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Democracy for Black Americans is under attack, shows civil rights report

State of Black America report reveals an increase in hate crimes, efforts to change classroom curriculums, attempts to make voting more difficult, and extremist views being normalised in state structures.

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Data released this year by the FBI indicated that hate crimes rose between 2020 and 2021. African Americans were disproportionately represented, accounting for 30 percent of the incidents.

Extreme views adopted by some local, state and federal political leaders are among the top threats to democracy for Black Americans, according to the American civil rights organisation National Urban League.

The State of Black America report released on Saturday draws on data and surveys from a number of organizations, including the UCLA Law School, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

The collective findings reveal an increase in recent years in hate crimes and efforts to change classroom curriculums, attempts to make voting more difficult and extremist views being normalised in politics, the military and law enforcement.

Marc Morial, the former New Orleans mayor who leads the organization, cited the most recent example in politics: the vote this month by the Republican-controlled Tennessee House to oust two Black representatives.

The pair had participated in a gun control protest inside the chamber after a shooting killed three students and three staff members at a Nashville school. They were reinstated after an uproar that spread well beyond the state.

Institutional racism

One of the most prominent areas examined in the report is critical race theory, which centres on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation's institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.

Director Taifha Alexander said the Forward Tracking Project, part of the UCLA Law School, began in response to the backlash that followed the protests of the George Floyd killing in 2020 and an executive order that year from then-President Donald Trump restricting diversity training.

The project's website shows that 209 local, state and federal government entities have introduced more than 670 bills, resolutions, executive orders, opinion letters, statements and other measures against critical race theory since September 2020.

Alexander warned the expanded scope of some of those laws, which are having a chilling effect on teaching certain aspects of the country's racial conflicts, will lead to major gaps in understanding history and social justice.

She said one example is the rewriting of Florida elementary school material about civil rights figure Rosa Parks, when mention of race was omitted entirely in one revision.

Florida has been the epicentre of many of the steps, including opposing AP African American studies, but the policies there "have been replicated, or governors in similarly situated states have claimed they will do the same thing," Alexander said.

Violence against African Americans

Other issues in the Urban League report address extremism in the military and law enforcement, energy and climate change, and how current attitudes can affect public policy.

Violence is one of the major areas of concern, especially in light of the 2022 mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The accused shooter left a manifesto raising the “great replacement theory” as a motive.

Data released this year by the FBI indicated that hate crimes rose between 2020 and 2021. African Americans were disproportionately represented, accounting for 30 percent of the incidents in which the bias was known.

Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research with the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, said when all the activities are tabulated, “we see a very clear and concerning threat to America and a disproportionate impact on Black Americans.”