Stop Asian Hate

I've been meaning to get a thread on this started here. Perhaps I've been putting it off in hopes it would just go away. But it isn't.

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Hate Crimes Targeting Asian Americans Spiked by 150% in Major US Cities
By Masood Farivar
March 02, 2021 12:39 AM
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A demonstrator wearing a face mask and holding a sign takes part in a rally to raise awareness of anti-Asian violence, near Chinatown in Los Angeles on Feb. 20, 2021.
WASHINGTON - Hate-fueled attacks on Asian Americans spiked across major U.S. cities last year — in some cases by triple-digit percentages — even as overall hate crimes declined, newly analyzed police department statistics show.

Moreover, the alarming trend has continued into this year, experts say.

There were 122 incidents of anti-Asian American hate crimes in 16 of the country’s most populous cities in 2020, an increase of almost 150% over the previous year, according to data compiled by California State University’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and exclusively shared with VOA. VOA independently collected data for two of the cities.

Asian American rights advocates attribute the unprecedented string of attacks to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric blaming China for the deadly coronavirus and, more broadly, the scapegoating of Asian Americans by ordinary people frustrated or angered by the economic and social impact of the pandemic.

“I think the political leadership under Trump really put a target on the backs of people perceived to be Chinese. It's Sinophobia,” said Chris Kwok, a board member for the Asian American Bar Association of New York.

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The increase in anti-Asian hate crime was the highest in New York City, the country’s largest city with a sizeable Asian population, where police investigated a record 28 incidents involving Asian American victims, a more than ninefold increase over 2019.

Four other American cities also reported triple-digit percentage increases in anti-Asian hate crimes: Philadelphia and Cleveland each reported six incidents, up from two in 2019; San Jose had 10, up from 4, while Los Angeles reported 15, up from seven.

“While most cities experienced overall hate crime declines, including attacks against groups that had recently spiked like Jews, attacks against Asians rose materially in most cities, and only declined in one — Washington, D.C.,” said Brian Levin, executive director of the hate and extremism research center.

The FBI defines a hate crime as a criminal offense motivated by race, religion, sexual orientation and other factors. Examples include assault and vandalism. Each November, the FBI publishes its annual hate crime data for the previous year. That means the data released by a handful of police agencies provides the only early window into the number of hate crimes last year.

Though based on a relatively small sampling of data, the figures “strongly suggest that 2020 will be the worst year this century for anti-Asian hate crime,” Levin said.

The reported spike in anti-Asian hate crimes is in line with data tracked by Asian American advocacy organizations.

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A demonstrator holding a sign and a flower takes part in a rally to raise awareness of anti-Asian violence, near Chinatown in Los Angeles on Feb 20, 2021.
Stop AAPI Hate, a hate tracker created last year by several Asian American groups, has recorded more than 2,800 incidents of racism and discrimination targeting Asian Americans between March and December 2020. While verbal harassment and shunning made up more than 90% of the incidents, physical assaults accounted for nearly 9%.

Many of the victims are non-Chinese Asians who apparently were mistaken for having hailed from China.

“East Asians who look Chinese are now experiencing this, and this goes back to a long history of anti-Asian discrimination in this country,” Kwok said of the United States.

In a troubling report released last month, Stop AAPI Hate said 126 of the incidents involved Asian Americans over the age of 60. A number of incidents took place in the San Francisco Bay area last month, including one involving a 91-year-old Asian man violently pushed to the ground by a stranger.

“These violent assaults have a devastating impact on our community as they are part of an alarming rise in anti-Asian American hate during the COVID-19 pandemic,” co-founders of STOP AAPI Hate said in a February 9 statement.

In the latest incident, Salman Muflihi, 23, was arrested last week for allegedly stabbing a 36-year-old Asian man on a street in New York City’s Chinatown. Muflihi was charged over the weekend with one count of attempted murder in addition to other charges, but not a hate crime. If authorities were to file a hate crime, it could result in a longer prison sentence.

Kwok said “there is a level of frustration” in the Asian American community over prosecutors’ refusals to file hate crime charges.

“I think they need to really reassess how they approach it, particularly in this era that we're in, which I think of it as an emergency area, particularly for Asian Americans as they experience discrimination,” he said.

In a statement, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said additional charges may be forthcoming.

Meanwhile, overall hate crimes last year declined by an average of 7% in the 15 cities tracked by the center for the study of hate and extremism. In New York City, for example, police investigated 265 hate crimes, down from 428 the previous year.

Of the five cities that reported increases, two are in California, including San Jose, which saw an increase of 162%.

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San Jose borders Fremont where Tiger Claw is.

In the televised news reports I’ve seen on this, I couldn’t help but notice that the people marching and protesting anti-Asian hate crimes were all Asian-Americans. In the footage I saw, there were zero whites or blacks marching with them. Unlike during the BLM protests, which had MANY non-black participants (white, Hispanic, even many Asians). I’m not sure what to make of that, other than some groups in this country are considered more important than others.

...I hadn't noticed that but will tune into it now. I'm on a lot of azn newsfeeds so I've been reading more than my share of coverage, but I have noticed that people who aren't tuned into this barely get it.

Here's an article that addresses this a little:

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People hold signs during the Rise up Against Asian Hate rally in New York City on February 27.
The history of attacks against Asian Americans is complicated. Addressing it will be, too
By Harmeet Kaur, CNN

Updated 7:49 AM ET, Thu March 4, 2021

(CNN)The quote has been ringing in Jose Antonio Vargas' ears ever since he came across it.

"Nobody came. Nobody helped. Nobody made a video."
They were the words of Noel Quintana, a 61-year-old Filipino American who on February 3 was slashed across the face on the New York City subway. He was describing his experience to journalists at the Washington Post and would later echo the same sentiment to city leaders during a recent rally protesting violence against Asian Americans.
For Vargas, Quintana's remarks underscored how he feels Asian Americans have long been seen in the US: as "the invisible within the invisibles."
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Demonstrators hold signs at rally to protest violence against Asian Americans on February 20 in New York City.
Despite being the fastest growing racial and ethnic group in the country, despite consisting of 20 million people with roots in more than 20 countries, the racism, discrimination and disparities experienced by many Asian Americans are often overlooked, he said. Now, as a string of high-profile attacks has made more people pay attention, that's starting to change.
"It's been really quite stunning to witness 'mainstream America' wake up to this invisibility," said Vargas, a journalist whose organization Define American seeks to humanize immigrants through storytelling.
Wider recognition of the racism Asian Americans have been facing since the start of the pandemic is a critical step, advocates and experts say. But this moment has also prompted some to consider another question: What is the best path forward?
Asian Americans occupy a unique spot in the racial hierarchy
To understand the current problem, it's important to acknowledge the unique position that Asian Americans occupy in the United States' racial hierarchy.
"From the moment that the first Chinese arrived in the 1850s until today, Asian Americans have been considered not White but also considered not Black," says Claire Jean Kim, a professor of political science and Asian American studies at the University of California, Irvine.
In many ways, that status has worked to their advantage, Kim said.
Asian Americans haven't experienced the same degree of historical injustices that Black Americans have, meaning they also haven't faced the same structural barriers and inequities. On the whole, Asian Americans earn more and are more likely to have college degrees than other racial groups -- though a closer look at the data yields a more nuanced picture.
And while it's true that Asian Americans aren't as visible in politics and popular culture, their overall lack of visibility has shielded them from the kind of scrutiny and suspicion that has made their Black, Latino and Native counterparts more likely to die at the hands of police violence, Kim said.
That's made them a target during times of crisis
Still, the discrimination and hate Asian Americans have experienced throughout history is very real. Often perceived as foreigners, Asian Americans have been systematically targeted during periods of tension or crisis -- a pattern that's being repeated again today.
In the late 1800s, Chinese laborers were scapegoated for a declining economy and banned from immigrating to the US. During World War II, Japanese Americans were painted as disloyal and rounded up into concentration camps.
In the 1980s, a Chinese American named Vincent Chin was mistaken as Japanese and beaten to death by two White men who blamed Japan for the loss of auto jobs.
After 9/11, South Asians were among those swept up in a wave of Islamophobia.
And since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, countless Asian Americans have been coughed on, spat at, harassed and attacked.

