Former US President Donald Trump and his “toxic” political influence may easily be identified as the culprits for the rising anti-Asian wave in the US, with the most recent one involving shootings that killed eight people, among which six were Asians, in Atlanta-area massage parlors. But there are more accomplices.
US media that have ramped up their propaganda machine to disparage China in recent years, and pinpoint China as the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged the world should also shoulder fair share of responsibility for instigating hatred towards Asian group, said observers. They also believe that as US society faces increasing domestic woes, racial discrimination could be an easy way for people to vent off their dissatisfaction.
21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, a white gunman, was charged Wednesday with killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage parlors. Among them, six were women of Asian descent.
Although Long told police that Tuesday’s attack was not racially motivated, investigators said they had not ruled out bias as a motivating factor.
The latest killing has sent a chill among Asian Americans, who have suffered a spike of attacks in recent years, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak.
Philip Choi, advisor of the Chinese American Association of Commerce living in San Francisco, said that the attacks have gripped his heart and he is very concerned about it. “Now the vulnerable groups, such as elderly and females, are more easily subject to discriminative cases against Asians. Several elderly Asians even died from racist attacks in the Bay Area during the past few months,” Choi told the Global Times.
On Wednesday, 76-year-old Chinese American woman Xie Xiaozhen was attacked in San Francisco by a white man in his 30s.
The woman’s son-in-law John Chen told the Global Times that Xie was attacked while out for a walk. “She was waiting for the traffic light to turn green when she suddenly heard someone aggressively yelling ‘Chinese! Chinese,’ and before she could react, she had already been punched in the face,” Chen said.
As CBS reported, San Francisco police did not disclose a motive behind the attack and it was not clear whether the victim’s race had anything to do with the assault. They are working to determine if racial discrimination was a factor.
According to Stop AAPI Hate, from 19 March 2020 to 28 February 2021, the group received 3,795 reports against Asian-Americans. It said that Chinese Americans received most of the attacks, accounting for 42.2 percent.