Has anti-Asian hate become "normal" for media? life is uneasy as attacks continue against AAPI

A new national survey found that one in five Asian Americans (21.2%) and Pacific Islanders (20%) have experienced a hate incident the past year. With about 23 million AAPI in the US, that translates to over 4.8 million Asian Americans and 320,000 Pacific Islanders. 

The report by Stop AAPI Hate says the community-based initiative, has collected over 10,000 self-reported incidents since the start of the pandemic in March, 2020.

The outrage generated by the thousands of attacks -- verbal, physical and emotional -- against people of Asian descent have all but disappeared off the newspaper front pages and no longer garner the lead item on TV news, but the incidents of hate appear to be continuing unabated.

The annual FBI report on hate crimes found that hate crimes, in general, have risen 13% in the pst year, but hate crimes against AAPI have skyrocketed by 73%

In Washington, D.C., hate crime reports were actually down in the latest reports. But they're up significantly in Virginia -- and they've doubled in Maryland. Maryland this week launched an initiative to combat the anti-Asian incidents. The Maryland initiative follows similar state-sponsored efforts in New York and California.

The rise in anti-Asian incidents continue despite President Biden's executive orders for the federal government to take steps to stem the surge of hate.

Almost everyday there is a new report of an AAPI being attacked, harassed, bullied or shunned.

• Earlier this month, Sunisa Lee, the Olympic gymnastic gold medalist, was pepper sprayed by drivers passing by while standing on a Los Angeles sidewalk.

• An 84-year old man was attacked at a San Francisco ATM, smashed in the face with a glass bottle and robbed of his cash.

• With no place to escape, passengers on public transit (subways and buses) are vulnerable to attacks where they edure verbal abuse, suffer physical attacks and spat upon. 

• Asian-operated businesses across the nation are frequently vandalized with racist graffiti, smashed windows or unruly customers telling them to "go back home."

• In a separate study, Los Angeles Human Relations Commission reported a 76% increase in hate crimes against AAPI in L.A. County.

• By last summer, New York City experienced a 395% increases in anti-Asian legally defined hate crimes in 2021 compared to all of 2020. 

An Asian-owned business in Texas is targeted with graffiti.

The attacks are so numerous that mainstream news media don't consider them newsworthy. They are considered a normal part of American life, circa 2021. 

Most of the attacks occur in public areas, according to the Stop AAPI Hate's latest report followed by incidents at work. Other findings of their report issued today (Nov. 18), include:

• Verbal harassment (62.9%) and shunning (16.3%) — the deliberate avoidance of AAPIs — continue to make up the biggest share of total incidents reported.

• A majority of incidents take place in spaces open to the public. Public streets (31.2% of incidents) and businesses (26.8% of incidents) remain the top sites of anti-AAPI hate.

• Hate incidents reported by women make up 62% of all reports.

• AA respondents with a high school education are experiencing twice the rate of hate incidents (41.2%) compared to those with at least some college education (19.8%) and those with a BA or higher degree (13.8%).

• One in three Asian American parents (30.6%) and Pacific Islander parents (31.4%) report that their child experienced a hate incident at school.

• 31.5% of Asian Americans and 26.4% of Pacific Islanders report experiencing a hate incident at work.

“It’s tragic but not surprising that Asian Americans with lower education levels are experiencing more hate,” says Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action. “Anti-Asian hate is tied to systemic racism against our community. Stopping hate is not about quick fixes like law enforcement but about deeper investment in our communities.”

The anti-Asian attacks are manifestations of the hate spewed on the Internet. An analysis by anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label and Brandwatch, report 263 million online conversations in the UK and U.S. on social media sites, blogs and forums has found that hate speech increased dramatically between 2019 and mid-2021, roughly corresponding to the pandemic's discovery and growth.

An analysis released this month, found that of 263 million online conversations in the United Kingdom and U.S. on social media sites, blogs and forums has found that hate speech increased dramatically between 2019 and mid-2021. 

Before the COVID-19 started to spread, the level of both online hate speech discussion and actual reported hate crimes remained fairly consistent. However, since the start of the pandemic, the study found that online hate speech increased by 38%. 

Based on the analysis, there was a 28% rise in ethnicity-based and racist hate speech in the UK and US, and a 22% rise in the number of online discussions of violent threats, with a new post about race or ethnicity-based hate speech every 1.7 seconds on average, reports Forbes magazine.

The most notable finding was a rise of 1,662% in anti-Asian hate speech in 2020 compared with 2019. This peaked with the announcement of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, with Trump-inspired references to the virus as the "China virus" or "kung flu."

Slurs and tropes, with racist, sexist and homophobic terms were the most common forms of online hate speech. The second commonest was violent threats, most likely to occur on forums. 

Although the study lacked the data to conclude that  there exists a definite "relationship between the pandemic and the rate of online hate," says Ditch the Label CEO Liam Hackett. "It is clear from this report that online hate speech has reached an all-time high and, to some communities, is at an unbearable extreme." 

And this online hate appears to be triggering attacks in public. "In the U.S., it seems that the peak for incidents of hate crimes occurred prior to the peak for hate speech discussions and examples of hate speech online. However, the UK hate speech conversation spiked first followed by a more steady rise in hate crimes," the researchers say.

"That reported hate crime and online discussion around hate speech rose roughly in tandem in both countries suggests a troubling link between online words and ‘real-world’ action," says the study.

“When it comes to stopping anti-Asian hate, our elected leaders should be responsive to the Asian American community,” says Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. “Locally and nationally, they must make real investments in civil rights, community resources and education.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd