Despite Legislation, Anti-Asian Incidents Haven’t Declined: Report

Despite the recent movements and legislation aimed at tackling Anti-Asian incidents, these incidences are still occurring.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, there have been 9,081 anti-Asian incidents, according to a report published Thursday by the nonprofit coalition Stop AAPI Hate says CBS News.

The national data represents self-reported incidents between March 19, 2020, to June 30, 2021.

It found that 4,548 incidents occurred in 2020 and that another 4,533 happened in 2021. Out of the total in 2021, there were 2,478 incidents reported between April and June alone.

These instances of hate featured being coughed and spat on, refused service, vandalism, verbal harassment, and physical assault.

Verbal harassment/Name Calling has the highest percentage of occurrences at 63.7 percent, says the report.

The report also notes the influx of the pandemic among factors to the recent uptick in hate incidents, the scapegoating of China (21.7 percent) was the highest type of hateful language reported.

This data shows that this year’s number of incidences will likely surpass last year’s despite the months of political and social activism done, reports NPR.

The largest federal response to this surge since the start of the pandemic has been Congress’s Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act, says Vox.

This legislation aims to improved hate crime data collection, bolstering hate crime tracking by designating a Justice Department official to specifically review potential hate crime incidents, providing grants for regional law enforcement agencies to set up reporting hotlines, and offering training to police on how to handle hate crime responses, says another Vox article.

The report also found that New York is the second-highest state with the largest number of hate incident reporting’s, with 16 percent.

This large number comes after the New York State Senate passed the Hate Crimes Analysis and Review Act, which like Congress’s Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act, only improves the state’s ability to monitor and respond to hate crimes as they encourage that collection and reporting of more accurate information about New Yorkers involved in hate crimes, according to NY Senate.

One of the most recent instances of anti-Asian hate crime in New York City occurred on July 25 when a suspect approached the 26-year-old victim on the sidewalk and spat on her while making anti-Asian statements, says ABC7 NY.

While these many attempts at addressing this surge in anti-Asian hate crimes have aimed at helping the reporting and aftermath of these incidents, this report shows that these legislations are overlooking prevention.

Jack Levin, an expert on hate crimes at Northeastern University, told Vox, “Hate crime laws have important symbolic meaning. They send a message to two groups: They send it to the perpetrator, informing him that our community will not tolerate his intolerance. And then at the same time, they send a message to potential victims that they are welcome in our community,” reports the New York Times.

This symbolic meaning may send a message to perpetrators that the community won’t tolerate their violence, they won’t do much to deter them from actually committing hate crimes, says Vox.

“The real question is what do we do with that data? Is it to reinforce a certain narrative that we need more policing?” asks Jason Wu, co-chair of GAPIMNY-Empowering Queer & Trans Asian Pacific Islanders, one of over 85 Asian American and Pacific Islander advocacy groups that opposed this bill, says Vox.

“If the data is the call for more of the same, then it’s not going to do anything useful to preventing violence in the future.”

In order to make communities safer Stop AAPI Hate says:

• Resources should go towards long-term community-center solutions education, culturally competent victim services, and prevention programs that get at the underlying causes of racial bias;
• Encourage restorative justice, rather than punitive justice;
• Break the cycle of violence because it holds perpetrators accountable by educating them; and
• Support victims by giving them a voice and a choice.

According to CBS News, Stop AAPI Hate has also called for investment in education, outreach and “more holistic solutions to combating hate in schools and places of business.”

Gabriela Felitto is a TCR Justice Reporting intern.