Increasing Racial Discrimination Against Asians Exposes Overall Racist Nature of U.S. Society

The China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS)

April, 2022

For years, Asian Americans have been labeled as "the model minority" by the mainstream society of the United States, but this labeling creates only an illusion that there is no racial discrimination against them. Incidents that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic, such as some U.S. politicians' unscrupulous racist remarks and the wave of harassment and attacks on Asian-Americans, further proved this point. Recently, shootings in Atlanta have set off a new wave of fear among Asian Americans. On March 16, 2021, the shootings at three spas in Atlanta, United States, resulted in the death of eight people, including six women of Asian origin. This tragedy is the consequence of the mounting anti-Asian hate in the United States.

In the United States, there was a continued rise in the anti-Asian incidents during the period when the coronavirus pandemic ran rampant in the country. According to a report published on Nov. 18, 2021 by the national coalition Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate, from March 19, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021, a total of 10,370 hate incidents against Asian American and Pacific Islander people were reported to the organization, and a majority of the incidents took place in spaces open to the public like public streets and businesses. Statistics released by the New York City Police Department on Dec. 8, 2021 showed that anti-Asian hate crimes in the city rose by 361 percent from that of 2020. Some media commented that the actual number of hate crimes against Asian Americans in New York was much higher than the number announced above because many victims did not make any police reports. According to the public opinion survey jointly conducted by The Economist weekly magazine and YouGov in March 2021, 70 percent of respondents believed that Asian Americans were seriously discriminated against in the United States, and suffered more from racism than African Americans. Thomas Sowell, a U.S. scholar, writes in his Ethnic America: A History, "Color has obviously played a major role in determining the fate of many Americans." This irrefutable truth of American society has been confirmed again. The cold reality reflects that the United States still takes pride in recognizing itself as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant country and that Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans are subject to discrimination and violations in various forms, and cannot fully enjoy their human rights.

1. Asian Americans Facing Rise in Racist Attacks Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic, a serious public health crisis in the United States, has exposed various racial discrimination problems existing in the society. Black and Hispanic Americans are the direct victims of the pandemic, as their infection and mortality rates are much higher than those of the white population. Asian Americans, however, became the indirect victims, because of veiled or explicit racist words and deeds toward them amid the pandemic. The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) released a survey, showing that compared with 2019, hate crime cases in the United States decreased by 7 percent in 2020, but those against Asian Americans increased by 149 percent. In the first quarter of 2021, violent crimes against Asian Americans in the 15 large cities in the United States increased by 169 percent compared with the same period in 2020.

In the past two years, shocking racist attacks against Asian Americans have occurred frequently in the United States.

– On March 14, 2020, inside a Texas supermarket, a man stabbed an Asian family in an attempt to kill them, including their children aged two and six.

– On July 14, 2020, in New York City, an 89-year-old Chinese American woman was slapped in the face by two male strangers on the street, and when she tried to escape, the two strangers set her clothes on fire from behind.

– On January 28, 2021, an 84-year-old Thai man died from injuries after being viciously slammed onto the ground by a man in San Francisco.

– On March 16, 2021, Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, opened fire in three Asian massage shops and spas in Atlanta with a gun, killing a total of 8 people, including 6 Asian women.

– On August 30, 2021, an elderly Filipino woman was pushed down the stairs by a white man in Rego Park Subway Station in Queens, New York, resulting in her sustaining serious facial and physical injuries.

– On November 17, 2021, three Chinese American high school students in Philadelphia were attacked when they took the subway home from school. The local police said, "The victims were picked because they were Asian, obviously."

The New York Times published an article on April 3, 2021, which was entitled "Swelling Anti-Asian Violence: Who Is Being Attacked Where." The article started by pointing out the following facts: "Over the last year, in an unrelenting series of episodes with clear racial animus, people of Asian descent have been pushed, beaten, kicked, spat on, and verbally abused. Homes and businesses have been vandalized." According to the different forms of racist attacks on Asian Americans, the article uses three categories to sort and group the cases it collects, namely: "Beaten, pepper-sprayed, spat on," "Called names and racial slurs," and "Homes and businesses vandalized." The cases under the first category involve the acts of spitting on Asian Americans or using pepper spray and physical violence against them, and those under the second category are mainly subject to racial slurs and derogatory language. The third category groups are cases of malicious damage to the homes, shops, and other properties of Asian Americans, such as vandalizing and writing graffiti. This article that aims to reveal the Asian Americans' sufferings in the past year can hardly be called all-inclusive, but these exposed racist acts do arouse attention and protests from the U.S. society. Unfortunately, attacks against Asian Americans continue to occur, with vulnerable groups such as women and the elderly as the key targets.