A Wave of Hate Groups in California? No in Washington, DC

The Southern Poverty Law Center has issued a report listing the total number of hate groups per state which they track.  The categories followed include, the Ku Klux Klan, Neo Nazi, White Nationalist, Racist Skinhead, Christian Identity, Neo-Confederate, Black Separatist, and General Hate.

California is shown to have the most hate groups followed by Florida and Texas.  All states except Hawaii have at least one.  These are also the first, second, and fourth most populous states in the US.  There is a highly significant correlation between the number of groups and the population in that state (r=0.885, p<.001) as seen in the above graph. 

When the number of hate groups in each state is adjusted for the states' population (by dividing the # of groups by the population and multiplying by one million), a different picture emerges.  The US average is 2.99 groups per million persons.  The rankings for the states plus DC are listed below.  Florida is almost exactly at the national average at 3.00 while Texas and California are below with 2.15 and 2.02 groups per million respectively.  A cubic plot was added to the graph below  and was significantly different from zero (r=.281, p=.045).

The states with the top number of groups per million have one outlier, Washington, DC.  With 15 groups for its 632,323 citizens, there are 23.72 groups per million which is almost three times higher than the next highest state, Arkansas.  It could be argued that the district is not really a State and is more of a city.  By comparison New York City has 22 hate groups for it's 8,336,697 citizens giving it a rate of 2.64.  Nearby Baltimore, MD has 7 groups for it's 621,342 citizens giving it a rate of 11.27.  My hometown, Pittsburgh, PA has 2 groups for it's 306,211 citizens giving it a rate of 6.53.  Of DC's 15 groups, four are Black Separatist (including the Nation of Islam), 3 each of White Nationalist (with names like the Center for Economic Studies), Anti-LGBT, and; General Hate, and one each of Anti Immigrant and Anti-Muslim. 

The extreme value for DC is similar to it's being an outlier for income and life expectancy.  In my most read post, I showed that it has the highest per capita income but the lowest life expectancy (2009 data).  The life expectancy of DC has since improved from 51st to 46th while the income ranking has fallen from 1st to a tie for 4th which would still make it an outlier.  I am not a sociologist so I'm not going to speculate as to the reasons for DC's high rate beyond what the data says.

The states that follow DC can be seen in the table below.  28 states are above the national average.  These are mostly in the south, west and midwest.  Vermont (at 6.39) and New Hampshire (at 5.30) are the only eastern states above the national average. My home state, Pennsylvania is slightly ahead of the national average at 3.21.

Rank		state	pop2012	Hate groups	Groups per million
1		District of Columbia	632323	15	23.72
2		Arkansas	2949131	24	8.14
3		Montana	1005141	8	7.96
4		Mississippi	2984926	22	7.37
5		Vermont	626011	4	6.39
6		Tennessee	6456243	37	5.73
7		Idaho	1595728	9	5.64
8		West Virginia	1855413	10	5.39
9		New Hampshire	1320718	7	5.30
10		Georgia	9919945	50	5.04
11		New Jersey	8864590	44	4.96
12		Nebraska	1855525	9	4.85
13		Alabama	4822023	22	4.56
14		Oklahoma	3814820	17	4.46
15		Delaware	917092	4	4.36
16		Louisiana	4601893	20	4.35
17		South Carolina	4723723	20	4.23
18		Indiana	6537334	26	3.98
19		Missouri	6021988	23	3.82
20		South Dakota	833354	3	3.60
21		Wyoming	576412	2	3.47
22		Kentucky	4380415	15	3.42
23		North Carolina	9752073	33	3.38
24		Colorado	5187582	17	3.28
25		Pennsylvania	12763536	41	3.21
26		Virginia	8185867	26	3.18
27		Arizona	6553255	20	3.05
28		Florida	19317568	58	3.00
29		Nevada	2758931	8	2.90
30		New Mexico	2085538	6	2.88
31		Rhode Island	1050292	3	2.86
32		Ohio	11544225	31	2.69
33		Maryland	5884563	15	2.55
34		Oregon	3899353	9	2.31
35		Texas	26059203	57	2.19
36		New York	19570261	42	2.15
37		Utah	2855287	6	2.10
38		California	38041430	77	2.02
39		Michigan	9883360	18	1.82
40		Massachusetts	6646144	12	1.81
41		Illinois	12875255	23	1.79
42		Wisconsin	5726398	10	1.75
43		Kansas	2885905	5	1.73
44		Iowa	3074186	5	1.63
45		Maine	1329192	2	1.50
46		Minnesota	5379139	8	1.49
47		Washington	6897012	10	1.45
48		North Dakota	699628	1	1.43
49		Connecticut	3590347	5	1.39
50		Alaska	731449	1	1.37
51		Hawaii	1392313	0	.00
Total	N	51	51	50	51
a. Limited to first 100 cases.

**Update** 

It's not just in the US where mapping applications are used to track racial incidents.  It's also done in Japan as seen in the video below.



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