Americans elected their first African American president in 2008, a milestone that many saw as a sign that racism in the U.S. was, finally, fading into history. But statistics—highlighting everything from pay disparity to an extreme jump in the incarceration rates to the number of police shootings to maternity ward deaths—tell a different story. One year after white supremacist marchers clashed with protesters in Charlottesville, VA, is racism on the rise in the US? In this Q&A, Professor Rick Banks discusses racism and some of the social and economic drivers for the white supremacist movement today.

Is there evidence that racism and hate crimes are up?

I don’t know whether there is evidence that the frequency of hate crimes (which are notoriously difficult to measure) has increased. What does seem to be the case is that racist activity and organizing has increased. The white supremacist march that happened at Charlottesville would have seemed unimaginable years earlier. The anniversary march at the United States Capitol in contrast was a dud.

Are white supremacist and other affiliated hate groups more emboldened today?

White supremacist hate groups do seem more emboldened now than, say, five years ago. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the visibility of people espousing a pernicious ideology that all Americans should view as anathema to our nation.