By Roberto Lovato, Of América Today’s Washington Post (WAPO) has this story about the good news of a decline in overall hate crimes in the U.S., according to FBI Director Robert F. Mueller. Good news, that is, for almost every racial, ethnic, religious and other group except one: Latinos. The WAPO story also tells us that, for the 4th straight year, hate crimes against Latinos continue their upward tick in the downward spiral of hate in our “post-racial” society. 4 years; 4 years in the face of an overall decline in hate crimes means that anti-Latino hatred is becoming dangerously normalized, even institutionalized when we consider who profits economically and politically from hate. According to the WAPO piece,

“Crimes against Hispanics also increased for the fourth year in a row, the ADL said, with 595 incidents reported in 2007, compared with 475 in 2004.”

And the FBI statistics are but a small -and inaccurate-measure of the size of this monster in our midst. Read more.