Skip to content

New Jersey officials said hate was spiking. The FBI said numbers had fallen. It depends on what you count.

The discrepancy highlights the difficulties of tracking public levels of hate in the U.S. amid differing definitions, rising threats of white supremacy and a national reckoning over racial justice.

A person wearing a face mask reading, "Stop Asian Hate," attends a candlelight vigil in honor of Michelle Alyssa Go, a victim of a subway attack several days earlier, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022, in New York's Times Square.
A person wearing a face mask reading, "Stop Asian Hate," attends a candlelight vigil in honor of Michelle Alyssa Go, a victim of a subway attack several days earlier, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022, in New York's Times Square.Read moreYuki Iwamura / AP
    by David Nakamura, Washington Post
    Published