Following the Atlanta shootings, Biden has urged passage of anti-Asian violence legislation. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/19/biden-urges-congress-to-pass-hate-crime-legislation-over-violence-against-asian-americans.html
The shootings in Atlanta were motivated against both Asians and women. The purpose of this thread is to raise our awareness of these terrible sentiments. Asians have been targeted for too long. Encouraging all to join in.
- Some bloodshed. (Teri Z)
March 2021
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/3-dead-shooting-georgia-massage-parlor-suspect-loose-n1261262
Had to revisit the community just for this. What gets me about the anti-Asian hate crimes is that the movement is more faceless than Black Lives Mattter and none of the predictions have cited Asians as victims. The victims from the spa are mostly dark-skinned and could be easily mistaken as Hispanics.
This will indeed be more international than BLM, as I'm seeing Asian immigrants from other countries as well as opportunistic Chinese government mouthpieces are starting to get involved.
What gets me about the anti-Asian hate crimes is that the movement is more faceless than Black Lives Mattter and none of the predictions have cited Asians as victims.
Interesting point about "the movement is more faceless than BLM," So far, police have been reluctant to label Long’s mass murder a hate crime, even though six of his victims were Asian. --
Ask Asian women if they feel there is anti-Asian sentiment in this country. Ask Asian men.
Anti-Asian sentiment is real and while all prejudice has the similar quality of dehumanizing someone who seems like "other" to some, anti-Asian sentiment is quite different from anti-POC.
In an article worth reading for its intelligence and breadth, Jiayang Fann writes of all the hatred she's had levied against her living in New York, and the sexual harassment.
The racism is structural, and as Fann points out, it has been exacerbated by the incendiary rhetoric of a racist former president who called Covid-19 the China virus.
To live through this period as an Asian-American is to feel defenseless against a virus as well as a virulent strain of scapegoating. It is to feel trapped in an American tragedy while being denied the legitimacy of being an American.--Jiayang Fann.
We have beloved readers in our community who are Asian Americans. I hope some might be willing to help the rest of us know what they've gone through. No one can help us to feel their feelings like they can.
I remember when Asian Americans spoke up years back about what they perceived as a racist system of college acceptance at Harvard University. Asian American students with equally high credentials showed they'd been passed over. It reminded me of the days when I was applying for college and it was openly stated that girls had to have better credentials than the boys to get accepted to the top schools.
Can we include disabled people in this too? The media has largely ignored how the orange sh*tbag and his Nazi minions tried to roll back protections and discriminate against the disabled. I still burn with hatred when I remember how he mocked that reporter.
Personally, I think that 76 year old woman in SF who beat the h*ll out of her racist attacker is a hero. Good for her.
Cue "Were Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister
I feel that the timing of the recent events, from Cuomo accusations to the anti-Asian hate, is a distraction from Trump's taxes and ongoing investigations. Yet, the hate crimes too shall pass.
I’m gratified that we now have a President and vice president who respond to these hate crimes with genuine concern that I know is true to their core. And they are using the power of the office to end hate. It is such a breath of fresh air. It gives me so much hope.
I am sad to say I have seen this as a rising trend in many countries and not just the US. I've been a big follower of a variety of Asian music and cinema for many years now. I follow and listen to many Korean artists, as well as some Vietnamese, Filipino and Chinese artists too. I discovered many of theses artists at at time in my life where they just hit a chord with me and they have given me so much peace and joy. I find a emphasis on meaningful lyrics, stories and a connection that I don't find as much in American music or cinema anymore. As the popularity of some of these Korean artists especially, such as in KPop , Cinema, Gaming and other entertainment has increased I have seen so many articles, interviews, blog posts and so on from US and other countries that are so vicious and disrespectful and just plain cruel. I have gotten to know the personal stories of so many of my favorites and it is so upsetting to read the comments and coverage, which range from spiteful commentary up to death threats. Some days it just feels like there is so much hate and so little respect or decency to each other anymore. Unfortunately that kind of attitude and hate has spread across the world. The pandemic coverage especially by certain groups, politicians and news/talk hosts amped it up even more over the last few years but its at an all new level since 2020.
