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The US Is Seeing a Spike in Anti-Asian Hate Crimes
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- xenihn 6y agoOakland and SF are especially bad right now. I fear for many of my friends and their families.
- redis_mlc 6y ago> Trump and numerous other members of his White House staff embraced racist and xenophobic anti-Asian rhetoric language early on in the pandemic, repeatedly referring to COVID-19 as the “China virus” and the “Wuhan virus.” So why are WHO representatives in Wuhan now? Are they xenophobic too? Is everybody? The really ugly thing is that most evidence points at corona escaping from the Wuhan lab, which explains the CCP coverup.
- baggy_trough 6y agoMost of the attacks are from blacks but you'd never know it from reading that article, which mentions a white attacker in 1982 and Donald Trump.
- f430 6y agoSame with LA riots. We all know who were behind it but we can't even say it because of intimidation and political "incorrectness". Roof Koreans remember exactly who they were shooting at. edit: I guess you win the bet. You were flagged within 12 minutes. For the awful amount of whining HN does when it comes to big tech censorship, it's guilty of the very same thing. The irony. I predict my comments will soon be flagged and censored too for dare speaking the truth.
- pkkim 6y agoParent probably would not have been flagged if they had documented their sweeping claim with evidence, but they didn't. It added little to the discussion.
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- f430 6y agoits amazing how language can obscure and censor basic facts. we can't even talk about it because it "offends" ppl, never mind the Korean immigrants who lost everything during the riots. the koreans in LA all know the races of the people looting their stores. but the victims of the riots can't even point out the perpetrators and wat community they were from 30 years on. hint: the looters weren't Asian Americans.
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoYou basically can’t talk about this along with homophobic attacks. It’s an awkward fact no one wants to think about.
- dcolkitt 6y ago> Many blame the Trump administration for inciting this violence; Trump and numerous other members of his White House staff embraced racist and xenophobic anti-Asian rhetoric... > NYPD date showed that there has been a 1,900 percent increase anti-Asian hate crimes in New York City in the past year... An 84-year-old Thai American man, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was killed in an unprovoked attack in San Francisco; a 64-year-old Vietnamese American woman was assaulted in broad daylight in San Jose... caught on camera shoving a 91-year-old man in Oakland’s Chinatown Trump only won 20% of the votes in New York City. Only 13% of the votes in San Francisco. Only 25% of the votes in San Jose. And 16% of the votes in Oakland. All of the examples cited occurred in some of the least Trump-supportive areas of the country.
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoHow much longer can we blame trump for everything before realising America has problems deeper than one person.
- fakeslimshady 6y agoWell geez I wonder why this didn't happen in Obama's eight years. Could government sponsored sinophobia driving anti-asian attitudes have anything to do with it. They were shouting anti-china messages during the white house riots.
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- throwawayboise 6y agoWell that would perhaps lead to solving some of the problems, which is not in any politician's interest. Having the problems, and blaming them someone else, is far more useful.
- elil17 6y agoThe least Trump-supportive areas are also the areas where the Trump followers who do exist are most likely to interact with Asian people.
- throwawaygulf 6y agoThe probability of this post being [flagged] (due to it being terrible for the narrative) is approximately 1. EDIT: Like clockwork.
- f430 6y agoI'm afraid so. There is this weird double standard when it comes to diversity. It's almost always exclusive of non-dark skin minorities. ex) Ivy League admissions, quotas in professional schools, etc. Now the above is real systematic racism. Speaking the truth is dangerous these days.
- gautamcgoel 6y agoIndian-American here. One thing I often find irritating about the phrase "Asian-American" is that it's usually used to refer to people with East Asian heritage (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, etc). Somehow people with South Asian heritage, like myself, often aren't included in that category, to the point that my girlfriend was surprised to hear that Indian-Americans count as Asian-American.
- tus88 6y agoWhy do you find it irritating?
- mrtweetyhack 6y agoAsians are being attacked and you're worried about semantics. I don't give a shit about your irritations.
