NEW YORK (AP) – By 2020, white supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels in the US, according to a new report. provided by the Anti-Defamation League to The Associated Press.
According to Wednesday’s report, there were 5,125 cases of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hateful messages spread through physical flyers, stickers, banners and posters. That’s nearly double the 2,724 cases reported in 2019. Online propaganda is much more difficult to quantify, and those cases are likely to have reached the millions, the anti-hate organization said.
Founded more than a century ago, the ADL said last year marked the highest level of white supremacy propaganda in at least a decade. The report comes as federal authorities are investigating and prosecuting those who stormed the Capitol in January, some of whom are accused of associating with or supporting hate groups and anti-government militias.
“As we try to understand and put into perspective the past four years, we will always have these Charlottesville and Capitol Hill bookends,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the group.
“The reality is that a lot of things happened between those moments that set the stage,” he said.
Christian Picciolini, a former far-right extremist who founded the deradicalization group Free Radicals Project, said the wave of white supremacist propaganda trails and extremist recruiters see crises as an opportunity.
“They use the uncertainty and fear caused by a crisis to win new recruits into their ‘us versus them’ story, painting the ‘other’ as the cause of their pain, grievances or loss,” Picciolini told me. the AP. “The current uncertainty caused by the pandemic, job losses, a heated election, outcry over extrajudicial police killings of black Americans and a national bill fueled by our country’s long tradition of racism has created a perfect storm to keep Americans out. recruiting people who are afraid of change and progress. “
Propaganda, often distributed with the intent of gaining media and online attention, is helping white supremacists normalize their reporting and bolster recruitment efforts, the ADL said in its report. The language used in the propaganda is often veiled with a patriotic slant, making it appear benign to an untrained eye.
But some flyers, stickers and posters are explicitly racist and anti-Semitic. One of the propaganda circulated by the New Jersey European Heritage Association included the words “Black Crimes Matter,” a derisive reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, along with fresh crime statistics about attacks on white victims by black attackers.
A neo-Nazi group known as Folks Front distributed stickers saying ‘White Lives Matter’.
At least 30 known white racist groups were behind hate speech, according to the report. Only three groups – NJEHA, Patriot Front and Nationalist Social Club – accounted for 92% of the activity.
The propaganda appeared in every state except Hawaii. The highest levels were seen in Texas, Washington, California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, according to the report.
Despite the overall increase, the ADL reported a sharp decline in the distribution of white supremacist propaganda in colleges and universities, largely due to the coronavirus pandemic and the lack of students living and studying on campus. There were 303 reports of propaganda on college campuses in 2020, up from 630 in 2019.
Greenblatt acknowledged that freedom of speech enables rhetoric that “we dislike and we detest.” But when that speech incites violence or creates conditions for extremism to normalize, it must be combated, he said.
“There’s no pixie dust you can sprinkle on, like it’s all going to disappear,” Greenblatt said. “We must recognize that the roots of this problem are deep.”
Morrison is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison