Hate Crimes in America

A reporting center published a Report-on hate crimes continue to happen against the Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in the United States during recent days. The Report said that Racism-fueled violence against Asian Americans continues to spike, with women more than twice as likely to be targeted than men. The anti-Asian sentiments in US had got worst shape after former President Trump’s “Chinese virus” rhetoric. According to report, during March 12, 2020 to Feb 28, 2021, there were about 3800 self-reported incidents of hate crimes in the United States.

As per details, there were about 11.1% physical assaults, 28.1% verbal harassment and 20.5% shunning or the deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans by the native Americans. The reports revealed that the largest targeted ethnic groups were Chinese Americans, followed by Korean Americans, Vietnamese, and Filipino Americans. Due to these growing incidents, few US Congressmen are planning to move a bill in the US Congress to curb this tendency among the masses. According to reports, Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) have announced a plan to introduce the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act in the Congress in coming days.

In fact, the hate sentiments against Asian Americans were present in the American society over the decades but their frequency of occurrence was very low, however, the coronavirus has given a blow to already existing anti-Asian American sentiment. The statements of former President Trump had provoked these sentiments in the American society.

According to Police department statistics of major cities across the US revealed that the anti-Asian hate crimes increase by 150 % in 2020. Surprisingly, the US Department of Justice defined these hate crimes as acts of prejudice that are not crimes as per the department. The incumbent democrat administration of President Biden is fully aware of this problem and issued an executive memo condemning the racism against the Asian Americans and asked the agencies to make sure official documents do not exhibit or contribute to racism. American civil society in collaboration with Asian Americans are actively working to stop these hate crimes through legislations at State level and in the federation. Hopefully, the hate crimes on ethnic basis would be significantly fell in Biden era.