- ttz 6y agoWhile a valid point, perhaps this article isn't the most appropriate place to raise it...
- pfarnsworth 6y agoRussians are also Asian.
- vmception 6y agoI was seeing a woman from Tatarstan, the double eyelid phenotypes were pronounces along with some other features that are even more common in East Asia. There are a lot of people in Russia like that. I had never heard of that place while in the US, its just “Russia” and an image of the part bordering the EU
- Der_Einzige 6y agoWhy are you being downvoted? Russians east of the urals look asian too!
- iamalone 6y ago
- f430 6y agoInteresting how no mainstream media is reporting this. They sure were quick to label BLM rioters burning down Asian businesses as "peaceful protestors".
- exolymph 6y agoNew York Magazine is mainstream media, no? Although as someone else noted there is an ethnocultural factor in these incidents that is conveniently under-emphasized because it's real awkward for everyone.
- tzs 6y agoWithin the last few months, it's been on ABC News, CNN, the Financial Times, PBS, USA Today, VOA, The Los Angeles Times, and many others.
- sawjet 6y ago>Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council said: “Our data and evidence of the real-life stories confirm that Asian Americans are facing increasing racist and xenophobic attacks, catalyzed by rhetoric from the president and other government leadership.” Wow I hope Biden does something about this.
- axaxs 6y agoBased on the slew of videos floating around this week, I strongly disagree that Trump supporters are behind this.
- ahelwer 6y agoI don't think this is fully do to coronavirus. Media across the entire American political spectrum is beating the same drum: China is the enemy, and they need to be dealt with. Any Asian-American can tell you that the average American's ability to distinguish between people of Chinese ancestry vs. not is essentially nonexistent, so really this is just establishing that people who look East Asian are the enemy. You'll see the above-mentioned drum beat in this very thread, where a suggestion that China is not the enemy will be met with accusations of being a genocide apologist. I suggest it is worth considering what dogpile you want to join in on, and who is served by you jumping in that dogpile. Consent is being manufactured.
- exolymph 6y agoI doubt that the teenagers running up to Asian elders to push them over are motivated by hawkish sentiment toward China. I'd be surprised if they have any awareness of geopolitics whatsoever.
- ahelwer 6y agoThis phenomenon isn't limited to dry discussion of foreign policy. You see it as an endless barrage of distorted, negative articles about every aspect of China posted all over social media. Try opening a reddit thread about China sometime. You won't have to scroll very far before you see someone wishing death upon some Chinese people.
- nexthash 6y agoFirst of all, you underestimate the intelligence of teens and their ability to perceive/think about the world. Second, if there's a pattern of attacks on Asian elders in America as discussed in the article, that isn't any accident. They are being identified and targeted because of their race, motivated by fearmongering about traditional nativist myths and the 'coronavirus made by Asians' myth.
- exolymph 6y agoNah, it has much more to do with long-standing tensions between the black (Black?) and Asian communities.
- etaioinshrdlu 6y agoDoes anyone know what factors are leading to this? Is it just viewing China as an enemy in the USA?
- justchilly 6y agoMore likely they're seen as vulnerable demographic or unwelcome in certain neighborhoods. The people perpetrating these crimes are not the sort of people tracking the US-China relations.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoCOVID plus a former social media influencer constantly complaining about China. I’d be more specific but the guy never got beyond „China has been SO UNFAIR to the America“.
- prvc 6y ago>Many blame.... Who are these "many", apart from the post author (the Royal "We", maybe), and why are these opinions supposedly worth noting in a factual news article? One can hope that one day that journalistic norms will preclude such weasel-word editorializations.
- slg 6y agoThis isn't attempting to be a "factual news article" and therefore isn't betraying any "journalistic norms". I think a big part of this country's lack of faith in journalism is due to a basic ignorance of the different forms of journalism and how they each have different norms.
