Indian-American here. One thing I often find irritating about the phrase "Asian-American" is that it's usually used to refer to people with East Asian heritage (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, etc). Somehow people with South Asian heritage, like myself, often aren't included in that category, to the point that my girlfriend was surprised to hear that Indian-Americans count as Asian-American.
I think this is a symptom of the continent of Asia being so extremely large and diverse. To wit, every definition of Asia also includes the Arabian Peninsula, but most people would probably not intuitively classify Arab Americans as Asian Americans. The appropriation of "Asian American" to almost universally mean "East Asian Americans" is probably due to the lack of a specific, pre-existing demonym to describe people from that region. It's like how South Americans can be rightfully irritated that "American" gets used to refer to someone from the US, which is also partly due to the fact that no more precise demonym ever emerged (not in English, anyway).
> To wit, every definition of Asia also includes the Arabian Peninsula
Specifically the first definition, it refers to Anatolia or the Persian empire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continent_name_etymolo...) and the definition expanded from there as more and more land was being discovered. Then our terrible and arbitrary definitions of a continent got thrown into the mix.
The fact that Chinese and other East Asian people look far more similar and are the stereotypical "Asian" than Indians and other South Asians is responsible for that. Likewise, there's another comment here about the Russians (North Asians). To the average American, Indian and Russian are probably separate categories from Asian.
I was seeing a woman from Tatarstan, the double eyelid phenotypes were pronounces along with some other features that are even more common in East Asia. There are a lot of people in Russia like that.
I had never heard of that place while in the US, its just “Russia” and an image of the part bordering the EU
While not disputing the core point about escalating violence against Asian Americans, this article seems to view any crime or violence as racially motivated. There is a robbery in there, for example, which suggest an alternate motivation. Would be useful to be more clear on what the author considers a hate crime vs crime whose victim is Asian.
The article didn’t add any specific facts to suggest any of these crimes would be charged as “hate crimes” which is generally just an additional penalty to another crime and usually requires at least an acknowledgement of the protected class during the commission of the underlying crime suggesting the victims status as a member of the protected class was material to the criminal act.
The specific victims mentioned were all elderly which is also disturbing and seems to be a growing trend in itself. Since the BLM protests/riots there have been a lot of videos surfacing where a senior citizen is walking solo and gets senselessly sucker-punched and/or knocked out without warning by a lone wolf. I suppose when the elderly victim is Asian, it’s easy to conclude such an assault must be a hate crime, because they are so brutal and otherwise senseless.
I don’t like the idea of mass surveillance but these seem like the ideal types of cases to get a warrant to pinpoint the suspect’s phone to ID them.
There is semi-hidden animosity between the black and some Asian communities.
Chinese immigrants are often the ones first moving into and then buying out people in black neighborhoods.
Asian kids do disproportionately well in urban schools. Lowell High School is moving from a scoring based system to a lottery. Asian parents see this as unfair while black parents see the previous system as unfair.
Chinese are traditionally not seen as fighting back. Some criminals see elderly as easy marks due to the tendency to carry cash and due to their frailty.
The trade war with China has spread to demonization of Asians.
BLM riots and the lack of persecution and then the defund the police emboldened criminal activity including physical attacks.
This cycle of animosity and violence last occurred roughly 30 years ago.
All ethnicities go to war with each other in LA, it's such a hell hole. Certain Mexican gangs in the 90s were targeting blacks with extreme violence, not to say that it doesn't go both ways. Still to this day there is a lot of tension between Sureno gangs and Black gangs.
> The trade war with China has spread to demonization of Asians.
Has it really though? I agree with pretty much everything else you said (though I’m unsure if getting a gun is warranted).
I don’t think a trade war with China will spur too much in the way of anti-Asian sentiment. Americans were generally able to differentiate between Russians and their government during the Cold War.
I’m not saying there won’t be notable stories that pop here or there, but I don’t think this country is actually as Nativist as the press makes it out to be.
If violent people are anything like wild animals, pepper spray is safer and more effective. You actually have a good chance of hitting your attacker with a stream pepper spray, unlike with a tiny bullet. Your attacker (in the case of, say, a moose) is more likely to run away when hit with pepper than with a bullet. And you are less likely to have collateral damage.
Have you ever been involved with pepper spray? It’s generally terrible for self defense. An attacker isn’t instantly incapacitated — they are still deadly until the full effects of the spray kick in. In the Army, I was trained to keep operating even amongst tear gas. It is horrible, but a violent assailant, especially multiple violent assailants aren’t going to immediately drop to the ground or run away. Being trained and proficient with a firearm is a far better strategy than hoping the attacker happens to be downwind and hoping they aren’t on meth or other drugs that make them seemingly impervious to pepper spray.
Just throwing out there violent people are not like wild amnimals, and in 94% of cases simply drawing a firearm is enough to cause an attacker to flee.
If you are willing to pay there are overpriced sales and limited purchase options at your local gun store. There are four million new gun owners and it will take a while for the industry to catch up.
