemic and fearing for their lives. In such a situation, I would make the same points I am making now in regards to violence against Asians: it’s rare, statistically speaking, and we have no reason to live in fear that we’ll be next. Would I be condoning the violence by doing so? Obviously not.
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