According to the Wall Street Journal, on March 16, local time, there were 3 shootings in the Atlanta area of Georgia, usa, resulting in a total of 8 deaths, of which 6 were Asian women.
One of the crime scenes of the spa. According to Reuters
Investigators said they had not ruled out racist motives. While the 21-year-old white suspect denies he is driven by racial factors, officials and community leaders across the Atlanta area and across the United States say the fact that the majority of victims are Asian—statistics from major U.S. city police departments show a nearly 150 percent spike in crimes against Asian-American groups in 2020.
Subsequently, there were "Stop Hating Asians" marches in many parts of the United States, and the hashtag #Stop Hating Asians # was on the Twitter hot list. U.S. President Joe Biden has spoken out against the wave of "brutality" against Asian-Americans; Vice President Harris called the shootings "tragic" and "we know that hate crimes against Asian-Americans are on the rise, and we want to speak out with them." ”
On the 17th local time, in Chinatown, Washington, D.C., the United States, protesters held aloft the slogan "Stop Hating Asians". According to the Daily Mail
On the 18th local time, the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Group under the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives held a hearing, and a number of Asian lawmakers, scholars and civil rights advocates testified about the spike in discrimination and hate crimes against Asians since the epidemic.
Because of the relative difficulty of proving hate crimes and the reluctance of some victims to come forward for fear of retaliation, some Asian-American community leaders say they are considering how to actually change racial stereotypes and perceptions, not just be bystanders. "If the voice of anger is not high enough, it will not receive the corresponding attention, and it will not get the fairness and justice that belongs to each of us."
Crimes against the Asian-American community have surged
Asian women experience 2.3 times more hate than men
On social media, there are growing calls for Asian-Americans to unite in response to various acts of violence against Asian-American groups. Their common theme: The Atlanta shooting, which made all Asian Americans see the hate crimes they have suffered in their communities over the past year. Although, so far, U.S. police investigating the shooting have not classified it as an ethnic hate crime.
Local people in Atlanta went to the scene of the crime to mourn the dead. Pictured according to The Associated Press
These voices have also resonated with more people. Many Americans say this is reminiscent of last summer's Floyd affair. At that time, after the African-American youth George Floyd was "kneeling and killing" by white policemen, it immediately triggered an unprecedented wave of protests and demonstrations across the United States.
Rep. Grace Matz, Democrat, confirmed on the House Judiciary Committee March 18 that violence against Asian-Americans has surged over the past year. The recent shooting made them feel "horrified and painful". According to a data analysis by the Center for Hate radicalism at California State University, San Bernardino, more than a dozen major U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Boston and Seattle, hate crimes against Asian Residents increased by 149 percent last year compared to the previous year.
On the same day as the Atlanta Ring Shooting, Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit coalition established to stop discrimination against the pandemic, just released a report that in the nearly one year from mid-March 2020 to the end of February 2021, the group received nearly 3,800 reports of racial discrimination against Asian Americans across the United States.
In January, a 91-year-old Chinese-American was pushed down by the Man in Black in Oakland's Chinatown for no reason. Graph network
Verbal assault was the highest in these reports of racial discrimination incidents, accounting for 68.1 per cent, followed by intentional avoidance and physical assault, at 20.5 per cent and 11.1 per cent, respectively. More than a third of hate incidents occur within businesses, followed by public streets and parks, where Asian women experience 2.3 times more hate than men, the report shows.
The U.S. Congressional Committee on Asian Pacific Americans also issued a warning on February 19 this year that since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the surge in violence against Asian Americans in the United States has caused Asian Americans to face a "crisis", calling on Congress to speed up the relevant legislative process and impose more severe penalties for hate crimes against Asians.