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continued next post

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A demonstrator takes part in a rally on February 20 to raise awareness of violence against Asian Americans near Chinatown in Los Angeles.
Tung Nguyen, chair of AAPI Progressive Action and director of the Asian American Research Center on Health, says Asian Americans "suffer from the racism of being made invisible."
He sees the invisibility of Asian Americans everywhere.
It's in the "model minority" myth, through which the successes of a relative few obscure the stark inequalities felt by other subgroups.
It's in the aggregated collection of data, which masks health disparities and justifies the lack of investment in certain communities.
It's in the challenges to language access, which prevent many Asian Americans from accessing resources in their native tongues.
Those notions, which suggest that Asian Americans are outsiders who don't face disadvantages, make it possible for them to be seen as acceptable targets -- and contribute to the spate of violence seen over the past year, Nguyen said.
"It's easier to hurt someone when they're invisible," he said. "Our invisibility is all over the place."
The younger generation is no longer willing to stay silent
Despite those feelings of invisibility, or perhaps because of them, the recent high-profile attacks against Asian Americans have generated a level of mainstream attention that feels different.
Multiracial coalitions have come together to denounce the violence. Actors and athletes have delivered impassioned responses. Mainstream media outlets have published numerous stories. California has allocated more than a million dollars to help track incidents of discrimination and hate, while New York City announced a new push to combat the issue.
A number of factors might explain the heightened awareness this time around, experts said.
One is a younger generation who grew up in the US and is no longer willing to stay silent the way their immigrant parents might once have.
"The older parents or the aunties and uncles and the grandparents may not say something, but their children and their nieces and nephews and their grandkids will because we're online," Vargas said. "We know how to use the hashtag."
Social media, in turn, has allowed video footage from the disturbing incidents to be seen and circulated widely, while more Asian American journalists in newsrooms have helped to amplify those stories. Meanwhile, the killing of George Floyd last May and the uprising that followed thrust issues of racism into the national spotlight and prompted Americans to take them more seriously.
"There's been a kind of shift where people feel it's important to at least talk about racism," said Kim. "That doesn't mean they're necessarily committed to changing it in any deep way but there's more discussion of it."
But the community is divided on the solutions
Advocates and activists are largely united in calling for more discussion and attention around the issue of hate and violence against Asian Americans. But they seem to diverge on how best to address it.
"The main issue for us right now is: Do we go ahead as a single Asian American movement to address anti-Asian racism?" Nguyen said. "Or is anti-Asian racism both part of a bigger wave of racism, and the solution is beyond just what Asian Americans care about or should do?"
After a string of attacks in Oakland's Chinatown, actors offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and some community leaders called for police to step up their presence in the neighborhood.
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Oakland's deputy chief of police visits businesses around the city's Chinatown on February 16.
A coalition of more than 90 Bay Area organizations took a different approach, calling for community-based solutions and warning against interventions that would contradict reforms championed by Black Lives Matter activists.
Some are calling for the recent attacks to be charged as hate crimes, arguing it would help deter potential perpetrators and encourage otherwise reluctant Asian Americans to report such incidents. The New York Police Department created an Asian Hate Crimes Task Force after a spike in attacks last year, while recent incidents in the Bay Area prompted officials in Alameda County to announce a special response unit focused on crimes against Asians.
But bringing and prosecuting hate crime charges requires proving a specific motivation of bias, which can be difficult to do.
Though the family of Vicha Ratanapakdee, the 84-year-old Thai immigrant who died after being violently shoved to the ground in San Francisco, called his attack a hate crime, law enforcement officials have so far indicated there isn't evidence to suggest it was motivated solely by race. The perpetrator who allegedly shoved a 91-year-old man, among others, to the ground in Oakland's Chinatown has been hit with several charges, though none accuse him of a hate crime.
Others have cautioned against connecting the recent high-profile attacks to the larger wave of violence Asian Americans have been experiencing since the pandemic.
Alvina Wong, campaign and organizing director for the Oakland-based nonprofit Asian Pacific Environmental Network, told the local news outlet Oaklandside that it was common for the community to experience robberies, especially around Lunar New Year.
"These crimes and violent situations that happen in Chinatown have been happening for a while," Wong told the publication.
The response will have to involve everyone
The public safety threat that many Asian Americans are feeling right now stem from structural problems of unemployment, housing insecurity and income inequality, some progressive activists argue. And they say what's needed to combat that threat is a movement that works in conjunction with other racial groups to help solve those big issues.
"The idea that we're going to solve anti-Asian racism without addressing racism in general and anti-Black racism is a mistake," Nguyen added.
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Community members tape notices in Oakland's Chinatown to help the neighborhood keep safe against crime on February 27, 2021.
Vargas says he's heartened by the efforts he's seen so far. Hundreds of volunteers across racial lines have volunteered to escort elderly Asian Americans to keep them safe, and communities at the local level have rallied together to express their solidarity.
"What's needed is really putting intersectionality in action," he said. "What does it actually look like to protect each other? What does it look like to be somebody's neighbor? I know these seem like basic questions but I would argue that these are basic questions that we all have to answer to really make this country safer for everybody."
Vargas hopes more people are having conversations about the history of hate and violence that Asian Americans have long faced. But what happens next is critical, he and other advocates say. Because how communities choose to respond in this moment could set the course for whether Asian Americans -- and other groups -- continue to face these problems in the future.

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Oakland is less than an hour north from the Tiger Claw CA HQ.

Greetings,

When it comes to demonstrations, it comes down to the organizers and their ability to reach out to others. One cannot expect a turnout when there may not have been an announcement. Then you must also consider media/government in how they like to present things. I am very concerned about the escalating violence in this country. I was talking to my sister about this subject and I shard my concerns about the "Purge" movies, sharing that it may have pushed a button for peoples who need that kind of release and are now looking for ANY reason to act with blatant disregard towards others.


mickey

I'm on a lot of Asian news feeds and am getting inundated with news related to this.

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Coronavirus Living
Morning Mix
An Asian American chef slammed Texas for lifting its mask mandate. Then racist graffiti hit his shop.
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A ramen restaurant in San Antonio is vandalized after its owner appeared on TV criticizing the order by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to end the state's mask mandate. (Mike Nguyen)
By Andrea Salcedo
March 15, 2021 at 4:08 a.m. PDT
When Mike Nguyen found the racist slurs covering his restaurant’s windows and patio tables on Sunday, he said he immediately knew the cause. One message spray painted on the front door of his San Antonio ramen shop particularly stood out: “No masks.”

Ever since Nguyen, 33, went on national TV last week to condemn Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for lifting the state’s mask mandate, the Asian American chef and owner was flooded with death threats, one-star online reviews and harassing messages, Nguyen told The Washington Post.

“I definitely know 100 percent it had something to do with the interview,” Nguyen said. “When you first see it, you’re kind of shocked, and then you realize this is real. Then, anger took over. I was so mad I ended up pacing back and forth trying to wrap my head around this.”

Three Asian American medical providers on the front lines spoke with The Post about the racial discrimination they faced early in the pandemic. (Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
As Texas and Mississippi move to open ‘100%’ and lift mask mandates, health officials warn: ‘It’s still too early’

The incident appears to combine two disturbing national trends: A backlash to mask mandates that has often turned violent and destructive, and a surge of racist attacks and threats against Asian Americans, which some advocates tie to former president Donald Trump’s anti-China rhetoric over the pandemic.

Among the terms spray painted in red on Nguyen’s windows on Sunday was the phrase “Kung flu,” a racist slur that Trump helped popularize during his campaign rallies and other appearances.

Local officials swiftly denounced the vandalism, while police have opened an investigation.

“Thank you to all the neighbors who showed up to help & proved that we’re better than this one hateful act,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg tweeted Sunday. “We must work together to eradicate racism from our city.”

For the past two years, Nguyen, a California native who moved to San Antonio in 2016, has owned the Noodle Tree restaurant, which sits across from the University of Texas at San Antonio’s campus. Nguyen is undergoing treatment for lymphoma, his second bout with cancer.

