The epidemic of anti-Asian hate

A brutal assault in which a 67-year-old woman was punched more than 125 times has renewed calls for urgent action to tackle a surge in anti-Asian hatred.

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The New York Times (NYT) reported that security camera footage of the attack last Friday shows the woman “pushing a shopping cart” as she returns to an apartment building. As she opens the entrance door, a man “comes up behind her and hits her in the head with a roundhouse right hand”.

After “the force of the blow knocks the woman to the ground”, her “attacker bends down and pummels her repeatedly with both hands for the next minute”. He also “stomps on her seven times and spits on her before walking away”.

The “sickening” assault, in the city of Yonkers in New York state, has shocked many Americans, the paper added. But it is “yet another incident in a nationwide surge” of “violence driven by anti-Asian bias”.

Rising tide

Research shows that hate crimes targeting the Asian-American community in the US have “reached some unprecedented levels” over the past two years, as the Covid-19 pandemic fuels racism, reported NBC News. 

Preliminary data collected by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University revealed a 339% year-on-year increase in 2021.

And reported anti-Asian hate crimes in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other major cities in 2020 had “increased by 124% compared to the year before”, the broadcaster continued.

In New York City, the total tally last year was 133, up from 30 in 2020.

Other countries including the UK have also seen surges in anti-Asian hate since China reported the world’s first confirmed Covid case. 

Anti-Asian hate speech increased by 1,662% in 2020 in the UK, according to a study by youth charity Ditch the Label.

Police data has also showed “a surge in hate crimes against Chinese people in the UK during the coronavirus pandemic”, The Independent reported.

Liam Hackett, chief executive of Ditch the Label, told the paper that the charity’s research findings had shone “a vital and sobering light on the very real and devastating experiences of millions worldwide, as they battle not only their own personal struggles, but navigate through alarming rates of online toxicity and abuse”.

“By far, the most alarming data surrounds abuse directed towards marginalised communities, with a deep intensity surrounding racism and Asian hate,” he added.

In May 2020, as Covid spread across the world, Human Rights Watch warned that governments needed to take “urgent steps to prevent racist and xenophobic violence and discrimination linked to the Covid-19 pandemic while prosecuting racial attacks against Asians and people of Asian descent”.

The rights group’s warning came after UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the pandemic could “unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering” against people from Asian backgrounds.

Hate crimes against Asian people reached their nadir in the US in March 2021, when eight people, including six Asian women, were shot dead in Atlanta. 

“Initially, both police and the media appeared to accept claims that the shootings, carried out by a white man, were not racially motivated”, Vox reported, “even though the attacks focused on Asian-run businesses.”

The murders were “a breaking point amid two years of growing anti-Asian violence that took the form of brutal attacks on older people, vandalisation of businesses, and assaults on the street”, and resulted in the formation of the Stop Asian Hate movement.

Stop Asian Hate

Brianna Cea, a voting rights organiser from Brooklyn, told Vox that she joined the Stop Asian Hate movement after “seeing people who look like me being targeted and people not recognising that they were clearly targeted because of what they looked like”.

“What began as a tagline on social media ultimately evolved into a national movement” that has “had significant achievements”, said Vox, including “shepherding the passage of a federal hate crimes law, emboldening a new generation of Asian-American activists and sparking a dialogue about anti-Asian discrimination”.

But campaigners also face “major questions of where to go next”, with some voicing concerns that “the policies that have passed are insufficient”.

In the UK, violence against East Asian and Southeast Asian people have “led to a radical transformation within these communities”, wrote Diana Yeh, a senior lecturer in sociology at City, University of London, in an article on openDemocracy. 

Migrant “communities are coming together to respond to a rise in racist violence”, triggering “a historically significant moment for East and Southeast Asian community organising which is now happening on an unprecedented level”, Yeh continued.

Although “the experience of Covid has devastated and traumatised our communities, it has also galvanised a new anti-racist consciousness, which has led to the development of new networks of mobilisation”.

But the movement to stem the torrent of racist attacks still has a long way to go.

‘Attacks and beatings’

Asians and people of Asian descent “have been subjected to attacks and beatings, violent bullying, threats, racist abuse and discrimination” as tensions have increased during the pandemic, said Human Rights Watch.

The assault on the woman in New York last week was described by Yonkers Police Department Commissioner John J. Mueller as “one of the most appalling attacks I have ever seen”.

“To beat a helpless woman is despicable”, he said in a statement, “and targeting her because of her race makes it more so.”

The victim, whose name has not been released, “sustained broken bones in her face, bleeding on the brain and numerous cuts and bruises on her head and face”, the NYT reported. A suspect, 42-year-old Tammel Esco, has “been charged with attempted murder and assault, both as hate crimes, as a result of the attack”.

The brutal assault “appeared to be anomalous for Yonkers”, where “census figures show about 7% of the 200,000 residents are of Asian descent”, the paper added.

But four Asian people have died in recent months after being attacked in New York City, suggesting that the latest assault is part of a tide of hate sweeping across both the US and the rest of the world.