Ignorance obvious in attacks on those who 'look' Asian

The video clips are shocking, unexpected, startling, terrifying for anyone with a conscience.

A slight Asian woman walks down a New York City street toward a hulking tower of a man walking in the opposite direction. When he gets close enough, he kicks her in the chest, hard, and without any warning. The 65-year-old woman falls. He proceeds to stomp on her head while she lies on the ground. A pair of security guards inside the building from which the video is filmed do absolutely nothing.

Later, an Asian man is collecting discarded bottles and cans in New York when he is attacked from behind. Once on the ground, a man kicks him multiple times in the head before fleeing. The Asian man, in a deep coma, has been struggling for his life in a hospital. On Tuesday, a suspect in the attack was arrested.

These attacks were only the latest in an increasingly long list of similarly disturbing incidents: A Thai immigrant to the United States died after he was pushed to the ground; a Filipino American man was cut across the face with a box cutter; and a Chinese woman was slapped in the face and set on fire.

Stop AAPI Hate, a US advocacy group whose name refers to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, said it received around 3,800 reports of such incidents across the US over the past year, with more than two-thirds being verbal assaults but almost 9 percent physical assaults－punching, pushing, kicking, cutting or setting someone on fire.

The uptick in racist attacks against people who "look" Asian is happening in much of the world.

In Canada, the Chinese Canadian National Council's Toronto chapter said in a report in March that anti-Asian racism had reached a crisis point, with 1,150 racist incidents reported between March 2020 and February 2021, with 11 percent of the attacks involving a physical attack or unwanted physical contact.

More could have been done to limit the uptick in racism. More education would have helped, and less spewing of racist rhetoric from politicians such as former US president Donald Trump.

The link between upticks in racism and pandemic outbreaks is hardly new. Asians also faced discrimination during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, after 2002.

During the so-called Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, immigrants to the US were blamed for spreading the disease even though they had little to do with it. Even the name was misleading, as the pandemic may have started in Spain, but the first reported case was at a military base in Kansas.

The increase in anti-Asian racism this time around does not come as a surprise.

In early 2020, authorities in most Western countries predicted that violence against Asian people would rise, and they were not wrong. By the end of the year, the United Nations had noted an "alarming level" of racial violence and other incidents of hate against Asian people in the US.

By almost any measure, anti-Asian racism is becoming more prevalent and more vicious.

The perpetrators often use the COVID-19 pandemic to justify their hate. That is an easy and meaningless excuse. There is no reason that can justify kicking someone walking down the street or setting someone on fire, regardless of race or where they are from.

In these instances, the targets have been people who "look" Asian :Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, at times Indians. In one case in Canada a few months ago, a woman of Arctic Native American heritage was attacked in a park.

Of course, the racism that is now focused on Asian people is not happening in any kind of bubble.

Racism and discrimination are a mainstay of virtually all societies. It is important for those of us who have not gotten the short end of this particular stick to understand this.

The recent uptick of violence against Asian people or people who look Asian reveals a widespread ignorance－the same ignorance and lack of humanity that is revealed in all racism.

Groups are beginning to take action with coordinated protests and demonstrations. They are standing up against discrimination and racism.

Ending this type of violence based on misinformation is no easy task.

What is certain is that the long-term cost in lives and societal hatred is out of all proportion to the short-term political gains of those who spread the hate.

The author is managing director of Bahati, an editorial services agency based in Hong Kong.