Qihang: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, today’s podcast is the topic “Yo is this racist?”
Peidong: There are a wide variety of types of racism around the world against different groups of people, and what we are talking about today is something very common recently in the US, Stop Asian Hate.
Qihang: Do you know that just a few weeks ago, a Chinese student in our university made a speech in Columbus to appeal to people to pay attention to the problem of Aisan Hate? It is really a passionate speech!
Peidong: I actually have no idea at all, but I do notice that racism against Asians has become a lot more severe recently which is terrifying. There are a load of hashtags trending on Twitter that ask people to assault the Asians they see.
Qihang: Yep, I have heard some of this. And during the quarantine, this phenomena has become intensified, since many of the Americans think that it is Asians, especially the Chinese brought the corona-virus to the US. Also, as I heard from my friends, someone threw eggs to a Chinese student in our school on High-street. When I first heard of this, it really riled me up.
Peidong: I can’t believe something like this is still happening these days. The reason why the US has been one of the strongest countries in the world is that the US is a big melting pot. It contains talented people from all over the world building and improving the US altogether. The minorities have done significant contributions to the country and should never be treated like this because after all, we are all humans.
Qihang: Yep, I agree with you! As there are different kinds of people in America, people should t
reat every person equally, regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. And I just saw a report last week that an Asian was beaten into a coma on the subway. The video was uploaded to Tik-Tok, and received about 1.6 million views. I was confused about the reason for the abuser to hit the poor Asian, and the most shocking thing is that many American did not sympathize with the Asian, instead, they blamed him for saying N-word to the black person. It is so puzzling.
Peidong: Well, if he did say the word then I think he deserved it. Racism is unacceptable under any circumstances.
Qihang: Not really, when the NYPD was collecting evidences about what was actually going on at that moment, most people who were there claimed that it was probably a robbery and attempted murder. The truth is that in some Asian languages, there are lots of words’ pronunciations that sound like N-words. Take a step back, there is no sign showing that the Asian said the N-word or anything similar. Most people are just guessing without solid evidence on social media.
Peidong: There was also a shooting recently which led to the deaths of eight people while six of them are Asians. After taking the suspect in custody, the spokesman of the police department said it was “a really bad day for him”. This is unacceptable and disrespectful for the victims. Humanizing a murderer equals becoming a murderer. There should be no excuse for a murderer committing such crime. I had my bad days and I didn’t even think of murdering anyone. This is clearly an systemic injustice.
Qihang: Yep, it is so true that bad mood cannot be the reason for murdering others! Also the police should find out what actually happened on that day, and then judge the whole event. It is impenetrable that the police were trying to exculpate the murderer. Regardless of who is the murderer, and who were killed in the murder, the result is that eight families were utterly destroyed from this murderer’s hand.
Peidong: The suspect chose all of his targets in Asian spas and that is no coincidence whic
h means he chose the Asian spas on purpose instead of the local ones. The police department should pay more attention to the motivation of the suspects instead just saying he’s in a bad mood.
Qihang: Well, as I expected, this sheriff is an anti-Asian, and some people found the evidence from his twitter, on April 2nd, 2020, he sent a tweet. In this tweet, there was a picture, and in the picture, it was a T-shirt with slogan ”COVID-19 Imported virus from CHY-NA”, as I know, CHY-NA is the disparage call to China. Moreover, the reason that the sheriff used to exculpate the suspect is so ridiculous. He said that the Spas which the murderer chose are not certificated. However, even if the Spas are not certificated, could it be the reason for the suspect to kill the innocent people?
Peidong: I don’t think so. I believe the recent racism against Asians are highly related to Covid-19. What people need to realize is that the virus doesn’t originate from China. The virus does affect our lives a lot, but the virus itself is the world’s common enemy. It is unreasonable to blame it on Asians since all people can be infected without vaccination. Furthermore, hate is a scarier virus that spreads around people. It is a lot more deadly for a country in the long run.
Qihang: Yep, though the COVID-19 is a horrible virus, it can be prevented by vaccination in the future, since it is just a physical disease. However, the hatred among people is much more fearful than the virus, since once the prejudice among people has formed, it would be so hard to eliminate such prejudice, and our offspring will continue this hatred generation by generation.
Peidong: Yes, the Asians living in the US are also Amiercans. Many people think of them as the Others instead of the One which is very wrong. These Asians are living in the same society, speaking the same language, paying the same taxes shouldn’t be considered as Others in any ways. Even people can look different, we are all human beings. We, the human beings are a One as a whole. Covid-19 is the enemy that we should fight together instead of others who simply don’t look the same as you do.
Qihang: It is true.Under the current situation, people should come together and treat the virus as a common enemy, solving this problem is an urgent affair by now. This is Qihang, thanks for listening to our podcast!
Peidong: Thanks for listening and this is Peidong.
Work Cited
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1564/
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/H9iUrGXHYpuZSYKoxX1PSA
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%A8%81%E8%83%81%E8%AE%BA
https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/stop-asian-hate-hashtag