Racism

Alleged child pornography has been uncovered in the investigation into the thwarted terror plot planned last month targeting Garden City’s Somali community.

Since the election many of us have heard reports of a widespread increase in hate crimes across the United States, with many of the reports coming from rural areas. Quartz.com set out to discover whether there was anything to the purported increase.

The answer is more complicated than it seems.

On Friday the FBI arrested three men in Garden City, alleging that they are part of a terror plot to carry out an attack on Kansas Muslims.

“Garden City is small and peaceful,” Halima Farah, 26, told USA TODAY this week. “I love living here. I didn't think something like that could happen here.”

Farah lives in the apartment complex that was targeted for a mass bombing this weekend by a violent white-nationalist militia group. The men had evidently hoped to spur similar such acts of violence across the nation. But their foiled plan is having the opposite effect.

The alleged bomb plot by militia members in Garden City, Kansas, timed for the day after the election, is a sign of a deepening trend across the United States.

Earlier this month, racist messages were written on the sidewalks of a college in a small Kansas town, reports The Kansas City Star.

I

n rural South Texas there’s a cemetery with names on the headstones like Davis, Baker and Harris. That in itself isn’t so odd. What is strange, reports The Guardian, is the types of names you won’t see. There are no Garcias here, no Lopezes or Hernandezes. That’s pretty unusual for a county where half the population is Hispanic.

Craig Cobb doesn’t seem to be too well liked on the High Plains. The man has been searching for a city in which to create an all-white enclave. And, as The Dickinson Press reports, he’s met the same response in Nebraska and Kansas as he did in North Dakota: Not here.

Texas has more hate groups than any other state, reports MySanAntonio.com. These groups are dedicated to promoting anti-LGBT sentiment and racism, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Amarillo.com has published a fascinating glimpse into the life of an Amarillo transit driver. The driver explains what it was like to grow up in the Panhandle as a person of color. “I do remember having a lot of problems during high school integration back in 1967,” explains Clarence Bolton. He continues: “I went from Carver, over in the Heights, to Palo Duro High School. . . . There was a little racism going on as people tried to accept the integration. . . . We were the start of integration. .

Contemporary technology provides a unique and much more accurate way survey taboo subjects like racism. Using the search engine Google, Washington Post journalist Christopher Ingraham poses the question, “Where do America’s most racist people live?”