Terrorist attacks validate latent prejudice, triggering spikes in Islamophobic hate crime

Evidence

Recent research shows that the prevalence and severity of Islamophobic hate crimes are influenced in the short term by singular, or clusters of, events. From this perspective, Islamophobic hate crimes increase following ‘trigger’ events as they operate to galvanise tensions and sentiments against the suspected perpetrators and groups associated with them. Specifically, terrorist acts appear to function as antecedent ‘trigger’ events that ‘validate’ prejudicial sentiments and tensions, thereby promoting the spread of hostile beliefs and the mobilisation of action as a result of the desire for retribution in the targeted group (Williams and Burnap, 2015). — Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia, 85

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘trigger events’ as singular or clustered incidents that galvanise anti-Muslim sentiment and validate existing prejudice.
• XREF: Connects to the moral-panic literature on how discrete events catalyse pre-existing social tensions.