The U.S. Department of Justice has promised to open an investigation into hate crimes
The procurator pointed out that the relevant cases were reported poorly and it was difficult to produce evidence
"Fighting ignorance with ignorance will only leave us with nothing. Imposing stereotypes on another group as a way to alleviate the pain we experience will not work. Asian-American basketball player Jeremy Lin also appealed on his social media accounts: "We should listen to those voices - teach us how to treat everyone with an anti-racial attitude." ”
At present, more and more prominent people are coming forward to support anti-discrimination and call on American society to take action and make changes. A New York Times op-ed called the issue of racism against Asians a "mental plague" and bluntly stated that "a new wave of racism could set the United States back, worryingly." The US "Capitol Hill" also commented that this exposed the deep-rooted discrimination against Asians in American society, and called for "racism is like a virus and should stop spreading."
On March 13, local time, Seattle, the United States, held a march against "Asian-American hatred", and Gary Locke, the first Asian-American governor in the United States and former governor of Washington, spoke at the rally. Figure according to AFP
At the same time, Asians from all walks of life in the United States are fighting in different ways, the US Department of Justice has also promised to investigate hate crimes, and US President Biden recently signed a memorandum of understanding requiring all departments and agencies of the federal government to take appropriate measures to combat and prevent racial discrimination against Asian Americans.
Deputy Prosecutor Stuart Lew specializes in injuries against Asians in New York City. In an interview, Lu said: "It is not easy to prove that the violence or attack is a hate crime, because the prosecutor must prove that the motive is a hate crime. ”
Another problem is that some victims do not want to add trouble to themselves or are unwilling to come forward and report the crime for fear of retaliation. "In order to make the victims brave enough to stand up, we have strengthened our collaboration with community leaders to make announcements in local Chinese-language newspapers or shoot videos to post online," Lu said. ”
Asian American communities and groups in action:
Only by making a strong voice can we finally achieve fairness and justice
It is understood that after the Atlanta bathing center shooting, police departments in New York, Seattle and Atlanta took action to strengthen patrols. The NYPD's counterterrorism unit said it was watching cases of Asian shootings in Georgia and that authorities would deploy more patrols throughout the city's Asian-American neighborhoods just in case.
On March 17, local time, New York police officers distributed leaflets on patrols in new York's Chinatown neighborhoods with information on how to report hate crimes. Image courtesy of the New York Daily News
In a related editorial, China News Service pointed out that the discrimination of Asian American groups has become more and more intense and escalating, and the reason is that on the one hand, the problem of racism has always been a deep-rooted drawback of American society. For a long time, due to factors such as small population and low political influence, Asians have often been excluded, discriminated against, and treated unfairly in American society, and the voices of Asian-American groups have often been ignored; on the other hand, in the context of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, some politicians in the United States have arbitrarily thrown the pot and blamed for political self-interest, irresponsibly smeared and stigmatized specific groups, which greatly incited and promoted xenophobic sentiments in the United States, resulting in more threats and attacks against Asians. This makes the situation of Asian Americans worse.
Some US research institutions have reported that the problem of racial discrimination in the context of the NEW CROWN pandemic will have a devastating impact on the lives of millions of people in the United States for generations, and this impact may take decades to reverse.
On February 20, local time, in Washington Square Park in New York City, protesters held up signs calling for an end to violence against Asians. Pictured according to CNBC News
Right now, some asian-American community leaders say they are thinking about how to actually change racial stereotypes and perceptions, not just be a bystander. Recently, thousands of Asians held a protest march in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York, usa, to put forward "eight major demands" to the government, demanding that the crimes of hate Against Asians be severely punished and the existing Asian hate crime investigation team of the City Police be expanded. Chen Shanzhuang, general convener of the Asian American Defense Alliance, also said that in the near future, the alliance will also launch activities against discrimination and hate crimes against Asians, and work together to maintain community tranquility and development.
Helen Lee (34), a project manager at a tech company in New York, said: "If the voice of anger is not high enough, it will not get the corresponding attention, and it will not get the fairness and justice that belongs to each of us." The voices of Lee and his friends on social media resonated more, and they also plan to take part in this Sunday's protests in Union Square.
Red Star News reporter Luo Tian
Edited by Li Binbin
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