[ad_1]
WASHINGTON – Alameda County, California authorities have created a special response unit focused on crimes against Asians, particularly older Asians.
Monday’s (February 8) move came after a series of violent attacks against Asian-Americans, including one in Oakland, California, in which a young man violently pushed a 91-year-old Asian man to the ground.
The video has caused a chill in the Asian American community. Two more Asian Americans, a 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman, were also “victimized” that same day on January 31 and had to be taken to hospital, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
A 28-year-old African American has been arrested. He is a suspect in all three cases.
The incidents came just days after Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old Thai man, died after being similarly attacked while taking a morning walk in his San Francisco neighborhood on January 28.
A 19-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and elder abuse in that case, and is being held without bail.
At a news conference Monday in Oakland’s Chinatown, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, announcing the task force, said: “The rapid increase in criminal acts directed against members of the Asian community, especially Chinese Americans, living and working in Alameda County is intolerable. “
This week, the Committee of 100, an influential nonpartisan group of prominent Chinese-Americans in business, government, academia, and the arts, released a White Paper commissioned from The Economist Intelligence Unit, on the contribution of Chinese Americans to the United States.
The post was in response to rising anti-China sentiment in “an age inflamed by resurgence of racism and geopolitical tension that reversed decades of fruitful exchange with China.”
“The United States has reached a time when it is critical to examine how diversity has benefited society and how minority groups such as Chinese Americans have, over time, identified with the country itself,” the report says. .
“Awareness of the contribution of immigrant groups – and the harmful misperceptions that exist alongside it – can ensure a future of cooperation, mutual appreciation and respect.”
Chinese-Americans contributed more than $ 300 billion ($ 373 billion) to the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 through consumer spending, supporting three million jobs, according to The report.
“There are more than 160,000 Chinese-owned American-owned businesses in the United States, generating approximately $ 240 billion in revenue and supporting 1.3 million jobs in 2017,” he adds.
In August 2020, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, in a note on the United States, wrote: “Racially motivated violence and other incidents against Asian Americans have reached an alarming level across the United States since the Covid-19 outbreak. “
“Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans, including those of Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino and Burmese descent, among others, have been targeted by racist and xenophobic attacks,” the newspaper warned.
“Reportedly, victims experienced being spat on, blocked from public transportation, discriminated against at workplaces, rejected, beaten, stabbed, and insulted as transmitters of the coronavirus. Women were reportedly harassed more than twice as long as men.” .
The assault on the Capitol on January 6 demonstrated the danger of anti-Chinese sentiment amplified to deafening levels by the right-wing media.
Take Larry R. Brock, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel photographed wearing zippered handcuffs on the Senate floor during the uprising by hundreds of Donald Trump supporters.
A week earlier, he wrote on Facebook that he saw no distinctions between Democrats, the Biden administration, and “an invading force of Chinese Communists.”
On January 27, amid the documented rise in hate crimes and harassment, President Joe Biden signed an executive action ordering federal agencies to combat xenophobia.
“Today, I am directing federal agencies to combat the resurgence of xenophobia, particularly against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, which we have seen skyrocket during this pandemic. This is unacceptable and is not American,” the president said.
Although the Committee of 100 welcomed the statement, it still feels more is needed. Hence the White Paper.
“Last year, we saw nearly 3,000 documented cases of incidents against China and Asia,” Zhengyu Huang, chairman of the San Francisco-based Committee of 100, told The Straits Times.
“We knew that we had to speak out forcefully, because racism and discrimination are unfortunate negative aspects of society.”
“I think the time is right, because despite 175 years of contribution, we still suffer from the perpetual stereotype of foreigners, and that stereotype has been exacerbated by two seismic trends: the growing tension and competition between the US and China, and Covid, which creates a lot of fear and mistrust among the general population. “
But he added: “What makes America special is that it always tries to do better, always tries to become a better version of itself.”
“We think this is a long process, maybe a long overdue process, and maybe a process that is not independent of Chinese and Asian Americans, but is an integral part of the big conversations about systemic bias, inequality and justice in the United States “.
[ad_2]
