US: More than 9,000 anti-Asian hate incidents reported since COVID-19 outbreak

More than 9,000 anti-Asian incidents were reported in the United States since the COVID-19 pandemic began, said Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition that became prominent in cataloguing data on racially motivated attacks related to the global health crisis. In a national report published on August 12, Stop AAPI Hate said that a total of 9,081 incident reports to the coalition. Out of all incident reports, 4,548 hate incidents occurred in 2020 and 4,533 hate incidents occurred in 2021. 

In terms of types of harassment, 63.7% of people were targeted verbally and 16.5% were shunned. Stop AAPI Hate said in a statement that “the deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders — continue to make up the two largest proportions of the total incidents reported. A majority of incidents are traumatic and harmful, but not hate crimes.” Meanwhile, physical assault (13.7%) comprised the third-largest category of the total reported incidents. It was followed by “being coughed at or spat on (8.5%).”

Where were most incidents reported?

According to the report, most of the incidents reported taking place outside the homes and in spaces that are often open to the public. It stated, “Public streets (31.6% of incidents) and businesses (30.1% of incidents) remain as the top sites where anti-AAPI hate occurs.” Of all the reports, hate incidents reported by women made up 63.3% of all reports. Meanwhile, under 17-year-olds reported 9.9% of incidents and seniors reported 6.9% of the total incidents since the pandemic began.

Out of all the ethnic groups, the Chinese have reported more hate incidents, which is 43.5%. It was followed by Koreans (16.8%), Filipinx (9.1%), Japanese (8.6%) and Vietnamese (8.2%). The report added, “Of all hate incidents, 48.1% included at least one hateful statement regarding anti-China and/or anti-immigrant rhetoric.”

As per The Associated Press report, Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council said, “When you encourage hate, it’s not like a genie in a bottle where you can pull it out and push it back in whenever you want. There’s too much perpetuating these belief systems to make them go away.”

IMAGE: AP