Social, Political Actions Called for to Counter Surging Asian Hate in US

To highlight “StopAsianHate” and demand thorough regulation, multiple marches and demonstrations erupted almost in unison on Saturday in over 60 US cities, including New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland and Atlanta, where the gun rampage on March 16 left eight dead at three spas, six of them Asian women.

The shooting spree in State Georgia, together with a rising wave of similar-nature incidents over the past year, have shocked many Asian Americans across the nation, and led to the alarm, grief and fear of Asian-hate crime tides amid this COVID-19 pandemic era.

The heinous slaying has particularly further sparked both a sense of heightened activism from within the Asian American community and broad-based support from beyond, mirroring a burning public desire to fight the wide-ranging racial discriminations in this so-called beacon country of democracy.

SATURDAY FURY

Saturday afternoon, hundreds of people of various races and backgrounds rallied and marched in Flushing, a prosperous Asian community in Queens borough of New York City, with several speakers sharing their personal stories about racism and the participants chanting slogans for much of the time. New Yorkers have held at least 10 major rallies since the Atlanta shootings.

As neighbours, friends and students, Asian Americans deserved to be treated with respect and should have safety, said Jordan Wolf, who taught at Flushing International High School.

The root causes of hate against Asian Americans were the prejudice and the desire to treat other people like objects or take “people different from you as not your own flesh and blood,” said Ray Low, a pastor working in Manhattan. “White supremacy is a scourge on this earth and to all people. It needs to be dismantled in order for us to live healthier, happier, more protected lives,” said Samantha Evangelis, a second-generation immigrant living in New York.

Also Saturday afternoon, more than 1000 people of various races gathered at Chinatown Square in the South Side of Chicago to protest against increasing crimes targeting people of Asian descents.

They also protested the recent savage killing in Atlanta.