The condition forced Nguyen, who is immunocompromised, to close his restaurant for six months last year. So even though Abbott ended Texas’s statewide mask mandate last week — a move opposed by public health officials — Nguyen still requires all indoor customers to wear masks when they are not eating.

Hours before he appeared Wednesday on CNN’s “The Newsroom,” Nguyen pondered whether denouncing Abbott’s decision would be worth the backlash he would likely court. But he decided he needed to speak out.

“It needed to be said,” Nguyen wrote Wednesday on the restaurant’s Instagram account.

On air with CNN’s Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto, Nguyen accused the governor of placing him and millions of Texans at risk by lifting the mandate.

‘Masks required’ signs are coming down after Texas, Mississippi lift coronavirus restrictions

“His decision to drop the mask mandate is selfish and cowardly. There’s no reason to do it,” Nguyen told CNN. “A lot of us feel like he’s putting a lot of us in danger.”

Near the end of the almost six-minute segment, Nguyen said the recent rise of violent attacks and harassment against Asian Americans posed additional concerns for him and his business.

“Since I’m an Asian American, we’ve seen a lot of attacks against Asian Americans and that’s a huge concern for me,” Nguyen said. “We see all these incidents of that and this is an opportunity. It opens up that opportunity.”

On Sunday, Nguyen woke up to messages alerting him that his restaurant had been covered with graffiti. When he got to the store, he counted at least seven spray painted phrases, including one urging him to “Go back 2 China” and another one reading “Hope u die.”

“They did it on the windows where everybody who drives could see it,” Nguyen told The Post.

Nguyen called San Antonio police, who photographed the damage and filed an incident report.

Nguyen said he was so rattled by the vandalism that he wasn’t sure whether he should open for business. But after asking his staff whether they still felt comfortable showing up for work, Nguyen decided he would open an hour later than usual.

“We all decided whatever their motive was, we weren’t going to let them win,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen said he believes the incident was a hate crime, given the language used in the graffiti, and he urged police to investigate it as such.

By the time his first customer arrived to pick up her food, Nguyen, bucket and sponge in hand, was just beginning to scrub the graffiti on the patio tables. “She said, ‘If you have another sponge I’d love to help,’ ” Nguyen recalled.

About a dozen other strangers who had heard the news later showed up with cleaning supplies and paint remover. By the end of the day, the storefront was clean again.

“Something like that, it’s very touching and very moving because my day started off with a lot of anger, hostility and I was hurt by this,” Nguyen told The Post. “And to see the support and the love of the community, it kind of helps you heal a little. San Antonians and Texans will not tolerate this.”

Updated March 10, 2021
More on anti-Asian hate crimes:
Trends: Targeting Asians | Victim voices | Online racism | Elderly Asians | Underreporting | Declining businesses | Asian students missing from classrooms | Negative views on the rise

Andrea Salcedo
Andrea Salcedo is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. Before joining The Post in 2020, she covered breaking news and features for the New York Times metro desk. Follow

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Stop-Asian-Hate
Coronavirus

Really sad to hear that we Asians are being hated by others. I don't think that's nice because all lives matter. Even If it's black or white, Asian or non-Asian, we have a right to live and not to be hated.

Here's one of the few news stories that didn't put the Asian issue on its top headline.

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8 dead in Atlanta-area spa shootings, suspect arrested
Six of the victims were Asian women, officials said. The shootings occurred within an hour at three spas.
March 16, 2021, 4:41 PM PDT / Updated March 17, 2021, 6:58 AM PDT
By Phil Helsel and Rachel Elbaum
Federal agents on Wednesday joined the investigations into shootings at three Atlanta-area spas that left eight people dead Tuesday evening.

The attacks began around 5 p.m., when four people were killed in Acworth, a suburb north of Atlanta, authorities said. Less than an hour later, four women were killed in two shootings in Atlanta. The victims in Atlanta appeared to be Asian women, as were two of the victims in Acworth, officials said.

Authorities arrested a suspect, Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock, after a brief manhunt, Cherokee County sheriff's Capt. Jay Baker said. Investigators were working to confirm that the shootings were related.

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Robert Aaron Long.Cherokee Sheriff's Office / via AFP - Getty Images
The FBI was "assisting the local investigations," the agency said early Wednesday. No other details were released about FBI's involvement.

The Atlanta Police Department scheduled a 10:30 a.m. press conference to discuss the case.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in a statement that "a crime against any community is a crime against us all."

"I commend law enforcement for their quick work in arresting a suspect in the tragic shootings," she said. "I have remained in close contact with the White House and APD as they work with federal, state and local partners to investigate the suspect who is responsible for this senseless violence in our city."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Joe Biden was briefed "overnight about the horrific shootings in Atlanta."

"White House officials have been in touch with the mayor’s office and will remain in touch with the FBI," Psaki said.

South Korea’s foreign ministry told NBC News that four of the women who died were of Korean origin, but their nationalities have yet to be verified.

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Law enforcement officials respond to the scene of a shooting at Gold Spa in Atlanta, on March 16, 2021.Brynn Anderson / AP
Authorities did not provide additional details or identifying information about the other victims. Nor did they disclose a suspected motive.

"We are in the very early stages of this," Atlanta police Chief Rodney Bryant said.

Baker said Cherokee County deputies discovered two people dead and three others wounded at the massage parlor in Acworth. The injured were taken to a hospital, where two of them died, he said.

