Hate is a Virus

Hate crimes against minority groups have always been part of American Culture. From the beginning of the countries history as Europe “united the land”, the indigenous people were violently pushed off their own land. The hatred towards people of color continued with slaves stolen from Africa, Jim Crowe laws, Japanese internment camps, ICE facilities, and just general day to day attacks. Racism has been breed into the American white way of life. Though hate crimes have been occurring at a steady rate throughout modern times, in the wake of the Covid 19 virus, violent hate crimes against Asian Americans have skyrocketed. Asian Americans reported the single largest increase in serious incidents of online hate and harassment as racist and xenophobic slurs blaming people of Asian descent for the coronavirus pandemic spread over the past year. As of 2020, 17% of Asian Americans reported sexual harassment, stalking, physical threats and other incidents, up from 11% last year and over 21% of Asian-American respondents said they were harassed online. These numbers come from those who were brave enough to report their harassment, so there are bound to be plenty more. All of this harassment was fueled by Donald Trumps racial remarks about the coronavirus, calling it things like the Kung flu or the Chinese virus.

All of this led to the event of March 16, 2021, where a white gunman committed the racial charged murder of eight people. The fatal shootings of eight people, including six women of Asian descent, at Atlanta-area massage parlors, have escalated concern that racist and xenophobic rants online are spilling over into real-world violence. This act has opened the eyes of many to Asian hate crimes and has sparked protests around the country, reminding the world to #stopasianhate.