Racial tensions, the proliferation of hate groups, hundreds of racially motivated crimes, constantly present segregation all show that racism in America is alive and well, especially in these 16 most racist cities in the United States in 2017, which we ranked by the number of racially motivated crimes and segregation index. While it is not easy to measure racism, we believe that these two parameters can be a strong indicator of racial divisions, which are very much present.
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According to Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, the number of hate crimes in America has increased 20% in the largest cities so far, jumping from 690 to 827 throughout the same period last year. The Center surveyed 13 largest cities noticing that only two areas with over 250,000 residents recorded the decline in the number of hate incidents – Columbus, Ohio, where hate crimes fall by 1% (from 107 to 106), and Riverside, California, which posted 60% decline (from 5 to 2). The city which has seen the greatest rise in hate incidents so far has been Long Beach, California, where hate incidents have jumped from 3 to 12, which is 300% rise. America most populous city New York has recorded 28.4% increase so far. The report made by Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism points out that if this trend remained through the whole 2017, “it would mark the third consecutive year of annual national increases.”
On the other side, FBI latest report on hate crimes in 2016 shows that the number of hate incidents raised by 5% reaching the number of 6,121, including 6,063 single-bias incidents and 58 multiple-bias incidents. Of all single-bias incidents, 57.5% were racially motivated, and African Americans were the most often targeted, followed by Whites and Hispanics. Compared to the year ago the number of anti-Blacks crimes remained flat, and the increase in the overall number of hate incidents is driven by the rise in the number of religiously motivated and anti-White/anti Latino crimes. Along with hate crimes, the number of hate groups in America also increased from 892 in 2015 to 917 in 2016. Among hate organizations that currently operate in the US a few target racial minorities. Ku Klux Klan, White Nationalists, Racist Skinheads, etc., all believe in the inferiority of non-white people. If you want to find out more about most racist states and most racist cities in the US you can read our previous articles 15 Most Racist States in America Ranked by Hate Crimes in 2017 and 10 Most Racist Cities in America Ranked by Hate Crimes.
Besides hate crimes and hate groups, pronounced segregation is also a sign of racism in America. In last few years there have been many attempts to measure segregation in America’s largest cities – for instance, professors John Logan and Brian Stults of Brown and Florida State University identified segregation in 50 metro areas using 2010 census data, Dustin Cable of University of Virginia created the map of segregation in America, FiveThirtyEight calculated integration/segregation index in 100 most populous cities, and so on. All these sources show how a city’s residents of the same race cluster together, so there is a clear division between white, black and Hispanic neighborhoods. A racial division in space is accompanied by socio-economic differences. In many of below-listed cities, the median household income gap between black and white families is wider than national white/black household earnings’ gap of $22,681. Moreover, black poverty rates are significantly higher in here mentioned place compared to national poverty rate among African Americans of 27.4%.
As said before we took into account two criteria while creating the list of 16 most racist cities in the United States in 2017. Using FBI report about hate crimes in 2016, which were the latest data on this subject, we identified cities where 10 or more racially motivated hate incidents happened last year. Then we relied on FiveThirtyEight’s integration/segregation index in the most populous places to identify most segregated cities in America. Combining these two sources, we come up with this list of most racist cities in the United States in 2017. We also included data about the size of a black population, its income and poverty rates.