About 45 minutes later and 30 miles away, police in Atlanta responded to a report of a robbery on Piedmont Road in the northeast part of the city.

Officials discovered three women dead from apparent gunshot wounds, and while on the scene, received a call of shots fired across the street, where a woman was found dead inside that business, Atlanta police said.


Bryant described one location as a spa, and another as an aromatherapy spa.

After the Acworth shooting, the sheriff's office released photos of a suspect.

Long was arrested in Crisp County, about 125 miles south of Atlanta, officials said.

His vehicle was spotted southbound on I-75, and a Georgia State Patrol trooper used a PIT maneuver, in which a police car is used to physically stop another vehicle, the Crisp County Sheriff's Office said.

The killings come amid a growing number of anti-Asian hate incidents. Research released through Stop AAPI Hate on Tuesday revealed that nearly 3,800 incidents were reported over the course of roughly a year during the pandemic and that a disproportionate number of attacks were directed at women.

During a visit to South Korea this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the shootings, and said that this type of violence had no place in America or anywhere.

"We will stand up for the right of our fellow Americans and Korean Americans to be safe and to be treated with dignity," he said.

Because the shootings were all at spas, Atlanta police said officers were dispatched to similar businesses, and that patrols were increased.

In New York City, police were deploying counterterrorism officers to Asian communities out of an abundance of caution, a department spokesperson said.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan called the violence in Atlanta "an act of hate" and said that she and police Chief Adrian Diaz were taking additional steps to protect Asian American communities in Seattle, including additional police patrols.

After the slayings, Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., said he was praying for the victims' families and community.

"My heart is broken tonight after the tragic violence in Atlanta that took eight lives. Once again we see that hate is deadly. Praying for the families of the victims and for peace for the community," he tweeted.

"Our entire family is praying for the victims of these horrific acts of violence," Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp tweeted, adding his appreciation for the quick apprehension of a suspect by law enforcement.

Baker, the Cherokee County captain, said deadly violence was rare for the area.

"This is not very common for us," he said. "In 2020, we had one homicide."

Phil Helsel
Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.

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‘Kung Fu’ Stars Olivia Liang & Tzi Ma Condemn Atlanta Shootings, Explain How CW Series Can Be Part Of “Long-Term Solution” To AAPI Hate
By Alexandra Del Rosario
TV Reporter
@_amvdr

March 17, 2021 10:31am
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Kailey Schwerman/The CW
During a panel Wednesday promoting their upcoming series, Kung Fu stars Olivia Liang and Tzi Ma responded to the rising number of violent acts against Asian Americans, condemning the latest incident in Atlanta when a gunman killed eight people, a majority of whom were Asian American.

“What happened last night in Atlanta with eight people killed breaks my heart and I’m not quite sure what the short-term fix is,” said Ma, who appears in the upcoming series as Jin, the father of Liang’s Nicky Shen. “We are the long-term solution.”

“It pains me, everyday it happens, everyday it’s something,” he added.

While Ma said he’s unsure of any quick fix to bring justice to the victims or undo the racist attacks, he said Asian American representation in television and media are part of long-term goals. Liang agreed with her co-star, adding that “the timing of our show is really impeccable.”

Written by Christina M. Kim and inspired by the original series created by Ed Spielman, in the new Kung Fu, a quarter-life crisis causes a young Chinese American woman, Nicky (Liang), to drop out of college and go on a life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to San Francisco, she finds her hometown is overrun with crime and corruption and her own parents Jin (Tzi Ma) and Mei-Li (Kheng Hua Tan) are at the mercy of a powerful Triad. Nicky will rely on her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice…all while searching for the ruthless assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor Pei-Ling (Vanessa Kai) and is now targeting her.

Liang said that the Kung Fu reboot is a notable moment for Asian Americans in Hollywood and spoke about the importance of representation and inclusion in media.

“We need to be invited to people’s homes who don’t see us in their everyday life just to humanize us, normalize seeing us and remind them that we are people just like they are and that we have a place in this world,” she said. “Hopefully having this show in their homes will expand their worldview.”

Also condemning the racist attacks was Kung Fu executive producer and co-showrunner Kim, who said the Atlanta shooting Tuesday was “absolutely sad and tragic.” She echoed her stars’ points about representation in media and how her show can be apart of bringing about cultural awareness and acceptance.

Kim wrote the pilot episode and serves as executive producer/co-showrunner with Robert Berens. Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Martin Gero and David Madden also serve as executive producers. Hanelle Culpepper is directing and co-executive producing the pilot. Kung Fu is produced by Berlanti Productions and Quinn’s House in association with Warner Bros Television.

Kung Fu premieres April 7 on the CW.

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Kung-Fu-TV-show-CW-REMAKE
Stop-Asian-Hate

Video behind the link

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Update: Elderly Asian Woman Who Clobbered Her Attacker Talks About Terrifying Assault In San Francisco
March 18, 2021 at 6:31 am


SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — An elderly woman attacked on Market St. in San Francisco Wednesday – the latest victim in a wave of attacks on Asians in the Bay Area – spoke to KPIX 5 about turning the tables on her assailant, leaving him with injuries that required a trip to the hospital.

From her senior retirement home in San Francisco, Xiao Zhen Xie candidly talked to KPIX 5 in an exclusive interview about the attack and her injuries, with her daughter Dong-Mei Li interpreting.

“Very traumatized, very scared and this eye is still bleeding,” Li told KPIX 5. “The right eye still cannot see anything and still bleeding and we have something to absorb the bleeding.”

