U.S. gets ‘A’ in nuclear physics, but flunks hate crime math

A small floral memorial appears to have been placed recently outside Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, four weeks after the deadly shootings in Acworth and Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., April 13, 2021. REUTERS/Bita Honarvar/File Photo

If you’re a science-type Asian American Filipino, you’ll appreciate why Energy Sec. Jennifer Granholm used one of Pres. Joe Biden’s pet phrases to describe what was accomplished by American science today.

The phrase is “BFD.” Big, F—-ng Deal. And the stage of nuclear fusion we find ourselves today is a BFD.

Consider that for decades, scientists have been essentially trying to put the “sun in a bottle,” harness it’s power to produce useable energy.

It hasn’t been easy. But now at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, not far from where I sit in California, scientists have taken hydrogen atoms and exposed them to extremely high temperatures, getting to a stage they call “ignition,” and producing an energy surplus.

In other words, when they lasered all the energy it took to split up the hydrogens, it actually resulted in more leftover energy.

It’s energy that can be used to power your house, cities, a nation. All faster than solar power. All cleaner than fossil fuels like oil and gas. And all of it unlocking the potential of using hydrogen sources like sea water for clean energy. With the Livermore Lab’s success, now we can envision answers to our seemingly insurmountable climate change issues.

This is the BFD.

We can do fusion. We just can’t do hate crime stats. Not in the U.S. And that all made me think of Asian American Filipino Noel Quintana from New York.

When you say hate crimes, during 2021 how can you not think of Noel Quintana, especially at Christmastime.

He is the face of Asian American Hate Crimes in 2021. It was Feb. 3 that year the 61-year-old was on a New York subway standing and praying the rosary. That’s when a man slashed his face from ear to ear. You saw his face that year, so you know hate crimes are real.

So why don’t the numbers add up?

Nuclear fusion, yes? Arithmetic, no.

You do need the numbers if you want decent FBI Hate Crime stats. And if fusion is the “Holy Grail” of physicists, accurate hate crime stats is a similar goal for civil rights activists.

How else can you tell how we’re doing?

On Monday the FBI reported that 7,262 hate crimes were reported in 2021 versus 8,263  in 2020.

It’s down. Hooray? Promised Land stuff?

No. Only about two-thirds of local departments, 11, 883 of 18,812 agencies, reported hate crimes last year, down from more than 90 percent the year before, according to the New York Times.

The Justice Department knows there’s an undercount but released it anyway. And they know why the numbers are wrong. There’s a new National Incident-Based Reporting System that now exists and some cities (like New York City where the FBI isn’t counting Noel Quintana). Some California cities also didn’t submit.

Essentially, it’s a lot of the highly concentrated Asian American places. Coincidence, sure. But it means the FBI’s fake numbers are out there and need a huge asterisk next to them, lest Republicans use the decline in hate crime numbers to say “Racism? Solved it.”

Without the asterisk, MAGA folks would be out thanking the Proud Boys for the downward trend.

Fortunately, there are others studies like that by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, based at California State University, San Bernardino. It reported that hate crimes between 2020 and 2021 increased 15-25 percent in 52 jurisdictions, according to the Times. And the largest increases were attacks on Asian Americans.

And then we have the #STOPAAPIHATE numbers which came out in July this year and recorded two years of hate instances between March 2020 and March 2022.

The number: 11,500

You don’t need to split those atoms. But #STOPAAPHATE is often maligned for including self-reported instances that range from real violence to verbal slights and insults. Harassment, sure? But hate crime? In a broad sense, definitely.

That’s the number when someone asks me what’s up with AAPI hate crimes –11, 500 between March 2020 and 2022.

That’s a number that provides a real sense of what I call our unique hate data acronym, the AAAAPI number, the animus against AAPI.

Sadly, it’s not low.

Which brings us back to the real, but bogus FBI report. The FBI data in this year is a fake number that had to be produced to meet bureaucratic deadlines. But anytime you hear it referenced as “hate crimes are down,” here’s your comeback. It’s incomplete.

Use the #STOPAAPIHATE number instead.

Its report in the summer indicated that two in three (67%) of nearly 11,500 incidents involved harassment, such as verbal or written hate speech or inappropriate gestures.

And it was a diverse group of AAPI individuals who were also female, non-binary, LGBTQIA+, and/or elderly. The haters targeted them from being twofers, threefers, or fourfers, multiple identities at once.

If the point of the numbers is to gauge hate, go broad. Count them all.  Big and small.

Maybe someday will get to the ideal. Zero.

But there’s hope today.

America can destroy hydrogen atoms with high temperature lasers and produce a surplus of energy that can power our homes and our nation, without using fossil fuels.

Surely, if we can do that, we can get the official arithmetic correct on hate crimes in America.

Noel Quintana is not alone.

NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my AAPI micro-talk show. Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.

Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist and commentator. He writes a column for the Inquirer.net’s North American Bureau.