Episode 71: Davidson Hang Reflections and Lessons: Thoughts on Anti Asian hate crimes

Davidson Hang Reflections and Lessons from a life worth living

I woke up at 6am this morning feeling confused and had the urge to share my thoughts on Anti-Asian Hate crimes. I am just speaking for myself and do not represent all Asian Americans but I am just sharing some of my experiences as an Asian American Male who despite being born in America will never viewed as an American even though I've never been to Asia just because of the color of my skin. Reading Michelle Kim’s article inspired me to want to share openly in hopes of educating a few what many people don’t know about Asian American hate crimes. "They show a 91-year-old Chinese man being shoved to the ground in Oakland’s Chinatown on Sunday, January 31st, just two days before an 84-year-old Thai man, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was pushed and killed in San Francisco, and multiple accounts of robberies targeting Asian-owned businesses in Chinatowns. In New York, a 61-year-old Filipino man was slashed across the face from ear to ear on Feb 3rd, and on the same day, a 70-year-old Asian woman was assaulted and robbed in Oakland." I would like to share with you all some stories from my past that I know have made me who I am.

1. Working at a previous company where I called racist comments as my nickname.

2. At a team outing that traumatized with the Men's Cross Country and Track at Cherry Hill West.

3. With one of my best friends back in High School

4. A hurtful comment with a formal manager of mine

5. Random moments walking around Queens/Brooklyn/New Brunswick being called Jackie Chan.

6. A story about my wife’s younger sister sharing that she was walking to Target and had a bus of kids say go back to China…

7. My mom was afraid of going to Costco because of the racial comments fearing for her life. In the US, there were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in past year. Asian women report hate incidents 2.3 times more than men.

The founder and director of demographic data and policy research nonprofit AAPI Data have said that a confluence of factors, including the effects of poverty and financial struggle exacerbated by the pandemic, as well as opportunity, could have played into the heightened anti-Asian sentiment.

How can you be an ally and take action?

Educate yourself. These articles and learning more about these incidents will give you some more awareness of how we have been feeling but Asians typically don’t have a voice in mainstream media.

These 5 articles are a good place to start.

1. Vincent Chin-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Vincent_Chin

2. Chinese Massacre of 1871-https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/chinese-mssacre-1871

3. Read this article by Michelle Kim- https://medium.com/awaken-blog/on-anti-asian-hate-crimes-who-is-our-real-enemy-207ee7354926

4. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/17/us/shooting-atlanta-acworth

5. Learn more about the Model Minority Myth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txbtTCckp_k

It wasn't easy creating this video to share openly about how I feel about the Anti-Asian Sentiment but Thanks for listening.