Name: …

Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36964916

In numbers: Has Britain really become more racist?

Hate crime rose sharply after the EU referendum, according to police figures. But is heightened
racial tension here to stay?

“Why are you still here?” a customer asked Lithuanian-born Alma Milaseviciute, 31, as she
stood at the counter of the cheese shop where she works in Ludlow, Shropshire. “Good luck on
your way back,” another sneered.

“Get out of my country,” yelled a man at Esmat Jeraj, 26, after swearing at her. He'd spotted her
wearing a hijab as she walked to work in Whitechapel, east London. Jeraj was born and raised
in the UK.

“You speak English, don't you?”, a woman in her 60s asked Brazilian-born Danilo Venticinque,
30, at a Southampton bus stop when she overheard him talking to his Mexican wife in Spanish.
“Can you understand what I'm saying? This is our country. We are leaving the EU. We will stop
having so many people like you over here.”

Each of these incidents took place since the referendum on European Union membership. All
three victims are at pains to acknowledge the perpetrators represent a minority of Britons and
that most people in the UK would be horrified by this behaviour. Prominent Leave campaigners
have also strongly condemned abusive and bigoted behaviour of this kind.

But there's clear evidence that there's been a spike in hate crime since the 23 June ballot.
Reported hate crime rose by 57% in the four days after the referendum, police say.
There were more than 6,000 reports of hate crime to police between mid-June and mid-July,
according to the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC).

Cards containing the words “No more Polish Vermin“ were distributed in Huntingdon. In
Plymouth, a Polish family were the victims of what police believe was a racially-motivated
arson attack. Racist graffiti was scrawled on a Polish centre in west London.

The key question is whether the surge in reported incidents is a blip, or whether the bar for what
is considered a typical level of hate crime has been raised. Those who have fallen victim hope
it's a temporary wave that will soon subside.

“I think it will calm down,” says Milaseviciute. “It was this big thing and everybody was
shocked about Brexit.” Still, she's decided to stay indoors in the evenings for a while.

Soon after the result, a man who overheard her accent screamed at her in the street: “You are
illegal. Everything you do is illegal.” It's likely he was emboldened by the result, Milaseviciute
believes. But she thinks that with the backlash on social media against racist incidents, people
like him are increasingly keeping their thoughts to themselves again.

Some 3,219 hate crimes and incidents alleged to have taken place between 16-30 June were
reported to police forces across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, according to the NPCC.
This represented a 37% increase compared with the same period last year. These figures,
published this week, are updates of those previously released - the NPCC says the statistics
change over time because of retrospective reporting of crime.

The next reporting period, from 1-14, July, resulted in 3,235 reports of hate crimes and
incidents (these figures have also been updated by the NPCC). This was only 0.5% up on the
previous fortnight - the previously released statistics had shown a drop - but it was still a 29%
increase on the same period in 2015.
And 15-28 July saw 3,236 reports - virtually unchanged on the previous fortnight and up 40%
on the same period the previous year. Police Scotland has said this rise in reports has not been
witnessed north of the border.

So has something permanently changed, or will hate crime levels revert to where they were
before?

It's normal for reports of racist and bigoted behaviour to soar after major news events. “Hate
crimes don't occur in a vacuum,” says Dr Stevie-Jade Hardy, lecturer in hate studies at the
University of Leicester.

In May 2013, the month that Fusilier Lee Rigby was murdered, there were 109 anti-Muslim
hate crimes on the streets of London, according to Tell MAMA, a group which monitors
Islamophobic attacks. Prior to this, from April 2012 to April 2013, there were 28 anti-Muslim
hate crimes per month on average.

Likewise, there was a record high of 1,179 anti-Semitic incidents in 2014, which the
Community Security Trust (CST) attributed to reactions to the conflict in Gaza in July and
August of that year. Anti-Semitic hate crime also spiked in 2009, when conflict in Gaza also
took place.

So it's possible that reports of hate crimes will return to normal levels, but there's reason to
suspect this won't happen straight away, says Supt Paul Giannasi of the NPCC's Hate Crime
Group.

There are a number of reasons for this, he adds. Firstly, Brexit “isn't really over for most
people”. It still dominates the headlines and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
It's also important to remember that the referendum wasn't the only relevant event during this
period, he says. Terror attacks took place in Nice and Munich, and the Orlando shootings
happened just before, so blaming Brexit exclusively would be simplistic.

There has also been a considerable online backlash against displays of bigotry, which may have
helped encourage people to report incidents that might otherwise have gone unrecorded.

With the support of the Institute of Race Relations, the websites Post-Ref Racism, Worrying
Signs and iStreetWatch compiled a study based on 636 individual reports of incidents of racist
and xenophobic hate crime. The reports had been gathered on social media after people were
encouraged to share accounts of incidents they had experienced or witnessed.

It's likely campaigns like this made people more likely to report hate crimes to the police,
Giannasi says: “I think we are seeing a greater commitment by people who are witnessing
things. Most decent people in the country are utterly indignant.”

It's impossible to tell to what extent the spike was about a rise in reporting and to what extent it
was about a rise in actual incidents. What we do know is that most hate crimes typically go
unreported.

Police recorded 52,528 hate crimes in 2014-15 - but the Crime Survey for England and Wales
(based on questioning people about their experiences) suggested there were an estimated
222,000 hate crimes on average per year between 2012-13 to 2014-15. This suggests that only
around one in four hate crimes are actually reported.