For most of 2020 the US gov (and much of the media) emphasized covid being not only from China but "a China virus". They never rejected or downplayed the baseless conspiracy theories that it was man made or a deliberate attack by the Chinese. The US actively promoted the equally baseless fear of espionage through tiktok or wechat (lmao) to the point of trying to ban these apps. Rather than quell peoples' fears and doubts in the midst of a national crisis, fuel was added to the fire. And now the xenophobia is in full force.
The man made "conspiracy theories" are not baseless. There is a substantial amount of evidence that it is at least a possibility. There is also a substantial amount of evidence that China intentionally or unintentionally flubbed the handling of this pandemic at the beginning, and is at least partly responsibly for it's rapid spread.
Who are these "many", apart from the post author (the Royal "We", maybe), and why are these opinions supposedly worth noting in a factual news article? One can hope that one day that journalistic norms will preclude such weasel-word editorializations.
I‘m pretty sure it would be quite easy to find a reasonable number of people to agree with the statement to qualify as „many“.
Assuming we agree that the pandemic is motivating this violence, it also doesn’t seem particularly controversial that a president going out of his way to highlight the geographic origin of the virus may be a contributing factor.
This isn't attempting to be a "factual news article" and therefore isn't betraying any "journalistic norms". I think a big part of this country's lack of faith in journalism is due to a basic ignorance of the different forms of journalism and how they each have different norms.
You can blame journalists for that. When hard news stories get littered with opinion and bias, the line between opinion and news gets so blurred as to become non-existent.
Interesting how no mainstream media is reporting this. They sure were quick to label BLM rioters burning down Asian businesses as "peaceful protestors".
New York Magazine is mainstream media, no? Although as someone else noted there is an ethnocultural factor in these incidents that is conveniently under-emphasized because it's real awkward for everyone.
My anecdotal experience suggests this seems to be a Cali phenomenon. In Seattle, even with our insane number homeless, addicts, and the uptick in crime this year, we’ve had only a handful of attacks against our Asian citizens. All of which were dealt with swiftly and harshly.
Readit News
Specifically the first definition, it refers to Anatolia or the Persian empire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continent_name_etymolo...) and the definition expanded from there as more and more land was being discovered. Then our terrible and arbitrary definitions of a continent got thrown into the mix.
The land bridge from Alaska into Russia means Americans are Asians.
USA is the only country which has America in its name.
https://www.worldometers.info/geography/how-many-countries-i...
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I had never heard of that place while in the US, its just “Russia” and an image of the part bordering the EU
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Russia
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The specific victims mentioned were all elderly which is also disturbing and seems to be a growing trend in itself. Since the BLM protests/riots there have been a lot of videos surfacing where a senior citizen is walking solo and gets senselessly sucker-punched and/or knocked out without warning by a lone wolf. I suppose when the elderly victim is Asian, it’s easy to conclude such an assault must be a hate crime, because they are so brutal and otherwise senseless.
I don’t like the idea of mass surveillance but these seem like the ideal types of cases to get a warrant to pinpoint the suspect’s phone to ID them.
Chinese immigrants are often the ones first moving into and then buying out people in black neighborhoods.
Asian kids do disproportionately well in urban schools. Lowell High School is moving from a scoring based system to a lottery. Asian parents see this as unfair while black parents see the previous system as unfair.
Chinese are traditionally not seen as fighting back. Some criminals see elderly as easy marks due to the tendency to carry cash and due to their frailty.
The trade war with China has spread to demonization of Asians.
BLM riots and the lack of persecution and then the defund the police emboldened criminal activity including physical attacks.
This cycle of animosity and violence last occurred roughly 30 years ago.
I’m getting a gun.
Has it really though? I agree with pretty much everything else you said (though I’m unsure if getting a gun is warranted).
I don’t think a trade war with China will spur too much in the way of anti-Asian sentiment. Americans were generally able to differentiate between Russians and their government during the Cold War.
I’m not saying there won’t be notable stories that pop here or there, but I don’t think this country is actually as Nativist as the press makes it out to be.
We’ll see I guess.
Stay safe!
And just 20 years before that the Japanese internment camps happened.
People shouldn’t forget about the African-American and Korean animosity during the LA riots. This stuff goes way back.
If violent people are anything like wild animals, pepper spray is safer and more effective. You actually have a good chance of hitting your attacker with a stream pepper spray, unlike with a tiny bullet. Your attacker (in the case of, say, a moose) is more likely to run away when hit with pepper than with a bullet. And you are less likely to have collateral damage.
Here is one example of why pepper spray is not ideal: https://mynbc15.com/news/local/mobile-woman-shot-after-peppe...
Had the lady shot the suspect, it’s unlikely that she would have been hurt.
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https://www.cbc.ca/archives/when-protest-met-pepper-spray-at...
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good luck. ammo sold out across country.
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Who are these "many", apart from the post author (the Royal "We", maybe), and why are these opinions supposedly worth noting in a factual news article? One can hope that one day that journalistic norms will preclude such weasel-word editorializations.
Assuming we agree that the pandemic is motivating this violence, it also doesn’t seem particularly controversial that a president going out of his way to highlight the geographic origin of the virus may be a contributing factor.