“[T]he man started screaming at me, telling me to go back to Asia, followed by
two minutes of calling me every single derogatory word you could imagine.” Hong Lee
1918. It actually started from a zoonotic viral breakout from a Kansas farm that rapidly made its way to a nearby Army training camp. US soldiers then carried this newfound flu across the United States, where it exploded on the east coast from the ports of embarkation as US troops traveled to Europe. The flu exploded in the European theater as well, inflicting allied soldiers until it first seeped and then also exploded within the German ranks. Many believe it eventually forced the Germans to their knees, surrendering to the allies. That was World War I. The devastation of the flu killed millions.
The allies, under direction from American President Woodrow Wilson (who effectively rescued Europe with US intervention), censored the flu, designated top secret. Wilson did not want to demoralize the troops or let the Germans know how extensive the disease was. Wilson himself was so debilitated by the flu that he was unable to control the harsh reparations he opposed that the French demanded of the Germans or to implement his vision of the League of Nations.
Because Spain was neutral in the war, it was not subject to Wilson’s censorship. So, when the only major Western press to discuss the outbreak, which should have been labeled the “Kansas Flu,” was in Spain, people around the world wrongfully assumed that it was the “Spanish Flu.” The name stuck.
While there were some crazy stories circulating back in 2018-19, the obsession with conspiracy theories, perhaps dampened by the lack of anything like social media, did not actually rise to demand reparations from or scapegoat attacks against those innocent Spaniards. But in the modern United States, where scapegoating and vicious attacks on everyone from disabled Americans and captive US soldiers to entire racial, religious and ethnic groups became the new Trump-Republican normal, it did not take much to radicalize a significant proportion of the population into blaming and hating the scape goats, often generalizing blame across entire continents of clearly innocent human beings. When it came to the virus: Anyone who looked Chinese!
The novel coronavirus is hardly the “Wuhan Virus” or the “China Virus” intentionally manufactured by a deep state Chinese conspiracy, one linked to all persons of Asian heritage, that so many modern-day Trump followers believe it to be. The World Health Organization recently sent a team of experts to confirm or deny a reasonable probability that the virus emanated from Chinese laboratories. Result? Exceptionally unlikely. What appears more likely, and it is reasonably linked to China, is that zoonotic transmission of the virus did originate in China, and if there is blame to be assessed, China was most certainly committed to keeping the epidemic under wraps until it became a pandemic. Until they couldn’t. But that was hardly ordinary Chinese citizens.
Yet Donald Trump’s insistence that China was to blame, that the United States should make them pay, for initiating and spreading the COVID-19 virus, with malice, soon elevated those with obviously Asian features to face the same kinds of hatred and put-downs faced by Black Americans, Latin American immigrants, and Muslim Americans. In what was rapidly becoming Trumpian white power nationalism, radicalized violence against minorities achieved a new level of legitimization, countered by a very effective use of smart phone and security recordings to the contrary. Asians were the latest to feel the harshest pounding by angry white Americans.
The resultant rise of domestic hate crimes against Asian Americans has been nothing short of staggering. Images in all forms of media showing violent unmotivated random attacks, including old people slammed with bricks for no apparent reason. Ahn Do, writing for the March 17th Los Angeles Times presents some hard numbers: “Since coronavirus shutdowns began last March, thousands of Asian Americans have faced racist verbal and physical attacks or have been shunned by others, according to a study released Tuesday [3/16].
“The report by Stop AAPI Hate documents 3,795 racially motivated attacks against Asian Americans from March to February, noting that the number is likely a fraction of the attacks that occurred, because many were not reported to the group… Stop AAPI Hate [Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders] formed last March in response to attacks related to the perception that Asians were responsible for the coronavirus because of its origins in Wuhan, China. The group did not collect data in previous years to show whether attacks against Asians have increased during the pandemic.
“About 68% of the anti-Asian incidents documented in the study were verbal harassment, 21% were shunning and 11% were physical assaults… About 9% of the incidents were civil rights violations such as workplace discrimination or being refused service at a business. Nearly 7% were online harassment… Most of the incidents occurred at businesses or on public streets… More than two-thirds of the attacks in the study were reported by women… More than 40% were reported by Chinese Americans, 15% by Korean Americans and 8% by Filipino Americans.”
Other surveys prove that marked increase in anti-Asian hate crimes: “A new study based on police department statistics across major U.S. cities found a nearly 150% surge in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020, while overall hate crimes fell by 7%. The numbers reflect a growing trend of discrimination against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The report, released [in the second week of March] by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, examined hate crimes in 16 of America's largest cities, found the first spikes rose alongside COVID-19 cases in March and April... New York City saw the highest jump, rising from 3 to 28. Boston and Los Angeles followed, with increases from 6 to 14, and 7 to 15, respectively.” CBSNews.com, March 13th.
Making statistical accuracy nearly impossible is a common Asian value in keeping a low profile and not reporting criminal activity. Asian hate crime is probably horribly under-reported. “‘It’s in our culture just to keep our heads down, and we don’t want to talk about things that humiliate us,’ [Hong Lee, a Vietnamese American nonprofit worker in her mid-30s, who uttered the above quote]. ‘But why do we need to be passive?
“Attacks against senior citizens in the Bay Area and New York City have intensified the outcry against anti-Asian hate crimes, though it is unclear whether many of those incidents were racially motivated… ‘We need to reckon with both the historical and ongoing impact that racism, hate and violence are having on our community, especially on women, youth and seniors, who are particularly vulnerable,’ said Cynthia Choi, a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate.” LA Times. This is America’s shame, and those who plant false blame, encourage or incite violence against minorities or simply refuse to do anything about that violent and ignominious trend are as culpable as those who wield the weapons of assault against these innocent Asian
Americans.
I’m Peter Dekom, and while any racial, ethnic or religious discrimination of any kind is horribly un-American, the added dose of physical violence requires the harshest police response.
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