|
Post by Admin on Jul 16, 2020 20:30:46 GMT
A diner at a California restaurant hurled a racist diatribe at an Asian family sitting at a nearby table, causing the eatery to kick him out, shocking video shows. The woman who recorded the jarring footage says she was celebrating her aunt’s birthday at the Lucia restaurant at the Bernardus Lodge & Spa in Carmel Valley when the man began making comments toward them, according to news station KION. “We were singing ‘Happy Birthday,‘ ” Jordan Chan told the TV outlet. “We were just taking pictures and goofing around with each other and then all of a sudden the man, Michael Lofthouse, starts making really loud racist remarks at us.” Video of the incident, which was posted on Twitter by a friend of Chan, has led to widespread outrage. The clip shows the man telling the family they “need to leave” and at one point says “f--king Asian piece of s--t.” A staff member at the restaurant is then heard ordering the man to leave. “You do not talk to our guests like that,” she says. “Get out of here.” Chan told KION that the man was “inebriated,” and said he attempted to return to the restaurant after he was kicked out. “I’ve dealt with racism as well but never on that scale,” Chan said. “Never on that level to the point where somebody completely unprovoked felt obligated to voice out their hatred for absolutely no reason, just because they’re filled with that much hatred and because what, because we’re different skin color.” The vice president and general manager of Bernardus told KION that the incident was “an extremely unfortunate situation.”
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jan 28, 2021 21:12:27 GMT
President Biden is expected to use his executive authority this week to disavow racism and xenophobia toward Asian Americans, specifically targeting anti-Asian animus connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. This action is expected on Tuesday, multiple people familiar with the plan told CBS News.
The directives, which may take the form of an executive order or a presidential memo, are expected to be part of a package of executive actions focusing on "equity," according to two people familiar with the plans. The other administrative actions are expected to focus on Tribal governments, fair housing, and private prisons. The Biden administration has told outside groups it is also preparing measures on voting rights.
According to a draft calendar of impending executive actions distributed to outside advocacy groups and viewed by CBS News, the administration is planning to take actions related to climate on Wednesday, health care on Thursday, and immigration on Friday.
The Biden transition team and White House Domestic Policy Council have been preparing executive action geared toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for weeks and discussed tenets of the presidential order with several outside groups, three of these advisers said.
Drafts of the forthcoming executive order have contained a mix of both symbolic and real government action. Some of the elements discussed are likely not to make it into the final text of the executive order, according to the people involved in discussions with the White House.
The Biden directives are expected to include guidance to the Department of Justice instructing it to assist with more accurate data collection and reporting of hate incidents and harassment toward Asian Americans. There were more than 2,800 self-reported hate incidents, ranging from racial slurs to physical violence, including acid and knife attacks, between March 2020 and the end of December, according to the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate.
The Biden executive order is also expected to direct federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to examine whether there are xenophobic references like "China virus" in any existing policies, directives or government websites published by the Trump administration.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 19, 2021 22:37:41 GMT
Last year, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mulan actor Tzi Ma was walking towards a Whole Foods in Pasadena, Calif., when a car slowed down in front of him. "I said, 'Oh, how courteous, a young man, slowing down for me to cross,'" Ma, who was born in Hong Kong, tells PEOPLE. "That was not the case. He rode up and stopped in front of me, rolled down his window and looked me straight in the eye and said, 'You should be quarantined,' and took off." The encounter, Ma said, left him "numb and kind of a little bit dazed." He was hardly alone in enduring racial abuse, as hate crime and racism against Asians have increased since the start of the pandemic. According to a recent Harris poll, 75 percent of Asian Americans are fearful of increased hate and discrimination toward them. Connie Chung Joe, CEO of the nonprofit Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, says that there have been at least 2,800 hate incidents targeting Asians nationwide in the past year, and that those numbers may be deceptively low because of language and cultural barriers to reporting incidents. Ma says former president Donald Trump — who referred to COVID-19 as the "China virus" and "Kung Flu" — has helped stoke the racism. RELATED: Asian Americans Fear for Their Safety Amid Increasing Racism, Hate Crimes Since Start of Pandemic"He just basically kind of turned over all the rocks and [racists are] all crawling out," says Ma. "It gave them