Conservatives have latched onto the idea of hate crimes as the only possible metric for anti-Muslim bias in the United States. Yesterday Jonah Goldberg put forth the argument that Muslims in the U.S. aren't facing any kind of bias as long as they're not being beaten in the streets, and today Mark Hemingway makes a similar argument based on the FBI's most recent hate crime statistics.
This incident will undoubtedly be used by the media to further push the narrative that the controversy over the Mosque near Ground Zero in New York shows how Americans are bigoted against Muslims. So here's some clarifying info from the FBI. According to the latest hate crime statistics available, there were 1,606 hate crime offenses motivated by religious bias in 2008. A closer look: 65.7 percent of them were committed against Jews. Against Muslims? 7.7 percent.
I'm not sure why hate crimes are being used as the metric here except that the numbers tell conservatives what they want to hear. The easiest way to find out whether there's anti-Muslim bias in the U.S. is to take a look at any number of the available surveys showing negative views of Muslims and Islam to be pretty widespread. For example, this Gallup poll showing that 43 percent of Americans admit feeling some level of bias towards Muslims, or this recent Pew Poll showing that a growing plurality see Islam negatively, while in 2005 a plurality saw Islam favorably. The good news is that while a majority oppose the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero, they still support the rights of Muslims to build mosques over the objections of their neighbors (although Republicans are more likely to support the opposite view). Still probably cold comfort to the folks facing anti-mosque protests around the country.
This recent TIME poll offers a bit better news, showing that 52% of Americans generally see American Muslims as "patriotic Americans who believe in American values," but that still leaves an uncomfortably high number of people who either disagree or can't decide. Just to put this in perspective, a poll commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League last year showed anti-Semitic views in the U.S. at a historic low, at twelve percent. But the highest number of Americans who held such views in 1964, 29 percent, is still less alarming than the numbers surveying anti-Muslim bias in any of the other polls I've mentioned.
Those hate crimes statistics don't tell us much about whether or not anti-Muslim bias is widespread. They tell us that anti-Muslim bias crimes aren't getting out of hand and that anti-Semites are more likely to commit bias crimes. But frankly the absence of widespread anti-Muslim violence is a fairly low bar. Yes, if the NBA changed the regulation hoop to being six feet tall I could dunk like Michael Jordan. But it still wouldn't be very impressive.
The standard should be whether or not we're treating Muslims the way we would treat any other religious group. Imagine how uncomfortable you would be about people protesting the construction of a JCCs or synagogues all over the country, and the question of whether or not we're meeting that standard is fairly easy to answer.
