by Sheila Anne Feeney

December 8, 2016

 

Why do people commit hate crimes — violent, cruel and pointless offenses motivated by a baseless abhorrence or disgust for a group of people they perceive as different from themselves?

NYC officials recently announced that hate crimes have increased by 35 percent this year. Mayor Bill de Blasio put the blame on our new president-elect, Donald Trump, who ran a campaign villainizing immigrants and urging that the names of Muslim people entering the United States go into a registry.

Experts say de Blasio, who asked Trump to become “a force of reconciliation,” is correct in correlating the uptick to Trump’s rhetoric, and echoed his request that Trump forcefully declare that bias crimes are unacceptable.

 

Full article:

http://www.amny.com/news/hate-crimes-on-the-rise-in-nyc-experts-weigh-in-on-why-1.12724934