By TRÂN NGUYỄN | Related Press
SACRAMENTO — Greater than 500 antisemitic acts concentrating on Jewish individuals, together with assault, vandalism and harassment, have been dedicated in California final yr, a rise of greater than 40% from 2021, underscoring a proliferation of hate crimes and extremism within the state, in accordance with a report launched Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL additionally cited growing collaboration amongst extremist and white supremacist teams in a report detailing a variety of hate crimes and violence. California noticed no less than six murders by members of extremist teams in 2021 and 2022 — probably the most within the nation — with three being linked to white supremacist teams, the report discovered.
The report on California comes after the Anti-Defamation League launched one other report, in collaboration with Tel Aviv College’s Heart for the Examine of Modern European Jewry, that reveals antisemitic incidents are at a brand new excessive worldwide, with the upward development intensifying within the U.S.
In California, it discovered no less than 518 antisemitic acts have been dedicated in 2022, second solely to New York with 580 incidents. That determine is a 41% improve from 2021, it mentioned.
“There’s a typical thread that connects each a part of California, north and south, east and west, and that’s hate in all its kinds,” Oren Segal, vp of the Anti-Defamation League Heart of Extremism, mentioned at a information convention Tuesday. “Addressing the proliferation of extremism, antisemitism and hate isn't solely a profound problem, it is likely one of the challenges of our time.”
The civil rights group’s report, known as “Hate within the Golden State”, additionally discovered a rise in native white supremacist teams working collectively to unfold propaganda and strengthen their presence throughout California. It reveals how established teams such because the Proud Boys proceed to focus on native LGBTQ+ occasions, particularly drag queen story hours.
Supremacist or antisemitic teams such because the Goyim Protection League, Lively Golf equipment and the White Lives Matter community are among the many driving forces behind efforts in California to unfold white supremacy ideology and set up anti-LGBTQ+ protests, the report mentioned. Final yr, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 296 cases of white supremacist propaganda being distributed in California, a leap of 91% from 155 cases in 2021.
It additionally particulars violence or harassment dedicated by supporters of QAnon, a baseless conspiracy idea that believed former President Donald Trump was waging a secret marketing campaign towards enemies within the “deep state” in addition to a toddler intercourse trafficking ring run by satanic pedophiles and cannibals. It discovered supporters of the group have been liable for no less than three violent assaults in 2021 and 2022, together with the assault of Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-U.S. Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in San Francisco final yr.
Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, a homosexual Jewish lawmaker from San Francisco, known as the report’s findings “completely horrifying.” Wiener mentioned he has been the goal of hate speech and demise threats.
“We don’t must see statistics to know that there was an explosion of hate and extremism,” Wiener mentioned on the information convention. “We'd like, as a matter of public security and public well being in California, to be very clear that we're going to have a zero-tolerance coverage for this type of extremist bigoted conduct.”
The Anti-Defamation League says it has recorded no less than 400 incidents the place native lawmakers throughout the nation have been harassed or threatened between 2020 and 2022, with 64 cases in California.
California lawmakers and officers try to handle the development. Final week, the Civil Rights Division unveiled a statewide non-emergency hate crime hotline. The hotline, serving as a substitute for regulation enforcement, helps join individuals who expertise or witness hate crimes with numerous assets, together with authorized and psychological well being help.
Democratic Assemblymember Cory Jackson of Riverside, who authored a invoice that might create a hate crime intervention unit inside the California Division of Public Well being, mentioned the extremism motion is gaining traction.
“This motion is properly organized, is properly funded, and so they have a recreation plan, and they're executing that recreation plan,” he mentioned. “That is our alternative to creating positive that we don’t take this frivolously.”