Anti-Asian racism must be stopped before it is normalised

The coronavirus has brought something besides illness to the United States, a spike in hate crimes directed at Asian Americans.

In this commentary, Sahar Aziz warns of the rise in hate directed at Asian Americans in the time of COVET-19.  She starts the commentary as follows:

“The scapegoating of an ethnic group during a national emergency has begun.

Rumours are circulating that Chinese people are spreading the coronavirus in America. School children are bullied for being of Chinese origin. Racial slurs are hurled at people who “look Chinese”. Chinese culture is increasingly represented as backward and as a threat to America.  

The predictable consequence is an upsurge in racial violence.

In the most egregious hate crime thus far, an Asian American family, including a two-year-old girl, was stabbed at a Sam’s Club Store in Midland, Texas. The attacker admitted to police that he tried to kill them because he believed they were Chinese people infecting Americans with the coronavirus.

We have seen this script before.  

Almost two decades ago, Muslims and Arabs were blamed for the worst terrorist attacks on US soil. In those early months of the national crisis, we failed to thwart anti-Muslim racism before it became mainstream.”

KJ