Introduction
In China, the city of Wuhan is believed to be ground zero of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, which started in late December 2019. The virus has since spread globally, with cases of infection reported in almost all world countries. The United States, in particular, has been heavily affected by the spread of the virus, with the country's death toll in the hundreds of thousands and a still greater number of the infected. Amidst the worry and fear of the viral spread, several reports of harassment and even physical violence to Asian Americans have sprung up across the nation (Gover et al., 647). This paper uses a mix of media information and empirical sources to analyze the nature and effect of the hate crimes committed against Asian Americans in the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anti-Asian Hate Crime during the COVID-19 pandemic
The fear created by the rising number of daily infections in the United States has created an atmosphere of distrust of foreigners. This xenophobic disposition may be one of the causes for the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic (Berman). These hate crimes have been brought to prominence by the rising public awareness of such acts of racially motivated violence through the use of social media. Videos released by bystanders at the scene of racial attacks have incited the broader media's response, prompting recounts of witnessed hate crimes against Asian Americans. One of the most notable hate crimes perpetrated during the pandemic was the stabbing, which occurred on March 14 where a family from Myanmar was attacked in Midland, Texas. Three victims were stabbed in the incident, with two of them being children (Aziz).
The genesis of the hate
The World Health Organisation, in an attempt to avoid attaching any social, religious, ethnic, cultural, national, regional, and professional group to the new disease, used the "Best Practices for the Naming of New Human Diseases." The name selected was Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) for the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. A name that bore no affiliation to any group or nation (WHO).
The appellation of the virus and consequent designation as the "Chinese virus" or "China virus" by the United States President saw repeated use of this...…closed to China.
The discrimination generalized by ethnicity can erase any distinction which existed within the members of that ethnic community. This is illustrated by the United States president's social media tweet, which criticized the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to the San Francisco Chinatown in support of Asian American-owned businesses. This shows the blurring of the distinction between Chinese nationals in the country and the country's actual residents. The entire Asian American community is seen as Chinese foreigners.
The increased blame put upon China's nation for the COVID-19 outbreak further incites the fear and suspicion of Americans towards all individuals affiliated with China, even distant ones such as Asian Americans. This fear and suspicion, if unchecked, can spill over into further hate crimes perpetrated against the Asian American minority group.
Conclusion
The individual actions against Asian Americans in the United States have demonstrated a level of prejudice and xenophobic disposition. And the actions at the governmental level have done little to correct this but have victimized the marginalized ethnic minority even further. The unchecked fear and suspicion in the nation encouraged by the attachment of a pandemic to an ethnic group increase Asian Americans' risk to suffer hate crimes.
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