Maryland Ranked Fourth Most Hate-Filled State In New Analysis

BALTIMORE, MD — Maryland is the fourth most hate-filled state in the country based on one website’s search of tweets to describe people of different race, gender and sexual orientation.

Abodo has compiled a study that analyzes tweets in trying to discern areas of the country where prejudice is most prevalent. They studied pejorative terms not only for blacks and Hispanics, but also women, gays and lesbians, transgender people, the disabled and even the overweight.

As a baseline, the site geolocated 154 keywords among 12 million tweets in scouring for slurs and other prejudiced language.

Maryland didn’t come out looking too good in the tally.

In terms of overall derogatory language by state, Maryland came in fourth -- behind Louisiana, Nevada and Texas. That was based on its 895 derogatory tweets out of 100,000.

Rounding out the Top 10 were: Delaware, Ohio, California, Michigan, Georgia and Rhode Island.

Maryland ranked second in the number of racial slurs, with 36.5 per 100,000 tweets. The racial slurs against black people found included use of the N-word.

Say the authors of the study: “One positive sign is that, in absolute numbers, openly tweeting these anti-black slurs is an uncommon behavior. Over the time span of June 2014 to December 2015, most U.S. states made tweets containing these slurs merely hundreds of times.”

The list breaks down specific targets by city, and Maryland again made the list. Baltimore – where 63 percent of the city’s residents are African-American -- had the most anti-black tweets, with 82 per 100,000 messages.

Baltimore also doesn’t fare well in terms of embracing women (at least as judged by tweets), earning the fifth position in that category. According to the Adobe data, 2,323 out of 100,000 tweets showed an anti-woman slant.

And Maryland popped up in one other category: fat-shaming. While the state ranks moderately for the number of obese residents, those tweeting names about the overweight rank Maryland fifth in the survey.

But there’s hope. If you live -- or plan to move to as a result of the tweet analysis-- in the following states, you’ll reside in the ten least-derogatory states: Wyoming, Montana, Vermont, South Dakota, Idaho, Arkansas, Minnesota, Maine, North Dakota and Wisconsin.

If you want to see exactly which keywords were searched for to achieve list placement, click here. Be warned, the language is harsh.