On Friday, a Sikh man was told, “Go back to your own country,” before being shot in the arm in his driveway outside of Seattle. Deep Rai, the 39-year-old victim, was working on his car in his driveway on Friday night when he was approached by a man he did not know. Police believe there was an altercation of sorts and the masked man shot the victim in the arm before fleeing. Friday’s shooting bears a surface resemblance to the shooting last month in Kansas, where a man shot two Indian men—killing one—after telling the victims, “Get out of my country.” Police have asked the FBI for assistance and are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime. With the rise of President Donald Trump in the political sphere, it seems hate crimes have become all too common. But what is a hate crime? Where does this hatred stem from? And is this a new threat in 2017?

A “hate crime” is a prejudice-motivated crime, which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership (or perceived membership) in a certain social group. These groups tend to include sex, ethnicity, disability, language, nationality, physical appearance, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation. A hate crime generally refers to criminal acts which are seen to have been motivated by bias against one or more of the types above, or of their derivatives. Incidents may involve physical assault, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, or offensive graffiti or letters. Half of all the hate crimes in the United States are committed by people between the ages of 15 and 24.

In the first 10 days after Trump’s election, the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) documented 867 bias-related incidents. Schools have been negatively affected by his campaign, with 80-percent of schools describing a heightened anxiety and fear among students, particularly Muslims and African Americans. Anti-Muslim hate groups have nearly tripled from 34 in 2015 to 101 last year. The growth has been accompanied by a rash of crimes targeting Muslims, including an arson that destroyed a mosque in Victoria, Texas just hours after the Trump administration announced an executive order suspending travel from some predominantly Muslim countries. The latest FBI statistics show that hate crimes against Muslims grew by 67 percent in 2015, the year in which Trump launched his campaign.

Despite evidence that President Trump has spurred a significant increase in hate crimes and fear in the US, this is not a new issue. In 2015 alone a report recorded 5,818 “single-bias” incidents and, of those, 59.2% were motivated by a racial, ethnic and/or ancestry bias, and 19.7% by a religious bias. Sikhs have faced such fears since September 11, 2001, being singled out for persecution due to their religious head coverings. Sikhs wear turbans as part of their religion. They are from northern India, but are neither Hindu nor Muslim. Many Sikhs have become victims of hate crimes because of their appearance, according to Sikhnet – a global virtual community for Sikh people. Unfortunately, this issue has remained both an underlying and evident problem in the US for decades and this is an issue which will not be solved overnight.

It is shocking to think that some people are so fuelled by anger, fear or hatred to they intentionally go out with the purpose of harming others. Not only is this harmful to communities and relationships, but hatred is never a sufficient or adequate solution to the underlying issues. Hate crimes stem from a learned behaviour of hatred. An inherent hate for a whole group of people for no reason other than one’s own bias is not something that people are born with. If there was to be a silver lining in this mess, one could argue that because people have learned this behaviour of hatred, it is possible that they can unlearn it. Looking ahead, the restoration of these relations between different groups and ethnicities in society will require the breaking down of assumptions and the growth of knowledge and appreciation for one another’s culture, beliefs, skills, and life in general.

“There is a kind of hysteria spreading that is not good – such hatred is not good for people” – Family members of Deep Rai.