Epidemics Of Racism: The Rise In Anti-Asian Attacks During The COVID-19 Crisis
Image courtesy of Daniel Arauz via Wikimedia ©2020, some rights reserved.
An unspoken racism has always coursed through the streets of American society. For the modern Asian-American, encountering displays of microaggressions in the schoolyard, on the crowded subway, across your neighbour’s picket fence- it is a reality of the everyday.
‘Go back to your country’. ‘You don’t belong here’.
Like ugly, verbal daggers, these words are penetrating. Together, they shape this idea that ‘no matter what we do, how successful we are, what friends we make, we don’t belong. We’re foreign. We’re not American.’ This feeling of otherness, spoken by Michael Lou in his open letter to the New York Times, digs to the very heart of the Asian-American experience: to be an outsider in one’s own home.
In recent months, hostilities against Asian Americans have proliferated at an alarming rate. Since its first reported case was discovered in Wuhan, China back in 2019, the coronavirus has carried its share of bigotry and biases. In his habit of inflammatory, racially charged rhetoric, President Trump repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the ‘China virus’ or the ‘Chinese flu’. Falsehoods of Chinese labs concocting and spreading the coronavirus went viral on national news, and these theories were pursued relentlessly in campaign speeches. The internet was an open market to memes and Twitter posts about the ‘Chinese virus’, from wisecracks about eating bats to blatantly racist caricatures playing on Asian stereotypes. At the core of this discourse lay a clear message: this disease was an outsider, not American born, and as such it would be treated like a foreign problem. And as this language settled into the nation’s psyche, as the pandemic worsened with time, the consequences have become very real for the Asian community.
Since the global outbreak of COVID-19, Asian owned businesses and properties have suffered racist vandalisation, social alienation and closures. In a reporting pipeline launched by the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), people described being spat on in supermarkets, shouted at on walks and refused service simply because of their race.
One woman recalled being sprayed with Lysol while in line at the pharmacy, her attacker yelling out,
‘You’re the infection. Go home. We don’t want you here.
In one week alone, more than 650 similar incidents were reported to the website. And more often than not, it is the old and vulnerable that bear the brunt of these attacks. An elderly Thai immigrant in California died last month after being violently shoved to the ground. In Brooklyn, New York, an 89-year-old Chinese woman was hit and then set on fire by her two attackers. These reports of hate crimes grew so much that in Oakland, California, police even secured extra patrols and set up a command post in Chinatown. Despite this alarming surge in anti-Asian violence, many cases struggle to follow up with hate crime charges; As police require strong evidence that identity played a motivating factor, like a racial slur or a history of racist behaviour, a majority of reports are not prioritised and are instead investigated on more lenient charges. In other words, the number of anti-Asian attacks is likely higher than records indicate.
Given the various strains and mutations of the coronavirus, this singling out of Chinese Americans only makes sense in a historical context-one rooted in systemic racism. Dating back to the 19th century, states like California begancodifying racism into law, like the petition to ban Chinese immigrants from operating commercial laundries. The years of WWII are remembered for its share of anti-Japanese legislation, namely the decision made in Korematsu v. United States, which upheld the internment of Japanese men, women and children. Even today, the model minority myth, a misguided philosophy which divides minority groups into categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, is pervasive in the American imagination. This school of thought not only divorces racism from the persistent struggles of ethnic minority groups, especially black Americans, but it also ignores the cultural shaming and psychological harm faced by its ‘model’ group, Asian Americans.
America is far from alone in this development. The contagion of racism during COVID-19 found a home in countries like the UK, a country with its own troubling relationship with colonialism, past and present. During the coronavirus crisis, ministers told MPs of a 21% uptick in hate crimes directed at south and east Asian communities. Across the English Channel, France faces its own epidemic of racism. In shops, on public transport, or even walking down the street, Paris’s Asian community has been treated in recent months like a disease of their own.
As schools start to reopen with the fall of infections, many Asian and Asian American families are choosing to keep their children learning from the safety of their own homes-and not out of fear of the virus. Instead, parents are concerned their sons and daughters will be the target of racial harassment and abuse in the classroom. And why should they trust a system which has repeatedly slandered them, a system which cruelly reduced an infectious disease to the words ‘kung flu’? The Asian-American story is one that has been systematically and violently erased from the map, from the cultural conversation. Their accounts go unnoticed in the big media, their concerns don’t cut it in political polling and very rarely does one see mass protests or demonstrations centred on the Asian experience.
At this moment in time we stand at a critical juncture. The visibility of hate and violence against the Asian diaspora is forcing countries like the US to reckon with a past of hate and silence. When the pandemic draws its final breath, however long it will take, I hope this stands as a reminder of the grievances faced by our Asian brothers and sisters. Yes, their story is different from the black story which is different from the Latino story or the Native American story, but for each one, they share the same oppressor: white supremacy. Each story is a piece of a troubling puzzle which composes American society-one where privilege and power is tied to the colour of your skin. It is only when we listen to these stories, really truly listen, that we may break the bonds which hold so many of us down.
