Fourteen states into this series. Fourteen consecutive times Anti-Black bias has led the cumulative hate crime data — every state except Hawaii. Indiana makes it fourteen in a row, with Anti-Black bias leading at 265 incidents.

But this episode is different. Indiana is home.

The most common location for a documented hate crime in Indiana is Residence or Home — 292 incidents. Not a public square. Not a school. Someone's front door, front yard, their house. Four federal cases put names to that number: a man who burned a cross, displayed a swastika alongside anti-Black slurs and a machete, and played "Dixie" on repeat to terrorize his Black neighbor over a tree removal. A Whiting man who spent more than a year shouting racial slurs and threats at a multi-racial family next door until they left — then lied to law enforcement about it, until a recording said otherwise. A 67-year-old Indiana man who left antisemitic death threat voicemails at ADL offices across the country. And a Bloomington woman who stabbed an 18-year-old IU student of Chinese descent in a racially motivated attack and was sentenced to six years in federal prison.

This episode also sits with two numbers that stand out in Indiana's data: Anti-Gender Non-Conforming at 42 — the highest that category has appeared in this series — and Anti-American Indian or Alaska Native at 25, in a state whose very name means Land of the Indians, built on the forced removal of the Miami, Potawatomi, and Delaware nations in the 1830s.

The data this series finds at home is the same data it has found in thirteen other states. The pattern does not change because the address is familiar.

00:00 - Disclaimer
01:01 - Introduction
02:44 - The Thesis
05:08 - Opening
07:57 - The Background
10:45 - The Data
17:21 - Personal Thoughts
21:27 - Closing

Afternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts. Follow the show wherever you listen. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts — thirty seconds, it matters. Number 17 Cult All Time. Number 33 Business News All Time on Goodpods — because of you.