In 2020, amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and a social justice movement against police violence and racism, the FBI noted a rise in hate crimes targeting African Americans. The FBI reported that approximately 64.9% of the 8,052 reported hate crimes were motivated by race, ethnicity, or ancestry bias, with Black Americans accounting for more than half of the victims. The number of reported hate crimes against African Americans in 2020 increased to 2,871 from 1,972 in 2019, contributing to an overall 9.1% rise in hate crimes. In the five years leading up to 2019, African Americans were involved in approximately half of all cases involving bias based on race, ethnicity, or ancestry, as per FBI data. Experts who analyze this data warn that the federal numbers may not capture every incident, and that the increase in reported cases could be due to a growing awareness and willingness to report such crimes. However, they suggest that the focus on social justice issues might also contribute to more violence targeting Black Americans. Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, noted that the events of 2020, particularly the protests following the killing of George Floyd, shifted the spotlight onto prejudice against African Americans. Although the national hate crime data for 2021 has not yet been released, experts in this field report that attacks on Black Americans and their institutions have continued. This year, approximately one-third of the nation's historically Black colleges and universities received bomb threats, as did over a dozen houses of worship, faith-based organizations, and academic institutions, according to the FBI. In February, three white Georgia men were found guilty of federal hate crimes for the racially motivated killing of Ahmaud Arbery. The trial drew attention for its direct examination of racism. The FBI releases an annual report on hate crimes, but many police agencies do not submit data and many victims do not report bias crimes to the police, leading to an inaccurate portrayal of the extent of hate crimes nationally. Despite this underreporting, the report still provides valuable insight into overall trends. The Justice Department has recently emphasized the importance of reporting bias crimes and has made prosecuting these crimes a top priority. The FBI released a report last year, based on data from 2020 collected from over 15,000 law enforcement agencies, which revealed a significant increase in hate crimes, particularly against Black and Asian Americans. Hate crimes are defined by the FBI as crimes motivated by bias, ranging from bomb threats to physical violence. Data from the past decade shows that hate crimes against Black Americans, who make up 12.1% of the population, have been consistently higher than those reported against any other group, including those based on religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Over the past decade, there were 20,084 reported instances of anti-Black crimes. During that time period, the second largest category of crimes was anti-Jewish, with 7,688 reports. Even though the Jewish population only makes up about 2.4% of the US adult population, according to Pew Research Center. The man accused of the Buffalo attack, an 18-year-old white individual with a semi-automatic rifle and white supremacist beliefs, carried out the attack in a mostly Black neighborhood far from where he lived. He killed 10 people and injured three others, most of whom were African American. In an online post outlining his plans, the suspect expressed his hatred by writing a racist slur on his weapon and mentioning replacement theory, a far-right notion that the white population is in danger of being replaced by people of color and immigrants. This mass shooting, being investigated as a potential hate crime by the Justice Department, is reminiscent of other racially motivated violence stemming from white supremacy, such as the massacres in a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, a Pittsburgh synagogue, and a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Experts say that the current landscape of hate crimes against African Americans combines both old and new forms of bigotry. It involves the ongoing anxiety about demographic changes and concerns of being "replaced" that are being fueled in certain online communities and exacerbated by racist political speeches. According to Jeannine Bell, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law who specializes in hate crimes, this fear is not new among white supremacists and has been a concern for many years. Bell also links the recent increase in anti-Black hate crimes partly to a backlash against the protests that followed George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis, which stirred up anger towards African Americans. She stated that there was both a significant amount of support and anger present. The media coverage of black victimization had angered white supremacists, as they did not like seeing African Americans portrayed sympathetically. Bell mentioned that it was difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of the rise in hate crimes, but major events such as the protests in the summer of 2020 could serve as a reference point. She also noted that it was likely that there had been an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes. "What occurred? There was an occurrence, a pandemic, and a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes connected to the pandemic began to happen. Hate crimes targeting African Americans are challenging to accurately tally due to a lack of organizations specifically monitoring such incidents. A coalition of national civil rights and social justice groups urged President Joe Biden to hold a summit this week to address hate crimes and right-wing extremism. Rev. Al Sharpton communicated via Twitter that he had discussed the necessity for a summit with two members of Biden's Cabinet: "This demands a swift national response to the increasing crimes." © 2022 The New York Times Company.