NAACP Condemns Hate Crimes in New York and Nation
BALTIMORE – The NAACP, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, condemns the most recent episode in the post-election surge in hate incidents: racist sidewalk graffiti on a residential street in Mineola, New York that included swastikas, anti-black and anti-Muslim slurs, and the statement: “Make America White Again.”
“The slogan ‘Make America White Again,’ springs from a poisonous well, watered by the hateful rhetoric of the Trump campaign. The attempts to romanticize an era of our nation history highlighted by racial polarization, has instead, opened a floodgate of hate against America’s most vulnerable groups,” said Cornell William Brooks, President, and CEO of the NAACP.
A startlingly similar incident occurred in upstate New York on November 9, where a baseball dugout in Wellsville, NY was vandalized with swastikas and the same white supremacist play on President-elect Trump’s campaign slogan. Governor Andrew Cuomo immediately ordered a joint investigation by the New York State Police and the State Division of Human Rights.
The two graffiti incidents are examples of 69 cases reported statewide and 867 nationwide incidents of hateful harassment reported to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in the first 10 days after the election. Of the total 867, 32.3 were motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment, 21.6 percent were motivated by anti-black sentiment, and 23.3 percent occurred on November 9 alone.
“The NAACP has been fighting against race hatred for more than a century,” said Dr. Hazel Dukes, President of the NAACP New York State Conference, and member of the National Board of Directors. “We will not sit idly by while cowards attempt to return our society to a time when racist behavior and thought was the norm. I implore the people of the state of New York to stand with the NAACP in refusing to tolerate any such vile displays of hate in our communities.”
The NAACP is calling for thorough investigation of the Mineola, NY incident and continued policing of hate incidents throughout the nation. We will continue to work with our more than 2 million digital activists, nearly half million card-carrying members and 2,200 local units across the country to take legal, legislative and community action against the acts of hate that threaten to ravage and regress our society.
Photo: Cornell William Brooks, President, and CEO of the NAACP.