We have beloved readers in our community who are Asian Americans. I hope some might be willing to help the rest of us know what they've gone through. No one can help us to feel their feelings like they can.
I remember when Asian Americans spoke up years back about what they perceived as a racist system of college acceptance at Harvard University. Asian American students with equally high credentials showed they'd been passed over. It reminded me of the days when I was applying for college and it was openly stated that girls had to have better credentials than the boys to get accepted to the top schools.
To tell the truth, while my feelings are very complicated at this time, the reality is, most of my feeling is: It's not much different than usual.
It's not really new to me to be chased down the street with racial epithets, frankly.
Granted, I live in a large metro area, and have always lived in large metro areas both here and abroad, but anti-Asian sentiment has been around for a long time. You can trace it back through Chinese Exclusion, the internment of Japanese-Americans, the murder of Vincent Chin, etc.
I do wonder if (to co-opt Will Smith), it's not so much more racism, as it is that it's recognized and filmed. And it's challenging for a lot of people, especially white people, to come to grips with.
Last year, in the wake of BLM, I was trying to help one of my white colleagues with an initiative which (to their credit) was trying reach out to an underserved, underrepresented (read: black and latino) community. Unfortunately, the way it came out was pretty offensive to everyone not white, in my opinion, and I was trying to help her modify the copy.
At some point, she let out an exasperated, "This race thing is HARD!!!"
Well, yes it is.
As an aside, I do want to say that the college admissions thing is complicated. I volunteer and do college interviews and outreach for my alma mater (which is not Harvard but has similar admissions statistics).
And the fact of the matter is that with more than 20 kids competing for every single seat at those schools, the question of who is most qualified gets really tricky.
I would say at least 75% of the kids I interview are A students with excellent test scores, who are some combination of their class president, varsity athlete, LA Mayor's council, captain of the debate team, captain of the robotics team, editors of their school newspaper, doing university research, etc.
Off the top of my head, I can tell you I've interviewed kids who have started non-profits to feed the homeless, started their own companies (real ones that make money), world-ranked athletes, and published novelists, not to mention kids who are holding multiple jobs to help their families.
For some reason, the interview algorithm also gives me mostly black and latino students, and large number of students who will likely be first generation college students.
I have not had one kid admitted yet. Not one. Not even a kid waitlisted.
So the question of who gets admitted now is hard, and yes, I am sure Harvard could fill its class MANY times over with just very qualified and talented Asian concert violinists from New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and basically forget everyone else.
But if you're a Harvard, you're picking from a pool of EXTREMELY qualified kids already, and a class of kids from very similar backgrounds, no matter what it is and however qualified they maybe, is not going to make for an optimal class. And really, how do you compare how "qualified" a kid from Stuyvesant (NYC's top STEM magnet) is vs. a kid from a tiny town in Mississippi with a high school that doesn't offer anything beyond geometry?
I sincerely think a major university does have a mission to facilitate intellectual discourse by admitting students from a diversity of backgrounds. (I saw this as a once-Asian kid from Los Angeles who had to fight it out in college admissions with all the other Asian concert pianists in my high school class).
And really at that level, basically any kid who is admitted is already special in some way.
@sidwich thank you for weighing in. Powerful testimony. I had always gotten the impression, can’t say it is scientific though, that white dominant culture wants to keep it that way, i.e., white dominant, by limiting the people of color and the Asians from forming a freshman class that is no longer white dominant.
@enkasongwriter Please explain how the Asian massage parlor shootings of 8 people are a distraction from Trump's taxes.
I felt the timing is uncanny.
I felt the timing is uncanny.
It is not. We're in the deeps of the Great Unraveling/Great Turning, where headline-grabbing events will occur daily. These pileups of events should be expected as symptomatic of a time of global transition if one is to avoid falling into the conspiracy theory rabbit hole.
As for #45's taxes, I trust that now that we have a new administration in the White House, the DOJ and the Manhattan prosecutor's office are working diligently to get to the bottom of the grime and will make their findings public when appropriate. So I will give that matter attention when new developments become newsworthy, as they most surely will. In the meantime I'm going to go ahead and live my life. That includes integrating the racial hatred that has festered in this country for centuries and has been made evident most recently in the shooting deaths of 8 people in Asian massage parlors.