- briandear 6y agoYou can blame journalists for that. When hard news stories get littered with opinion and bias, the line between opinion and news gets so blurred as to become non-existent.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoI‘m pretty sure it would be quite easy to find a reasonable number of people to agree with the statement to qualify as „many“. Assuming we agree that the pandemic is motivating this violence, it also doesn’t seem particularly controversial that a president going out of his way to highlight the geographic origin of the virus may be a contributing factor.
- babesh 6y agoThere is semi-hidden animosity between the black and some Asian communities. Chinese immigrants are often the ones first moving into and then buying out people in black neighborhoods. Asian kids do disproportionately well in urban schools. Lowell High School is moving from a scoring based system to a lottery. Asian parents see this as unfair while black parents see the previous system as unfair. Chinese are traditionally not seen as fighting back. Some criminals see elderly as easy marks due to the tendency to carry cash and due to their frailty. The trade war with China has spread to demonization of Asians. BLM riots and the lack of persecution and then the defund the police emboldened criminal activity including physical attacks. This cycle of animosity and violence last occurred roughly 30 years ago. I’m getting a gun.
- devmunchies 6y ago> I’m getting a gun. good luck. ammo sold out across country.
- BikiniPrince 6y agoIf you are willing to pay there are overpriced sales and limited purchase options at your local gun store. There are four million new gun owners and it will take a while for the industry to catch up.
- xenihn 6y agoFortunately we can afford scalper prices with our tech salaries.
- EForEndeavour 6y agoMake minicrossbows fashionable again.
- BikiniPrince 6y ago9mm Sig with some hollow points. Although you will likely be limited to an overpriced f&n. Welcome to the club!
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- foofoo4u 6y agoThis is terribly concerning to hear about. It certainly has my attention. But I do ask if this is considered appropriate content for Hacker News. I do ask that we please avoid sharing articles that have no relevance to tech.
- macrorules 6y agoFor most of 2020 the US gov (and much of the media) emphasized covid being not only from China but "a China virus". They never rejected or downplayed the baseless conspiracy theories that it was man made or a deliberate attack by the Chinese. The US actively promoted the equally baseless fear of espionage through tiktok or wechat (lmao) to the point of trying to ban these apps. Rather than quell peoples' fears and doubts in the midst of a national crisis, fuel was added to the fire. And now the xenophobia is in full force.
- COGlory 6y agoThe man made "conspiracy theories" are not baseless. There is a substantial amount of evidence that it is at least a possibility. There is also a substantial amount of evidence that China intentionally or unintentionally flubbed the handling of this pandemic at the beginning, and is at least partly responsibly for it's rapid spread.
- dash2 6y agoThis article doesn’t back up its claim. The only evidence for an increase in hate crimes is: “a 1,900 percent increase anti-Asian hate crimes in New York City in the past year — there were 20 incidents in the first half of 2020 alone, compared to one in the whole of 2019.” 1900% sounds huge, but the absolute numbers are not. Show me that it’s not a process with mean of 10 and sd of 9. Better still, give me figures for all of the US and show me there’s been an increase. The absence of this statistic is telling. Overall: fake news until proven otherwise!
- justinzollars 6y agohttps://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-08/attacks-target-older-residents-in-oakland-chinatown https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-08/attacks-...
- stuart78 6y agoWhile not disputing the core point about escalating violence against Asian Americans, this article seems to view any crime or violence as racially motivated. There is a robbery in there, for example, which suggest an alternate motivation. Would be useful to be more clear on what the author considers a hate crime vs crime whose victim is Asian.
- throwaway_kufu 6y agoThe article didn’t add any specific facts to suggest any of these crimes would be charged as “hate crimes” which is generally just an additional penalty to another crime and usually requires at least an acknowledgement of the protected class during the commission of the underlying crime suggesting the victims status as a member of the protected class was material to the criminal act. The specific victims mentioned were all elderly which is also disturbing and seems to be a growing trend in itself. Since the BLM protests/riots there have been a lot of videos surfacing where a senior citizen is walking solo and gets senselessly sucker-punched and/or knocked out without warning by a lone wolf. I suppose when the elderly victim is Asian, it’s easy to conclude such an assault must be a hate crime, because they are so brutal and otherwise senseless. I don’t like the idea of mass surveillance but these seem like the ideal types of cases to get a warrant to pinpoint the suspect’s phone to ID them.
