Are white supremacists’ attacks becoming a norm in the US?

Across the United States, attacks on racial and religious minorities have been on the increase over the past few years. This month alone, three different attacks on minority groups have been carried out due to their race or religion. 

Last weekend, yelling anti-Semitic slurs, 19-year-old John Earnest stormed into a synagogue in the Californian city of San Diego and opened fire at worshippers during a service on the Jewish holy day of Passover. 

The police investigation revealed that the attacker posted a far-right anti-Semitic and anti-Islam manifesto on social media just hours before the attack that killed one and injured three others. 

In the manifesto, the far-right attacker said he was inspired by the white supremacist terrorist who carried out the horrific mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which was streamed online and left 50 Muslims dead.

However, the attack is just the latest episode in anti-Semitic violence. It came exactly six months after a gunman killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States. 

Just a day before the synagogue attack, a former Iraq War veteran who deliberately drove into a crowd of people, did so because he thought they were Muslims. 

The driver, the 34-year-old Isaiah Peoples, injured eight and put a 13-year-old girl of South Asian descent in a coma with severe brain trauma, a case the police considered as a ‘hate crime’. 

According to police, the driver targeted the pedestrians solely based on their appearance.

"There is new evidence that Peoples intentionally targeted victims based on their race and belief that they were Muslim," said Police Chief Phan Ngo in a statement.

It is not just the western shores of the US that are affected by attacks on minorities, but the south as well. 

Three historic black churches have been burned down in less than two weeks in southern Louisiana state this month. The US police charged 21-year-old white male Holden Matthews with hate crimes. 

Since the 1950s, black churches across the Southern US have been constantly targeted by racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, with arson and armed attacks.

The three century-old churches have been a safe haven for black families for decades during the age of segregation and Jim Crow laws in the 20th Century. 

“It has been especially painful because it reminds us of a very dark past of intimidation and fear,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said at a press conference.

As US President Donald Trump uses the resentments of white Americans over the immigration and changing demographics in the country, the attacks on ethnic and religious minorities have skyrocketed. 

In 2017, Charlottesville became a series of protests in which far-right groups and leftist groups confronted and a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protesters, killing a woman. 

When he was asked about the Charlottesville incident, Trump called both sides “very fine people”. 

The Australian white nationalist who killed 50 Muslims in New Zealand, referred to Trump as “a new symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose” in his manifesto.

The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish NGO, released a report in January 2019, that found at least 50 people, the total number of Americans killed by domestic terrorists in 2018, were murdered by those who have ties to right-wing radical movements. 

As the report states, 2018 marked the fourth-deadliest year since 1970, with white supremacists responsible for the great majority of attacks “almost every year”. It is just an episode in the chain of continuous violence in the US. 

According to the group, from 2009 to 2018, 73 percent of racially and religiously motivated attacks were not carried out by Islamic or black groups but by white supremacists.  

As the 2020 presidential election approaches, the rise of white supremacy and its attacks on religious and ethnic minorities will again be in the spotlight.