For this week’s Diary of systemic injustices, I will be talking about the rise of hate crimes against Asians in America since the start of the Coivd-19 Pandemic. Many of these hate crimes that have happened within the last 2 months have ended with people dying, for example “a 36-year-old Asian man in New York’s Chinatown neighborhood was stabbed and taken to the hospital in critical condition” (Abdollah and Hughes). The suspects that were involved in this awful hate crime have been charged with “attempted murder as a hate crime and assault as a hate crime, among other charges” (Abdollah and Hughes). The reasoning for these hate crimes have been pointed to the former president of the United States Donald J. Trump, when the virus first reached the U.S., he labeled the Coronavirus as the “China virus” and “Kung flu”. This showed people, specifically his supporters, that it was okay to be Xenophobic and Racist, because our own President was doing the same. Seeing the man who is running our country openly say these racist things would motivate others to go out and do the same, which causes lots of tension in hates in the streets of the U.S. I believe we as a nation, especially the people in power who run this country, need to put our foot down and make sure that every person who has committed a hate crime is held accountable so it is known that it will not be tolerated anymore. And it doesn’t end there with just the hate crimes connected to Asian Americans and Coronavirus, hate crimes are committed everyday against people of color, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and people with disabilities. Although Asian Americans are already minorities in the U.S., because f the Coronavirus pandemic it has made them even more of an “other” as described by Simone de Beauvoir in her book The Second Sex. American natives treat Asian Americans as if the Covid-19 is their fault when it is common sense and basic knowledge that it’s not, and that having this type of mindset is offensive. We call ourselves one of the safest and most accepting countries in the world, but behavior like this shows otherwise.
Here is a link talking about the fight against Asian hate and what is being done to help.
Fig 1. Screenshot of Graph shown in NBC article “Anti-Asian hate crimes increased by nearly 150% in 2020, mostly in N.Y. and L.A., new report says” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-nearly-150-2020-mostly-n-n1260264
Work Cited
Abdollah, Tami, and Trevor Hughes. “Hate Crimes against Asian Americans Are on the Rise. Here’s What Activists, Lawmakers and Police Are Doing to Stop the Violence.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 27 Feb. 2021, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/27/asian-hate-crimes-attacks-fueled-covid-19-racism-threaten-asians/4566376001/.
Thanks for your thoughts. I encourage you to take a look at my post since I also talked about Asian hate. While I took more of a historical approach, I like how you incorporated how Donald Trump has encouraged Asian hate. I also tied this systemic injustice to “The Second Sex” and the idea of the “other”. I will say, I am surprised that you did not mention the shooting in Atlanta in your post. Personally this was the inspiration for my post.
Thank you for sharing your showcase. Bringing up the racism that has been shown incredibly strong in the last year is important for us to see it and acknowledge it is occurring, as that is the first step to finding a resolution. I feel like, where you brought up President Trump making it seem like it is okay to have asian hate is a representation of “monkey see, monkey do”. President Trump, at the time, was the face of America, and how he treated people spoke volumes to the whole world. Especially showing a specific racism appeal to one community, that is part of the United States, can influence a large number of people. Which, this influence is shown greatly in our current time in the news.