- michaelyoshika 6y agoEven on HN you can't speak anything good for China so this is no suprise at all unless you think these criminals can tell the difference between a government or a party and a group of people. And how can you ask these criminals for that if many Ivy League graduates fail to recognize it. The only way for Asian Americans to survive is to protect yourself with whatever you have. Downvote me white boys.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoI am perfectly capable of holding nothing but contempt for the Chinese government while harboring exactly zero ill will against Chinese people in general. I tend to assume Chinese people in the US are there because they feel similar about the government, and I have absolutely no clue how non-Chinese Asians figure into this.
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- godmode2019 6y agoI'm sorry but this article is straight assumption. We see a man push over a elderly man. This is hardly out if the norm for online attacks, I saw a nurse the other day beating a man almost to death while he was recording himself saying "Get off my wald". The one other race attack they had to say "allegedly". Why allegedly, was their not a court case? We should all live our neighbours, but the media stating things without solid evidence just bothers me. In my country our biggest city has 20-30% Asians, our media also tried to say their was more hate crimes. When it turned out they had only started to record them. And something getting robbed counted as a hate crime. (Chinese are very rich on average, and its known they tend to carry large amounts or cash).
- unionjack22 6y agoMy anecdotal experience suggests this seems to be a Cali phenomenon. In Seattle, even with our insane number homeless, addicts, and the uptick in crime this year, we’ve had only a handful of attacks against our Asian citizens. All of which were dealt with swiftly and harshly.
- briandear 6y ago> Many blame the Trump administration for inciting this violence; Trump and numerous other members of his White House staff embraced racist and xenophobic anti-Asian rhetoric language early on in the pandemic, repeatedly referring to COVID-19 as the “China virus” and the “Wuhan virus.” First of all, geographic names for diseases is a very common pattern. There is no such outrage over Zika, Ebola, or West Nile, or even German Measles. The contrived name COVID was created out of deference to the Chinese Communist Party by the head of the WHO, who, as a former Minister in Ethiopia was the beneficiary of several billion dollars in Chinese investment. Note how he ignored Taiwan’s data and warnings in December 2019 and furthered CCP propaganda early in the pandemic despite independent evidence that contradicted the CCP statements. To suggest the WHO is immune from deep corruption among its top official is to ignore just how corrupt Ethiopia is and the vast influence of China over large swaths of Africa. And secondly, the majority of these hate crime attacks are in deeply Democrat cities. I doubt Oakland feature many Trump acolytes nor does San Francisco or New York. There is a significant (mostly Vietnamese) population in East Texas and Louisiana (the heart of “redneck Trump country,” yet hate crimes against Asians are rare if they happen at all. So blaming Trump is just conveniently avoiding the racism of so-called liberals. The Jesse Smollett “attack” was in the middle of Chicago at night, yet initially it was blamed on Trump supporters. Is there a single Trump supporter in all of Chicago? How many are in downtown Oakland? Rhetorical question, but the point is that in deeply red areas, how many Asian hate crimes have occurred relative to those in deep blue areas? Hate crimes against anyone is never over ok. Actually any crime is never ok. But blaming Trump is just lazy. Redneck bubbas aren’t the ones doing these crimes in general. People don’t want to confront the strong racism exhibited by minorities against other minorities. It’s always caused by white Trump supporters apparently.
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- zephrx1111 6y agoNY, San Francisco, San Jose, the 3 examples all happened in deep blue cities.
- zephrx1111 6y agoNY, San Francisco and San Jose, all the 3 reported cases happened in deep blue cities.
- hmmmmmm2 6y ago>Until then, Hwang explained, the national discussion about race relations had centered on Black and white Americans Huh, weird that they capitalize Black and not White.
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