During the same week in February 2022, at two different Santa Barbara Unified School District junior high schools, two 12-year-old Black boys were victims in painful episodes of racist bullying.
Anti-Black hate crimes significantly increased according to the report issued on Nov. 29 by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations. Reported anti-Black crimes jumped a shocking 34% from 219 to 294. The 294 anti-Black crimes reported in 2022 were the second largest number ever recorded. Although African Americans only comprise about 9% of the county population, they constituted 53% of racial hate crime victims (up from 46%). Once again African Americans were grossly over-represented as victims of racial hate crime. All other racial and ethnic groups saw only slight increases or declined significantly. The most frequent criminal offenses