permission, emboldened them just to come out and do whatever. Because, 'Hey man, the leader of the free world is telling us it's okay.' He definitely had a hand in all of this and it's still continuing." A report released last September by the Stop AAPI Hate Youth Campaign, which surveyed nearly 1,000 Asian American young adults, found that eight out of 10 respondents expressed anger over the current anti-Asian hate in the United States. An analysis by Stop AAPI Hate, the youth campaign's parent organization, found that one in ten tweets concerning Asian Americans in the months before the 2020 presidential election contained racist or disparaging language. For more on hate crimes and racism Asian Americans have faced since the start of the pandemic, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up this week's issue, on newsstands Friday. Ma has joined #WashTheHate, a social media campaign that was launched last March in response to the uptick in anti-Asian violence. The founder of the campaign, Telly Wong, the chief content officer at New York marketing agency IW Group, said he started #WashTheHate — whose name references the directive to wash hands to prevent the spread of COVID — after watching a disturbing attack online. "It was a viral video of an Asian man taking the subway and he was being harassed by someone spraying him with Febreze, telling him he has the virus," Wong tells PEOPLE.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 27, 2021 7:08:05 GMT
The NBA G League is opening an investigation into Cruz Warriors guard Jeremy Lin’s statements that he’s been called “coronavirus” on the court, a source told The Athletic’s Shams Charania. On Thursday, Lin posted a message on his Facebook page about the racism and stereotypes that Asian Americans face. In the post, Lin revealed the verbal slur he suffered since returning to the court with Cruz in the G League's winter restart. The first known infections of COVID-19 were discovered in Wuhan, China, in 2019. Lin, a Taiwanese-American, was born in Palo Alto, Calif., and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area before attending Harvard University. “Being an Asian American doesn't mean we don't experience poverty and racism,” Lin wrote. “Being a 9 year NBA veteran doesn't protect me from being called ‘coronavirus’ on the court.” Lin has played five games with the G League Warriors, averaging 19.6 points, 7.2 assists and 2.8 rebounds per game in 31.3 minutes. “Something is changing in this generation of Asian Americans,” Lin wrote. “We are tired of being told that we don't experience racism, we are tired of being told to keep our heads down and not make trouble. We are tired of Asian American kids growing up and being asked where they're REALLY from, of having our eyes mocked, of being objectified as exotic or being told we're inherently unattractive. We are tired of the stereotypes in Hollywood affecting our psyche and limiting who we think we can be. We are tired of being invisible, of being mistaken for our colleague or told our struggles aren't as real.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 27, 2021 21:25:58 GMT
An elderly Thai immigrant dies after being shoved to the ground. A Filipino-American is slashed in the face with a box cutter. A Chinese woman is slapped and then set on fire. These are just examples of recent violent attacks on Asian Americans, part of a surge in abuse since the start of the pandemic a year ago. From being spat on and verbally harassed to incidents of physical assault, there have been thousands of reported cases in recent months. Advocates and activists say these are hate crimes, and often linked to rhetoric that blames Asian people for the spread of Covid-19. What's happening in the US? The FBI warned at the start of the Covid outbreak in the US that it expected a surge in hate crimes against those of Asian descent. Federal hate crime data for 2020 has not yet been released, though hate crimes in 2019 were at their highest level in over a decade. Late last year, the United Nations issued a report that detailed "an alarming level" of racially motivated violence and other hate incidents against Asian Americans. It is difficult to determine exact numbers for such crimes and instances of discrimination, as no organisations or governmental agencies have been tracking the issue long-term, and reporting standards can vary region to region. The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate said it received more than 2,800 reports of hate incidents directed at Asian Americans nationwide last year. The group set up its online self-reporting tool at the start of the pandemic. What's the situation in California? Over six million Asian Americans live in California, according to the latest population estimates, by far the most in any US state. They make up more than 15% of residents in the state. The coronavirus hit the state hard and early, grinding its bustling cities and businesses to a halt. The virus has already claimed over 50,000 Californian lives. From March to May 2020 alone, over 800 Covid-related hate incidents were reported from 34 counties in the state, according to a report released by the Asian Pacific Policy Planning Council. Those numbers have since intensified in Orange County, where anti-Asian hate incidents are up by an estimated 1200%, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. In neighbouring Los Angeles County, hate crimes against Asian Americans are up 115%, CBS News reported.
|
|