For the latest, real-time San Francisco Bay Area news and alerts, click to download the KPIX 5 news app

Surrounded by her family, the 76-year-old who has resided in San Francisco for 26 years said she was quite shaken up and that the attack was completely unprovoked. Her immediate instinct was to fight back.

Xiao Zhen Xie says she was just waiting at the traffic light and then the suspect punched her by her left eye.

Immediately, her instincts kicked in to defend herself. While she suffered injuries and required medical attention, it was her attacker that ended up on the stretcher. “She found the stick around the area and fought back,” said Li.

Li said her mother cannot see at all out of her left eye and hasn’t been able to eat. The hope is that time will heal the physical and emotional wounds, but her family said the incident has left her scared for her life.

“As you can see she is extremely terrified,” Xie’s grandson John Chen told KPIX 5. “She’s terrified to even step out.”

Xie’s family has set up a GoFundMe account to help with her medical expenses.

San Francisco police said they are investigating the aggravated assault. The incident happened at Market St. and Charles J. Brenham Place near McAllister St. at around 10:30 a.m.

Coming upon the scene during his morning run was KPIX Sports Director Dennis O’Donnell.

“There was a guy on a stretcher and a frustrated angry woman with a stick in her hand,” said O’Donnell.

In a video he captured on his cellphone, Xie is seen with an injury to the side of her face and eye and holding an ice pack to her face. Police said both Xie and her assailant were taken to a hospital for treatment.

Witnesses told KPIX 5 they saw Xie pummeling the assailant. In the video, the alleged assailant is handcuffed to a stretcher with his face bloodied. A sobbing Xie berates the man and waves what looks to be a wooden board at him as he’s being taken away.

“You bum, why did you hit me?” she said to the man on the stretcher in Chinese.

Xie then turned to the crowd of people who had gathered, saying, “This bum, he hit me,” as she raised the stick she held and sobbed. “He hit me, this bum,“ she repeated.

The victim added that she had been leaning against a light pole and all of a sudden, the man punched her without provocation.

“The woman said that she was hit,” O’Donnell says. “She attacked back. From what I could see, she wanted more of the guy on the stretcher and the police were holding her back.”

Police did not disclose a motive for the attack and it was not clear whether the victim’s race had anything to do with the assault.

Officers also say there was a second victim Wednesday morning, an 83-year-old Asian man. A 39-year-old man is now being investigated for both attacks, and police say they are working to determine if bias was a factor.

“We have to do our job and we have to investigate these cases with all resources brought to bear and we need to make arrests, and we’ve done that,” San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said Wednesday.

Both the police chief and the mayor highlighted the arrests made in connection with previous attacks in the city, promising more targeted patrols.

“We need to understand, not only what is going on, but why these attacks occur,” said Mayor London Breed. “Because in some cases they didn’t include any robbery or theft.”

As for one case that did include robbery; police have announced three arrests in connection with the violent attack caught on camera in a San Francisco laundromat. Police say the suspects, arrested in Antioch, are also tied to eight car burglaries in the city.

“Again, you have a small group of individuals,” Scott said. “All of those three that were arrested live outside the city.”

Hate crimes against Asian Americans rose 150% in 2020, even as hate crimes overall declined. In January, a 91-year-old man was shoved to the ground in Oakland’s Chinatown. An assault in San Francisco killed 94-year-old Vichar Ratanapakdee, while another assault left 75-year-old Pak Ho dead in Oakland last week.

Most recently, 59-year-old Danny Yu Chang was severely beaten on San Francisco’s Market St. on Monday, leaving him with serious injuries.

And for every crime reported, state Assemblyman David Chui (D-San Francisco) says there are more that aren’t.

“It’s not just the incredible violence in a number of incidents, but how racism has manifested itself in so many ways,” said Chiu.

Chiu and other Asian American and Pacific Islanders are proposing a statewide hotline for reporting and dealing with hate crimes, as well as legislations for restorative justice programs. They also want Governor Gavin Newsom to appoint an attorney general from the community.

The wave of incidents has sparked rallies throughout the Bay Area condemning anti-Asian violence and more than $1.4 million in state funding to track and stop the attacks.

The group Stop AAPI Hate said over the past year there have been nearly 4,000 hate incidents against Asians across the U.S. Chiu says 1,600 of those attacks were in California.

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Give-it-up-to-the-elderly!!!!!

gene u been posting weird china and evil china articles for like ten years do u feel guilty yet lol

I've been posting weird news for like 20 years. Given the forum here, a lot is about China. As for 'evil china' I try to be balanced in my coverage, like any journalist. ;)

How about you? You feelin the guilt?

Dude I grew up with hilly billy where they did nipper tipping once every two months and randomly stab Indian cab drivers and my black English teacher gave me Malcolm x book, I saw this coming a mile a away. That’s what got me into kung fu in the first place bro. I do feel bad that even enclave Asians are feeling the heat now.

How is this website still up man isn’t magazine shut down

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Originally Posted by bawang

How is this website still up man isn’t magazine shut down

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Over 100 guests on the website right now... all seeing ads for the martial arts gear store. That's low cost advertising with reach

just guessing but seems like the reason

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Originally Posted by bawang

How is this website still up man isn’t magazine shut down

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Our print magazine folded but our web publishing is still going strong. We're still publishing fresh exclusive weekly articles on KungFuMagazine.com. Our forum here is part of that. And our sponsor, MartialArtSmart.com is still open for business.

