Anti-Asian American Hate Crimes; A Pandemic In Itself

Since The spread of Covid 19 to America hate crimes against the Asian American population have increased dramatically, at a 149% rise in reported cases from 2019 to 2020. Sounds bad doesn’t it? Well you don’t even know the half of it.

Hate crimes against the Asian American community have grown since Covid, and for the most part, we’ve known this and done nothing. The “china virus” as it was called by former US president Donald Trump, has become a catalyst for these crimes.

Donald Trump's words on the situation with the virus during his term in office were very demeaning, calling the virus the “china virus” and the “china flu” because of its origins in Wuhan, China. The former president’s statements sparked both out rage amongst the citizens of the united states who could see that what he was saying was blatantly bigoted and racist. As well as conspiracies amongst his most die hard followers, who all seem to be either fully denying the covid crisis, or blaming it on the Asian community, both around the world and in the US.

These conspiracies have led to many hate crimes against the Asian American community, claiming that they are the ones to blame for the spreading of the pandemic. It is worth noting that whilst blaming the AAPI community for spreading the coronavirus, many of these aggressors did not believe in wearing masks or following covid safety guidelines.

3,800 anti Asian American hate crimes were reported last year, most of these being verbal harassment, physical violence only making up 11% of the crime reported. However, three months into 2021 there have been over 500 reports of violence. Think about that for a moment. It is March, we are hardly a quarter of the way into 2021, and there have been over 500 reports of violence. That's roughly 5 reported cases a day.

This is not okay. No matter what you believe in, this should not be okay. People are being harassed, threatened with violence, and attack, simply because of their race. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? So many people have been dealing with this for so long, and yet we only take notice now, because of a sudden uptick in numbers.

When will you start paying attention to these things before they are just a trend? When will we bring Anti-Asian American hate crimes to an end? This pandemic is not their fault, and people need to stop acting like it is. Stop Asian Hate.