Increasing hate incidents directed at Asians may trigger “a pandemic of hate” in the US

Los Angeles Times released a sharply critical article on July 5 as hate incidents regarding COVID-19 directed at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are still exploding in the US. The escalating number of incidents has triggered outrage among the public.

Stop AAPI Hate, an organization established in response to the alarming escalation in xenophobia and bigotry resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, has documented 832 incidents across the Golden State in the last three months, according to LA Times’ report. “Assaults and verbal tirades are ‘becoming the norm’ since the pandemic started, instigated by people following the inflammatory rhetoric of the nation’s highest-profile leader”, Stop AAPI Hate pointed out.

The state Assemblyman David Chiu, a founder of Stop AAPI Hate, the chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus and also the most prominent aggregator of incidents, has denounced structural racism at a news conference lately. “It’s incredibly disturbing. There’s not just a pandemic of health — there’s a pandemic of hate,” Chiu said. It is fiercely criticised that the casual use of terms such as “kung flu” and “China virus” by some officials has already mirrored by US citizens, which only incited hate.

He was joint by state Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, who represents Torrance, saying that “we seem to have a president that has given the green light to the racists to come out of the woodwork and start attacking Asians”.

Meantime at the news conference, a new report of multiple examples surprisingly across 34 counties was released, counted in 800-plus incidents taking place at retail stores, work, school and 81 online incidents of assault and 64 potential civil rights violations, according to Stop AAPI Hate.

“The scapegoating of China and people of Chinese descent happens again and again,” said Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a group that co-founded Stop AAPI Hate. “Racist demagoguery matched with anti-immigrant policies have always been used to deny Asian Americans full social and political rights,” she added.

“Asian Americans need to see concrete actions to ensure that we can live free from racial discrimination and enjoy equal rights and access,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council and a founder of Stop AAPI Hate. However, it is also worried by Russell Jeung, chair and professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University that “without government accountability, we risk COVID-related racism against Asian Americans becoming deeply entrenched”.

Find out more information at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-05/anti-asian-hate-newsom-help