Dude I’m so glad I thought it would all delete but now we can preserve kung fu history for all time noice

There's a newscast vid behind the link.

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San Francisco martial arts demonstration aims to take a stand against Asian hate
By Greg Liggins Published 4 hours ago San Francisco

A different kind of demonstration against Asian hate took place Sunday afternoon in downtown San Francisco. Over the last several weeks, there have been all kinds of rallies and marches denouncing Asian hate, but this event had a twist, and some punches, and kicks. Greg Liggins reports

SAN FRANCISCO - A different kind of demonstration against Asian hate took place Sunday afternoon in downtown San Francisco.

Over the last several weeks, there have been all kinds of rallies and marches denouncing Asian hate, but this event had a twist, and some punches, and kicks.

Martial artists from nine different schools, representing various disciplines performed combat drills and gave demonstrations outside City Hall.

Krav Maga, Wing Chung, Muy Thai, Jujitsu, Judo and MMA, were some of the disciplines on display.

The Asia Strong event was the brainchild of Hudson Liao and friends after the group had a discussion about the deadly Atlanta area killings and local attacks on Asians.

"Realizing how ****ed off we were about the situation and instead of talking about it we were convicted to do something," said Liao.

Liao, a long-time student and self-described martial arts fanatic, came up with the idea of an event to help the community realize its collective strength, and empower people to learn to literally combat violence themselves.

"A lot of things are happening. People are getting attacked. People don’t even want to go outside of their house. This hurts our community," said one speaker at the event.

There were speakers from the podium meant to motivate and show compassion, but the demonstrations were there to show people there are resources to help learn to be less fearful and more confident if self-protection becomes necessary.

One of the more than 200 attendees said she liked the idea of making such a variety of martial arts demos easily accessible to the public.

"I think it lets everybody for like 30 seconds or one or two-minute demonstrations on like, is this good for them, if this is something they want to learn," said Cheyenne Fong.

Martial artists say they feel confident knowing they can protect themselves and their loved ones if necessary.

They’re hoping the demonstrations show others being physically empowered also leads to mental empowerment, something they say their community needs more of right now.

"We want people to walk away from today just feeling empowered that they can do something," said Liao. "And that there is an abundance of resources if they want it."

Since the increase in violence against Asians, Liao says more people have expressed an interest in learning some form of self-defense.

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Over 100 guests on the website right now... all seeing ads for the martial arts gear store. That's low cost advertising with reach

just guessing but seems like the reason

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Right you are, rett2. As long as all of you good people support MartialArtSmart.com, I can keep the lights on around here. Tell your friends. ;)

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Steph Curry Wears Shoes Made With Bruce Lee Foundation in Solidarity with Asian Community
BY GRACE KIM
APRIL 5, 2021
2 MINUTE READ

https://cdn.statically.io/img/nextsh...lity=80&f=auto

Steph Curry recently wore shoes created with the Bruce Lee Foundation to stand in solidarity with the Asian community in Atlanta.

On Sunday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks, Curry wore a special set of Curry 8s that were hand-painted yellow and black. These shoes featured an image of Bruce Lee as well as one of his famous quotes: “Under the heavens, there is but one family.”

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Nick DePaula
@NickDePaula
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Apr 4
Curry’s shoes feature a
@BruceLee
quote: “Under the heavens, there is but one family.”

“We are all different & unique. On purpose. But, we are all human beings on a quest to fulfill our purpose and that energy should be used to uplift & love each other to the fullest,” he said.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyIt0YQV...g&name=900x900https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyIt0YPV...g&name=900x900
Stephen Curry and Bruce Lee

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Nick DePaula
@NickDePaula
· Apr 4
EXCLUSIVE: @StephenCurry30 plans to show solidarity with Asian community in Atlanta today with custom sneakers.

In tandem with the @BruceLee Foundation, Curry will auction off his shoes to aid families of recent Atlanta shooting tragedy.

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The shoes will be auctioned off within the next few weeks, and the profits will be divided among the families of the victims of last month’s mass shooting in Atlanta that took the lives of eight people, six of whom were of Asian descent.

The Golden State Warriors guard told The Undefeated that Curry was outraged by the tragedy and immediately wanted to help out.

“Disgust, horror and outright anger at why any violence keeps happening in our country,” Curry said. “After all we have been through this past year, let alone in the history of our country, people still deal with unnecessary tragedy and are afraid for their lives. We have to do better.”

Curry reached out to members of the Bruce Lee Foundation to find a way to support the victims’ families. He has been a lifelong fan of Lee and what he stood for, according to Yahoo Sports.

“He lived what he spoke and meant every word,” Curry said when describing Lee. “He pushed himself to be greater than he knew he could and to impact people along the way.”

Curry hoped that wearing the hand-painted Curry 8s would not only help out the victims’ families, but also remind everyone of Lee’s philosophies, NBC reported.

“We have so many faithful Asian American fans that have supported me along this amazing journey,” Curry said. “We represent them on the court and I feel the love no matter where I go.”

Shannon Lee — the president of the Bruce Lee Foundation and Lee’s only daughter — spoke to The Undefeated and referred to Curry’s gesture as a “beautiful example of allyship and solidarity in action.”

“I am honored he would choose my father and my family as the symbol for the idea that we are all one family, as my father said, and therefore must all stand for one another,” she said.

