Capturing racial threat: measuring anti-Black hate crimes during Obama's presidential ascent

Using incident-level data from the Uniform Crime Reporting program’s 2006–2011 hate crime reporting, we illustrate how the researcher-chosen analytical time unit affects findings of racial threat during President Barack Obama’s campaign. We assess racial threat by observing anti-Black hate crime offenses before and after key events (i.e. candidacy announcement, presumptive nomination, confirmed nomination, electoral victory, and inauguration). Through OLS regression, we find evidence of racial threat at both weekly and monthly analytical levels. Theoretically, our findings indicate that racial threat theory carries implications for political elections and that the temporal analytic unit can substantially affect findings. Empirically, our findings suggest that Obama’s initial announcement constituted the most threatening event to his detractors, indicating hate crimes might increase sharply at the realistic prospect of a threatening future event rather than at the subsequent fait accompli. We conclude with suggestions for measuring changes in hate crimes across time.