#STOPASIANHATE
DENIZ AKKAYA
The hashtag #StopAsianHate sheds light on racism, a disease without borders that, unlike the virus, kills discriminatory and preys on the vulnerable.
On January 28, surveillance footage showed 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee being brutally pushed to the ground by a stranger while taking a morning walk in San Francisco and unfortunately losing her life 2 days after the incident. The incident was just one of several physical attacks against Asian Americans in recent weeks. While xenophobic rhetoric and racist attacks have been so loud on social media over the course of this year, the silence of major media outlets is as deafening.
Since the pandemic began last spring, Asian Americans have experienced a much higher rate of racist violence than in previous years. The NYPD reported that hate crimes caused by Asian racism increased by 1900% in New York City in 2020. Stop AAPI Hate, a reporting database created in response to the increase in racial violence at the beginning of the pandemic, stated that it received 2,808 reports of discrimination against Asians between March 19 and December 21 2020.
The violence continued until 2021, when President Joe Biden signed an executive order condemning anti-Asian discrimination shortly after taking office in January. While anti-Asian violence has taken place across the country and especially in major cities, the increase in attacks in 2021 has been very intense in the Bay Area, especially in San Francisco and Oakland’s Chinatown.
Some researchers attribute rising hate crime rates in 2020 to the xenophobic rhetoric of Biden’s predecessor, when former President Trump described COVID-19 as a “Chinese Virus” and slashed the bill for the entire pandemic to China. Trump’s attitude actually dates back to the long, dark American history of the 19th and 20th centuries, using illnesses to justify the anti-Asian xenophobia that caused Asian Americans to be perceived as “eternal aliens.”
Following the latest images, mainly Asian-American celebrities known for their activism, such as Bella Hadid, have also used their Instagram pages to draw attention to the issue. Olivia Munn, Daniel Dae Kim and Daniel Wu, Chrissy Teigen, and more have spoken out about the recent crimes. In the fashion space, advocates calling to #StopAsianHate include designer Prabal Gurung, Oscar de la Renta and Monse creative directors Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, author and Instagram Head of Fashion Partnerships Eva Chen, Allure Editor-in-Chief Michelle Lee, journalist Susie Lau, fashion bloggers Chriselle Lim and Tina Leung.
