Anti-Asian Violence On The Rise as Media Focuses On Political “Cat Videos”
The deadly cost of racism, the weaponized words of a President, and a media’s unrelenting fixation on partisan one-liners and Cancun outrage.
Anti-Asian violence isn’t new, what is, is the unavoidable fact that violence against Asians has increased since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Still, I knew very little about it.
The advocacy group ‘Stop AAPI Hate’ reports in excess of 2800 anti-Asian attacks since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, yet I was hearing nothing about it.
Aside from old-fashioned, deep-seated racism handed down by generational ignorance, some attribute the influx to phrases like “The China Virus” or “The Kung Flu” that were often hurled into the airwaves like rhetorical weaponry by the former administration.
I knew that there was a teacher in the town where I live that was being harassed to the point of feeling the need to purchase a gun to protect his family. I also knew that some residents of a neighborhood in Queens were being turned away from bodegas they frequented without problem before the pandemic. I had no idea what was really happening until I started seeing posts from Asian-Americans on Twitter.
Videos of a senior citizen being shoved so hard to the ground he died of his injuries…
