It is a common assumption that this is the case and I would not be surprised but how would one measure this? How to gather the evidence to verify such a claim. Of course, the news coming indicates that there are racist incidents following the EU referendum. BUT are they being reported now when they were not subject to newspaper headlines before as it makes for an interesting post-Brexit story? What are the statistics of racism post and pre-Brexit? Did the racists that are accused or shown even vote to Leave? Do they know how to vote?/ Lots of questions. Please link me to an article where there is a direct link - causation - I need to use it for a class. I'm looking too and will share these awful stories.
But, facts - that's what we need rather than assumptions and guesses and stories that highlight issues now that existed even then.
I think there are a lot of factors in the increase of hate crimes, or reporting of them, but I do believe that there is an increase IMHO.
It is usually the case that particular media rhetoric and public discussion can reignite particular types of anger. Post 9/11, a lot of anger and hate, I was chased down the road with my 4 year old son in tow, whilst pregnant with my next child, because any Muslim would do to punish for what had happened.
Same when the EDL were all over the news, and anger towards Muslims was a regular thing being discussed, again I was threatened by racist, who wanted to bottle me in my face, just for being brown.
And now, now I would say the same thing is happening. My son is constantly being called a terrorist at school. He's actually having quite a tough time at the moment because of the constant insults even though he isn't a Muslim either.
This was particularly worse for him last week, where even the school finally witnessed it happening, in which one child at his school said 'soon you'll be gone, and your family too'.
I think perhaps it's similar to mob mentality, you can get a crowd riled up in an unreasonable way. You have constant news showing us what Trump is saying, quite racist tones to some of the Leave posters, which never showed you white EU immigrants coming over here in swarms.
So yea, I mean it just seems to me that realistically it adds up, that the increase in media stories focusing on immigrants and Muslims, would have a knock on effect in generating more hate, or at least making overt hate that was there already.
But I also think another factor that needs to be considered, is that for many of us, especially those of us who believe that a lot of leave voters wanted to leave due to racism (and honestly Jedi, I am still not seeing many comments from people who have other reasons, like you did, the large majority are quite vitriolic in their hate for non-whites and non-brits), are also now hyper aware of it. We feel nervous, on edge, afraid of what is coming next. It's as if we were told we weren't welcome.
Then you do have to consider that the reporting of the rise in hate crime, made people aware of who to contact to report hate crime, which in turn would increase reporting in it.
I think it would be difficult to truly narrow down any one causative factor on this one, since they all tie into each other.
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