In the aftermath of one of the most divisive elections in US history, reports have indicated a surge in hate crimes across the country. But there is no reliable national data on such crimes, so Georgia Voice has joined the Documenting Hate project, a national coalition of American newsrooms, advocacy groups and academic institutions to better record these incidents and analyze, investigate and report on the issue.
Through Documenting Hate, which is led by nonprofit news organization ProPublica, we are asking Georgia Voice readers to submit information through the form below if you have witnessed or been the victim of a possible hate crime. The FBI defines a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity.”
The Documenting Hate project, which has a growing list of partners including Google News Lab, Buzzfeed News, Boston Globe, PBS Newshour, The Huffington Post and The Guardian US, is even more crucial here in Georgia since we are one of only five states in the US without a hate crime law. Georgia Voice reporters will work to verify the information submitted and will not share your name or contact information with anyone outside of the project. The information will then be added to a national database of hate crimes to get a more accurate picture of the state of hate in America.