So if the number of reports falls in the weeks ahead, that won't necessarily mean the number of
incidents have dropped too, says Hardy. “You are thinking: 'Oh, it's started to subside,' but in
reality it might not have,” she says. Until the results of the next Crime Survey are released in
the autumn, the gap between reporting and levels of victimisation will be unclear.
There's no inevitability that reports of hate crimes and incidents actually will fall. The
CST says incidents of anti-Semitism were up by 11% in the first six months of 2016 compared
with the same period the previous year despite there not having been any obvious “trigger
events”.

The authorities say they are determined to tackle the problem, however. Police handling of hate
crime is to be reviewed following the rise, the home secretary has said, and the government has
announced a plan to tackle hate crime in England and Wales. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of
Constabulary has been asked to study how forces deal with hate crime.

Victims are waiting to see what kind of impact this has.

“Things seem to have calmed down a little,” says Jeraj. “There's been a very strong response to
say there's no place for hatred. But I know people who are afraid to leave their house.”

When Venticinque posted the story of what happened to him on Facebook, he was
overwhelmed by the positive response he received from British people. “They told me that I
was welcome, that they were ashamed of what had happened,” he says.

People like the woman who approached him are, he says, “a minority, but it's a minority that
shouldn't feel so confident”.
Part 1: Summary

There’s clear evidence that reported hate crime has risen by 57% in the four days after the
referendum on 23 June. According to the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), there were
more than 6,000 reports of hate crime to police between mid-June and mid-July. Alma
Milaseviciute, Esmat Jeraj, and Danilo Venticinque are among the victims who were offended
and asked to leave the UK by some perpetrators. The question is whether the sudden increase in
reported incidents is just temporary, or the typical level of hate crime has been actually raised.
Dr Stevie-Jade Hardy, lecturer in hate studies at the University of Leicester, states that it’s
normal for reports of racist and misbehaviour to soar after major news events. The hate crimes
following the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013, the conflict in Gaza in 2014 are two
examples. Therefore, it’s possible that reports of hate crimes will return to normal levels.
However, there are also reasons to suspect this won’t happen straight away. One reason is that
Brexit is a long-lasting event. The other is that backlashes and campaigns against hate crimes
make people more likely to report them to the police. Although there’s no certainty that reports
of hate crimes and incidents will actually decrease, the government is determined to tackle the
problem. In the meantime, things seem to have calmed down a little. Let’s take the case of
Venticinque as an example. When he posted his story on Facebook, he received a lot of positive
responses from British people saying that he was welcome in their country.
Part 2: Glossary
WORDS PART OF PRONUNCIATI ENGLISH EXAMPLE
SPEECH ON DEFINITION
(VIETNAMESE
EQUIVALENCE)
1. alternative (adjective) /ɒlˈtɜː.nə.tɪv/ an alternative plan Ex: An alternative
or method is one venue for the
that you can use if conference is
you do not want to being sought.
use another one
(khác, thay thế)
2. capacity (noun) /kəˈpæs.ə.ti/ the total amount Ex: Do you think
that can be it’s within his
contained or capacity to do the
produced, or the job without
ability to do a making a mess of
particular thing (sức it?
chứa, khả năng)
3. (noun) /dɪˌskrɪm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/ treating a person or Ex: He used to be
discriminatio particular group of a victim of racial
n people differently, discrimination.
especially in a
worse way from the
way in which you
treat other people,
because of their
skin, colour, sex,
sexuality, etc. (sự
phân biệt đối xử)
4. dividend (noun) /ˈdɪv.ɪ.dend/ (a part of) the profit Ex: Dividends will
of a company that is be sent to
 paid to the people shareholders.
who own shares in
it (cổ tức)

5. enterprise (noun) /ˈen.tə.praɪz/ an organization, Ex: Those were

especially a the years of private
business, or a enterprise, when
difficult and lots of small
important plan, businesses were
especially one that started.
will earn money
(doanh nghiệp, công
việc kinh doanh)
6. executive (noun) /ɪɡˈzek.jə.tɪv/ someone in a high Ex: She is now a
position, especially senior executive,
in business, who having worked her
makes decisions and way up through
puts them into the company.
action (nhân viên
cấp quản lý)

7. exemplify (verb) /ɪɡˈzem.plɪ.faɪ/ to be or give a Ex: This painting

typical example of perfectly
something (minh exemplifies the
họa cho, làm ví dụ naturalistic style
cho) which was so
popular at the
time.
8. expenditure (noun) /ɪkˈspen.dɪ.tʃər/ the total amount of Ex: The
money that a government’s
government or annual expenditure
 person spends (sự on arms has been
chi tiêu, tổng số tiền reduced.
sử dụng)
9. suicidal (adjective) /ˌsuː.ɪˈsaɪ.dəl/ describes behaviour Ex: He took some
that is likely to suicidal risks.
result in death
(mang tính tự sát,
có thể dẫn đến thất
bại)

10. undermine (verb) /ˌʌn.dəˈmaɪn/ to make someone Ex: The President

less confident, less has accused two
powerful, or less cabinet ministers
likely to succeed, or of working
to make something secretly to
weaker, often undermine his
gradually (làm suy position.
yếu, ngầm phá hoại)