Systemic Injustices are everywhere, recently Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been victims of bullying, hate crimes, and even murders. Many of this stems from the COVID virus and the fact that many are “blaming” Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for their role in the illness. The impact this has on this Asian American and Pacific Islander community is very saddening. In the news, many of the people from the community are scared to even sleep due to burglaries and harassment. These hate crimes are only showing our next generation that this systemic racism is okay. I distinguished that this was a systemic injustice due to the fact that these people and these large communities are being taken advantage of and racially profiled due to the color of their skin and what they look like. Fortunately, there have been many announcements made by the government and President, that are not tolerating this hate that is targeted to the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities around COVID. Although this is a good start in the right direction, there is so much that needs to be done in America to end systemic injustices and racism. In this particular instance, I believe that no fingers should be pointed at any one person for this illness. Connecting this back to Adichie and a single story, you cannot look to a whole community and blame them for everything. Although it is hard to hear and see things on the news depicting people in a certain light, it is important to remember Adichie’s talk about a single story and how important knowing someone for themself is and not how they are painted from one point of view. Adichie made great points and we have also learned about one and the other. In this instance, the other is the AAPI community that is being racially profiled and receiving hate crimes. Many of the modules and stories we have read up until this point correlate with so many of the injustices and bias’ that we see today.
The Government, over the course of this pandemic has brought the hate of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to the front of their attention. World leaders have brought this issue to light and have spoken out to teach communities the importance of what these hate crimes can do to not only the lives of others but the low self-esteem and harm they can cause. Since this has begun, many rallies have been put together to show up and give love to these people receiving hate crimes. Many AAPI organizations have been created for those who want to help and for people of Asian American and Pacific backgrounds to come together and have a safe space to meet and talk.
Below is a link for ways to give support to those in the AAPI community who are receiving hate and may need to be reached out to.
https://www.aapihatecrimes.org/hate-incidents
It is very sad to see how specifically Asian American and the Pacific Islanders are being blamed for the pandemic. I have seen so many of these stories come up in the news, especially in the beginning when this all started to happen and it has gotten a little better, but just like you said needs to be fixed. When I hear topics like these coming up, I as well thought back to the concept of a single-story. Blaming a whole community based off what they look like is simply just wrong. It is very important for us to recognize that this is happening in our world and something needs to be changed or else discrimination like this is going to continue to happen, especially with the media these days and how they are reporting certain stories that discriminate these communities.
It is unfortunate how COVID-19 has perpetuated and intensified an already long-standing problem in America. The racial profiling you mentioned is so frustrating in relation to COVID because many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have potentially no personal connections to Asia and have lived their entire lives in America, therefore, how would they have any ties to the pandemic even if we were to hypothetically accept the claims that Asia is to blame. I also really appreciated the graphic you attached. It was very enlightening and sad at the same time. It is so crazy and angering to think that over one-fourth of the Asian American population has been a victim of a hate crime.
Its very unfortunate that COVID had such a negative affect on the Asian community. COVID in itself was, and continues to be, an incredibly terrible tragedy that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousand, and the fact that people have turned and blamed a huge portion of the population that had nothing to do with it is disheartening. The high school I went to had a rather large Asian population, and many of my friends from high school have stories about comments that they had heard either walking around locally, at college or other public settings. The hate is fueled by an anger at the situation, and even though people in the back of their minds know that the hate they are giving Asian people is unwarranted, they just want a person to blame. Although it’s much less talked about, America has a dark history with culturally Asian people, and COVID will unfortunately go down as another chapter full of hate.