NEW YORK (AP) – White supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels in the US in 2020, according to a new report that the Anti-Defamation League provided to The Associated Press.
There were 5,125 cases of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hateful messages spread through physical leaflets, stickers, banners and posters, according to Wednesday’s report. That is almost double the 2,724 cases reported in 2019. Online advertising is much more difficult to quantify and these cases are likely to reach millions, the anti-hate organization said.
ADL, founded more than a century ago, said last year marked the highest level of white supremacist propaganda seen in at least a decade. The report arrives as federal authorities investigate and prosecute those who invaded the US Capitol in January, some of whom are accused of having links to or expressing support for hate groups and anti-government militias.
“As we try to understand and put into perspective the past four years, we will always have these bookends from Charlottesville and Capitol Hill,” said group CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
“The reality is that a lot of things happened between those moments that set the stage,” he said.
Christian Picciolini, a former extreme right-wing extremist who founded the deradicalization group Free Radicals Project, said the increase in white supremacist propaganda banners and extremist recruiters viewed crises as periods of opportunity.
“They use the uncertainty and fear caused by the crisis to win over new recruits for their ‘us versus them’ narrative, painting the ‘other’ as the cause of their pain, complaints or losses,” Picciolini told the AP. “The current uncertainty caused by the pandemic, loss of jobs, a heated election, protest against the extrajudicial deaths of black Americans by the police and a national assessment brought about by the long tradition of racism in our country has created a perfect storm to recruit Americans fearful of change and progress. “
The propaganda, often distributed with the intention of attracting media and online attention, helps white supremacists normalize their messages and reinforce recruitment efforts, ADL said in its report. The language used in advertising is often veiled with a patriotic bias, making it appear benign to an untrained eye.
But some pamphlets, stickers and posters are explicitly racist and anti-Semitic. An advertisement released by the New Jersey European Heritage Association included the words “Black Crimes Matter”, an ironic reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, along with handpicked crime statistics about attacks on white victims by black attackers.
A neo-Nazi group known as Folks Front distributed stickers that include the words “White Lives Matter”.
According to the report, at least 30 well-known white supremacist groups were behind hate propaganda. But three groups – NJEHA, Patriot Front and Nationalist Social Club – accounted for 92% of the activity.
The propaganda appeared in every state except Hawaii. The highest levels were seen in Texas, Washington, California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to the report.
Despite the general increase, ADL reported a sharp decline in the distribution of white supremacist propaganda in colleges and universities, due in large part to the coronavirus pandemic and the lack of students living and studying on campus. There were 303 reports of advertising on university campuses in 2020, compared to 630 in 2019.
Greenblatt acknowledged that freedom of expression rights allow for the rhetoric that “we don’t like and hate.” But when that speech encourages violence or creates conditions to normalize extremism, it must be combated, he said.
“There is no pixie powder that you can spread about it, as if everything is going away,” said Greenblatt. “We need to recognize that the roots of this problem are deep.”
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Morrison is a member of the AP race and ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.