Whilst lots of attention has been placed upon the predicament of African-Americans within the last year due to the BLM protests leading to wider recognition of systemic racism throughout all government bodies, much less focus has been centred on the widespread hate Asian-Americans have received. Spurred on by the Coronavirus pandemic, a rise in anti-Asian hate has occurred almost universally across the western world. Increasingly white people are annoyed at the state they find themselves in: many are unemployed, facing eviction and on the brink of poverty. They turn to an obvious target with little protection, who has suffered continued discrimination for centuries: Asian-Americans. Use of derogatory terms such as ‘Kung flu’ and ‘Chink’ has increased massively, often used to verbally assault strangers in public.
Spurred on by the Coronavirus pandemic,
a rise in anti-Asian hate has occurred almost universally
However, these are not the only problems people with Asian heritage are having to face in the west. The advocacy group Stop AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) Hate said it received more than 2800 reports of hate incidents directed at Asian Americans nationwide last year, which is probably just the tip of the iceberg due to sever underreporting. The group set up its online self-reporting tool at the start of the pandemic, therefore any hate crimes before March are unaccounted for. Their data shows that of their 2800+ incidents reported, 8.7% of them were physical assault; 6.4% of them were coughed/spat at and 8 percent of them received workplace discrimination or refusal of service. But why is it this bad, and how did it come to this?
Anti-Asian hate has long prevailed in the USA and in Europe. When slavery was formally abolished in the United States, thousands of Chinese people were brought to the country to work in industries such as railroads, sugar plantations, and mining. America’s first immigration law, the Page Act of 1875, unapologetically excluded East Asian women from the country because of stereotypes that they were sex workers. The law was then expanded to include Asian-American men in 1882. these laws were only repealed in 1943, roughly coinciding with the creation of Japanese-American internment camps. Other laws were also passed to reduce the amount of immigration to the USA from other Asian countries: in 1934 a law was passed that allowed only 50 Filipino’s per annum. At the same time, the US was completing roughly 40 years of military overlordship of the Philippines itself.
This has persisted through to the current day with the massive rise in Islamophobia since 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently, President Trump passed a bill which instituted a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S.” whilst originally wanting more countries on this list, court challenges decreased the number of countries excluded to: Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. This bill was only reversed thanks to an executive order in 2021. In 2020, former President Donald Trump used racist remarks when the COVID-19 pandemic began. He labelled it ‘Kung Flu’, and placed a large emphasis on its place of origin, coining the term ‘Chinese virus’. Experts immediately warned that these words could exacerbate concerns and increase dehumanising and xenophobic rhetoric causing an increase in race related violence. However, President Trump paid these warnings no heed and continues to use these words whilst also falsely claiming that the virus was developed intentionally inside a lab. However, this still didn’t prompt a proactive response nationwide from the police and social workers.
On the 16th of March 2021, Robert Aaron Long woke up, travelled to 3 massage parlours, shot 8 people to death, and injured one other. Six of these 8 people were Asian-American women. As well as that, the first and second locations were 27 miles apart suggesting they were deliberately targeted. It was, according to former police spokesperson Captain Jay Baker, ‘a really bad day’ for Long. However, two days later Captain Baker was removed from the case after social media posts emerged showing him promoting a T-shirt that called Covid-19 an “imported virus from CHY-NA”. However, FBI Director Chris Wray’s initial assessment of the fatal shooting of six Asian women in the Atlanta-area spas said that it ‘may not constitute a hate crime’. He then also later stated that it “does not appear” that race factored into the mass shooting. This persistent denial of the role race plays is further evidenced by the police not having called race the motive for the attack yet. This horrible attack on innocent lives is the epitome of racial misunderstanding and tension and shows how devastating the impacts of ignorance can be. This event really demonstrates that words have consequences and that when you have an audience, you should always be mindful of what you say.
‘You can always change your language.
They can’t change their heritage.’
This rise in hate is terrible, but what can you do to help? Firstly there are marches happening in cities globally which want to bring attention to the current state of affairs people of Asian ethnicity find themselves in right now. The Stop AAPI Hate are holding hundreds of marches and vigils, from the US to Taiwan to Canada. People can sign up to these online and bring home-made posters. Its is important that everyone helps in the fight for equal rights, not just those oppressed. Something we can all do on a long term basis, is to be more respectful, use kinder language and expel sub-conscious preconceived notions such as not over sexualising and fetishizing Asian women. Think of everyone as deservedly equal. But most importantly, if you see other people using derogatory words like ‘Kung Flu’ or dehumanising and degrading people of Asian or any other ethnicity, make sure that you try and intervene. Not everyone necessarily is fully aware of what the words they say might mean, but having the discussion is essential before any change can occur. Make sure that you hold a no tolerance policy with repeat offenders. If it has been explained why their actions or words are offensive, and they continue to do it, then they don’t care that what they say is racist or offensive, in fact some people even enjoy degrading others to try and raise their own self-esteem. Repeat offenders are fully aware of what they are doing and they aren’t trying to stop it. You need to be wary around them. If people say that others are ‘being snowflakes’ or that they are ‘hyper-sensitive’ simply say that everyone is a human and we all deserve to be treated equally. That means that you change your language if it is derogatory – it means you apologise if you say something offensive accidentally. Because it is never the victims fault. You can always change your language. They can’t change their heritage. So respect everyone equally, and make sure that you try and help others to do so too.
By Milo Herdale
Sources:
BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56464411
Open Society Foundations: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/a-history-of-anti-asian-hate-in-the-united-states
Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/4/1/its-time-to-talk-about-anti-asian-racism-in-the-uk
Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crime-georgia-spas-idUSKBN2BD0LW