Wave of Hate Crimes Directed at Muslims Breaks Out
Hatewatch details the recent spate of hate crimes against Muslims. While many mosque opponents and hate apologists point to old stats to minimize this recent uptick, few realize how small the Muslim population is and why even a few crimes against Muslims are remarkable in the news.
While the population is estimated to be 2.5 to 5 million by professional demography companies like PEW etc., it’s probably closer to the the less than one percent of the population number than 5 Million figure. Even fewer Muslims than that are overtly identifiable as Muslim, since US Muslims dress like the rest of us. That makes visible targets of hate not only far fewer than other groups, but also harder to identify - and that’s exactly why even a few hate crimes against Muslims are immediately newsworthy.
Like Gays, Muslims are an extremely small minority in the US — and that’s why their rights need protecting with even greater vigor than most other minority groups.
A string of attacks against Muslims and their religious centers has broken out over the past few weeks, apparently inspired by the protests in New York City over the planned Muslim community center and mosque near where the 9/11 attacks took place. Leaders of those protests have repeatedly made hateful statements against Muslims and Islam, with the National Republican Trust Political Action Committee, for example, saying the center is meant “to celebrate [the] murder of 3,000 Americans.”
