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What’s in a name?

During a press briefing at the White House, President Trump wrote down "Chinese" virus instead of "Corona"virus. This is an important action and here's why: In the notes, Coronavirus had already been typed out, but he had made the effort to change it to "Chinese". This change brings to light a relationship between China and the Coronavirus (or COVID-19 as I like to call it). There are multiple scientific and layman's terms for this specific virus, but when leaders or media correspondents decide to use terminology that focuses on a specific region/country/group of people, it in turn leads to people focusing their negative energy and feelings around this virus towards those people. Harvey Dong, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley states that "'It's racist and it creates xenophobia'" (The Washington Post, 2020). But WHY is it racist? Well, this virus has impacted everyone. The entire world has been touched by the virus and its terror. Calling it the Chinese virus may implicate that only Chinese people are catching this virus or that Chinese people around the world are to blame for this virus. THIS IS NOT TRUE!!! Firstly, to blame an entire country's people, ethnicity, or race for this virus IS racist. You cannot blame an entire community of people for a PANDEMIC.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/20/coronavirus-trump-chinese-virus/

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This article is a great piece by the Southern Poverty Law Center that shares a lot of great ways to help support your community against hate and hate crimes!

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The Statistics

The Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council (A3PCON) and Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) have been workint together to compile data on hate crimes that have been occurring against AAPI community across the United States. They started this data compilation on March 19, 2020 through the STOP AAPI HATE reporting center and received almost 1,500 reports of discrimination against the AAPI community resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. 58% of incidents reported were from New York and California with 44% of incidents occurring at a private business (A3PCON, 2020). 9% of the incidents that were reported were against AAPI seniors (individuals over the age of 60). Women were more likely to be harrassed than men by over 200%. Even with shelter-in-place policies across the country, hate crimes exist and they will occur anywhere there is ignorance, hatred, racism, or xenophobia.

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Who is currently at risk?

Hate crimes are committed without much of a timeline; however, there is always the threat of a rise in hate crimes against certain groups/communities depending on what is going on in the world. As we try to figure out our new normal, the Asian American and Pacific Islander community across the United States (and Asian communities around the world) are having to navigate an already stressful and anxiety-riddled historical event with an added fear of hatred, xenophobia, racism, and overall ignorance by those in their communities who believe them to be the reason for the COVID-19 pandemic. In California, there has been research conducted through surveys by several organizations that are looking into hate crimes that are committed against the AAPI community.

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What is a Hate Crime?

According to the FBI, hate crimes are defined as being "a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whoel or in part by an offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity" (FBI). The reason this is an important definition is because the hate itself isn't the crime (we all have a right to free speech and our own beliefs) but the use of a crime (vandalism, assault, arson, murder, etc.) to expose that hatred is what makes it a crime. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 allows for a federal investigation into hate crimes if those crimes were committed with a bias in mind.