Curing The Systemic Bias Among Us

We often hear that anti-Semitism is a major issue in the United States.

For example, here are a couple of headlines from last week.

Source: https://www.kcci.com/article/antisemitism-rise/44042243#

Source: https://www.campaignlive.com/article/ad-industry-stem-rising-tide-anti-semitism-us/1824750

I have written before about hate crimes in New York City in a blog post in 2021 titled "The Elephant In The Room" in which I wrote this.

Recall that the media narrative has been that President Trump fueled hatred towards Asians by calling out the Chinese Communist Party for its role in causing the pandemic.

Hate crimes against Asians in NYC increased by 33% in 2020 vs. 2019.

The number of such incidents went from 3 to 4!

However, compare that to anti-Semitic hate crimes.

They increased 44% during the year from 119 to 233.

Despite the fact that we hear in the media that Blacks, Gays, Asians or others are targets of hate crimes, the fact is that year in and year out Jews are the targets of more hate crime incidents than any other group.

This is the NYPD Hate Crimes Dashboard covering the last three years of hate crimes in that city.

Source: NYPD Hate Crimes Dashboard

The word cloud on the NYPD website shows the relative number of times each group has been targeted in a hate crime incident.

Over 40% of the hate crimes reported in NYC over the last three years have targeted Jews.

That is almost 5 times the numbers of hate crimes reported against Blacks. over 3 times the numbers involving gays and 2.5 times that of Asians.

There is clearly an element of anti-Semitism in New York City and undoubtedly other places in America as well.

That is why I found the following survey particularly interesting.

It indicates that Jews are viewed more favorably by the U.S. population than any other religious group.

They do not get a negative favorability rating from any other religious group (including Atheists and Agnostics).

Interestingly, the survey did not ask Muslims what they thought of Jews although Jews were asked about their views of Muslims (-8).

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/03/15/americans-feel-more-positive-than-negative-about-jews-mainline-protestants-catholics/

Something does not add up here.

Why do we hear so much about anti-Semitism if this survey is accurate?

Did people lie in this survey so as to not look anti-Semitic?

If that is the case, why did they not feel the same compunction when it came to their views about Evangelical Christians and Mormons? 

This survey suggests that Evangelical Christians and Mormons are the groups that are viewed more unfavorably than any other religious groups in the United States by a wide margin.

Atheists actually score better on overall favorability in the survey than Evangelicals and Mormons.

Mormons have favorable views of every other group in the survey.

However, every one of those other groups does not reciprocate. Each have unfavorable views of Mormons.

Talk about unrequited love!

You see a similar situation between Evangelical Christians and Jews.

Evangelicals give Jews a +39 favorable rating.

However, Jews give Evangelicals a -40 rating.

You could argue that is a charitable rating given that Atheists give a -76 rating to Evangelicals.

Is this also not interesting information considering the emphasis in government, businesses, schools and universities to implement diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.

This survey indicates that there is a strong, systemic bias against Evangelical Christians and Mormons in this country. 

For context, Evangelical Christians are also make up at least 25% of the U.S. population according to the latest Pew Research data. That is larger than the Catholic population (21%). Mormons (1.6%) make up about the same percentage as Jews (1.9%).

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/

I am wondering who will be the first institution or organization to establish some kind of DEI program to insure that Mormons and Evangelical Christians get the same consideration for inclusion and equity that other groups are getting.

Clearly something has to be done to cure the bias that so many have to these religious groups.

Any bets on that happening anytime soon?