Several hundred people demonstrated in New York on Saturday against violence targeting Asians. Similar protests are also taking place in some 60 other American cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. “The Covid-19 pandemic has lasted for a year and violence against Asians has only worsened“said Judi Chang who is part of ANSWER, the pacifist and anti-racist collective which called for demonstrations.
The growing hostility towards Asians, she said, is due to rhetoric that portrays China as a threat. “Every Asians I know have been harassed, assaulted“, she explained to AFP during the demonstration organized in New York.”They spit on us. They yell at us. We are being watched. People leave when we get somewhere“.
On March 16, a white man killed eight people in Atlanta, including six women of Asian descent. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, a number of US politicians, including then-President Donald Trump, spoke of a “chinese virus“. “A lot of people I know were very affected.“said Irving Lee, who joined the protest in New York’s Queens neighborhood.
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