Pa. is home to more racist incidents than any other state

As a proud Pennsylvanian, I’m alarmed and deeply disturbed by the sharp rise of white supremacist activity in our state, which has gained a foothold and is spreading.

This past week was the anniversary of the murder of 22 innocent people who were shopping in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The shooter posted a white supremacist rant on 8chan, specifically targeting El Paso because of its large population of people of Mexican descent. October will mark the anniversary of the Tree of Life shooting where 11 Jewish people were killed while attending synagogue services in Pittsburgh. Shooters are often inspired by white supremacist ideology, namely the great replacement theory, which claims people of color will replace white Americans.

The Pittsburgh murderer posted his white supremacist rant on Gab. Gab and 8chan are toxic social media platforms rife with extremism and conspiracy theories. Extremist sites like these are cesspools of racism, hatred, and antisemitism. They use the great replacement theory to justify murder in El Paso, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, N.Y., and Christchurch, New Zealand. This shameless hatred has been ushered into the mainstream and is becoming a threat to us all.

The threat is particularly concerning here in Pennsylvania.

The Anti-Defamation League’s latest white supremacist propaganda report showed that Pennsylvania had the highest number of white supremacist incidents in the country. The 2021 report showed 475 incidents across the state, nearly double from the previous year. The report recorded a historically high national total of 4,851 cases of racist and antisemitic messages distributed by white supremacist groups. These groups distribute hate propaganda to accelerate recruitment and spread fear.

Driving the rise in hate incidents is the increased activity of Patriot Front, a white supremacist group responsible for 90% of propaganda in Pennsylvania last year. Its members espouse racism and antisemitism and wrongly maintain that their ancestors conquered America and bequeathed it solely to them. Patriot Front fuses extreme nationalism with neofascist ideology. In 2020, Patriot Front had thousands of followers on Gab.

Gab is one example of how these platforms are used to elevate and spread extremist voices. A 2019 report on genocidal language and conspiracy theories on Gab and 8chan, published by the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Anti-Defamation League, shows how the platform perpetuates homicidal and genocidal fantasies.

Gab continues to spread vile propaganda today. Just last week, Gab CEO Andrew Torba, a Pennsylvania native, spewed hateful anti-Jewish rhetoric: “Christians are done being controlled and told what we’re allowed to do by a 2% minority,” he wrote, referring to Jewish people. With the COVID-19 pandemic and social isolation, white supremacist groups have been promoting their hateful conspiracies further into the mainstream, exploiting people’s fear and anxiety.

Pennsylvanians must stand against this extremist hatred to stop its growth and potential for further violence. Every resident can take action now to help ensure the safety of our community. Here are four ways to start:

If we each do our part to stand up to this hateful extremism, we can create a much safer environment for our children. The future of our state depends on it.

Andrew Goretsky is the regional director for ADL Philadelphia. He worked for more than 20 years in higher education administration and his research is on student engagement and mobile technology.