Georgia Comes In As Ninth Most Hate-Filled State In Analysis

Georgia is the ninth most hate-filled state in the country as it relates to prejudice against minorities, at least according to a new algorithm-aided search of Internet word searches by a website.

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.

In terms of overall derogatory language by state, Georgia came in ninth, based on its 669 derogatory tweets out of 100,000.

The top 10 were Louisiana, Nevada, Texas, Maryland, Delaware; Ohio; California; Michigan; Georgia; and Ohio.

Anti-black Tweets

The list breaks down specific targets by city, and Atlanta was second in the nation in terms of anti-black tweets, with 73 "slurs against black people" per 100,000 tweets. Coming in at No. 1 and No. 3 were Baltimore and New Orleans, respectively, which, like Atlanta, have large numbers of black residents.

On the other hand, when the study looked at the usage of more neutral language in tweets, such as “black people,” “black person,” and “African American,” a complementary picture emerges. The states with the highest rates of usage – 125.7 per 100,000 tweets for Maryland, followed by Georgia and Louisiana – also have some of the biggest black populations.

Sexist Attitudes on Twitter

With Hillary Clinton a major contender in the 2016 presidential race, Abodo tracked the usage of derogatory terms commonly used in reference to women on both the state and city level to see how often residents of different regions openly use these words on Twitter.

New Orleans ranks first for usage of all sexist language (including “bitch”), with 3,696 tweets per 100,000. Atlanta ranks second with 3,212.

Omitting “bitch” and focusing on the remaining slurs results in a somewhat different picture of sexist language use by America’s cities.

With the exclusion of “bitch,” Atlanta rises from second place to first, with 1,580 per 100,000 tweets. Newark, NJ, comes in second. Yet even with this more narrow set of terms, tweets including language against women are some of the most common out of all categories studied.

Slurs Against Transgenders

Atlanta is fifth among cities when it comes to anti-transgender tweets, with 20 per 100,000. Las Vegas (99 per 100,000) is No. 1, followed by Orlando, Tampa and Miami.

While anti-Hispanic tweets are robust across the nation, neither Atlanta or Georgia made that dishonorable mention list.

If you'd like to see exactly which keywords were searched for to achieve list placement, click here.