Feature Image via Getty

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There's a vid behind the link

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Woman Training for Olympics Becomes Target of Anti-Asian Rant at Orange County Park
Sakura Kokumai, 28, is the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate, and is training for the summer games in Tokyo.
By Angie Crouch • Published 3 hours ago • Updated 3 hours ago

An Olympic hopeful from SoCal — the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate — posted a video of the man shouting at her as she trained in a park. Angie Crouch reports April 8, 2021.

An Asian American woman training for the Olympics' karate competition says she was threatened by a man yelling racial slurs at an Orange County Park, and is sharing the recorded video of the incident in order to spread awareness about growing harassment against Asian Americans.

Sakura Kokumai, 28, is the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate, and is training for the summer games in Tokyo.

She said she’s still in shock over what happened at Grijalva Park in the city of Orange last week.

“Nobody likes to be yelled at by a complete stranger," she said.

In a video she shared on Instagram, you can see a stranger berating her and threatening her as she worked out.

"Go home, stupid," can be heard. “I’ll (bleep) you up - I’ll (bleep) your husband up or boyfriend or whoever you’re talking to on the phone."

She responds with, "I haven’t done anything.”

"When somebody is just yelling at you that aggressively you do get your guard up a little bit - you do get worried," Kokumai said.

Kokumai is Japanese American, but she says the man yelled something about her being Chinese as he drove away.

"The only two words I picked up were 'Chinese' and 'sashimi' which have no connection at all," she said.

In an online summit with other Olympic athletes, U.S. gymnast Yul Moldauer revealed he too has been the victim of racial harassment.

“Last month I was driving and a lady cut me off. She yelled at me, 'go back to China.' For me my job is to represent this country so I take a lot of pride into it," Moldauer said.

The man in the Instagram video has not been identified and Kokumai wasn’t hurt.

She says while it’s heartbreaking to see a rise in attacks on Asian Americans, she hopes sharing her story will bring awareness.

“We all belong here and we don’t have to be afraid when we go out. But I encourage people to look out for one another," she said.

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More on Sakura Kokumai

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Police Arrest Man Accused of Berating Team USA Karate Athlete Training at Park for Olympics
Sakura Kokumai, who qualified for this summer’s Olympics in karate, was training at an Orange County park when a stranger began yelling at her and making threats.
By Staff Reports • Published April 19, 2021 • Updated 6 hours ago


An Olympic hopeful from SoCal — the first American to qualify for the Olympics in karate — posted a video of the man shouting at her as she trained in a park. Angie Crouch reports April 8, 2021.

A man accused of assaulting a Southern California Asian couple and threatening a U.S. Olympian who was training at an Orange County park has been arrested.

Michael Vivona, 25, of Corona was arrested Sunday on suspicion of elder abuse and committing a hate crime in connection with an assault on a Korean American couple. He also was arrested in the April 1 encounter with 28-year-old Sakura Kokumai, who qualified for this summer’s Olympics in karate.

Details about the arrest were not immediately available. It was not immediately clear whether the suspect has an attorney.

Kokumai, a seven-time national champion, shared video of the encounter with a man who yelled at her in Grijalva Park in the city of Orange. In video shared on Instagram, the man can be seen berating her as she works out at the public park.

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It makes me emotional just to think about it because at the time I did feel that I was alone.

Sakura Kokumai

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“Go home stupid,” the man can be heard saying. “I’ll f— you up. I’ll f— your husband up or boyfriend or whoever you’re talking to on the phone.”

Kokumai is Japanese American, but she said the man yelled something about her being Chinese as he drove away.

“The only two words I picked up were ‘Chinese’ and ’sashimi,’ which have no connection at all,” Kokumai told NBCLA. “Nobody likes to be yelled at by a complete stranger.”

Kokumai was at the park to go for a jog as she prepares to represent the United States in front of the world at the Olympics in Tokyo.

Kokumai said she shared the video to spread awareness about harassment against Asian Americans.

“I want everybody to know, especially in the AAPI community, that you’re not alone,” Kokumai told NBC News. “I think it’s really important to have compassion, share love and look out for one another.

“It makes me emotional just to think about it because at the time I did feel that I was alone."

In the aftermath, Kokumai said she received heartwarming messages of support.

“They made me feel that I do belong here,” Kokumai said.

Details about the other crime for which the suspect was arrested were not immediately available.

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A-pop! White people are ruining ‘bamboo ceiling’ for us!
MARCH 25, 2021 BY NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

By Stacy Nguyen
Northwest Asian Weekly

I know we’ve all had a really terrible week, and it feels a bit discordant to read frivolous pop culture news. But I hope this column gives you a break from the heaviness.

White people get ****ed about term “bamboo ceiling,” which sounds like something they’d do

https://i0.wp.com/nwasianweekly.com/...size=580%2C536

Asian reporter Rebecca Sun wrote a headline in the Hollywood Reporter that said “Diverse Oscars field sees Asian actors shatter the bamboo ceiling” and a whole lotta white people got really uppity about it because they didn’t realize that bamboo ceiling is legit a term coined by author (and Asian person) Jane Hyun, who used the term to describe how hard it is for Asian Americans to get into leadership positions in big companies.

Instead, these woke white people who don’t know that much about Asian stuff and aren’t great at checking bylines were like, “Bamboo ceiling! Oh, because they are Asian? How dare you! Racist!”

To her credit, Sun responded in a super chill and super classy way. She tweeted, “Hi! I wrote that headline (and the story). My editor, who is not Asian, was worried about it, but it’s a conscious choice I made to reference the phrase’s usage in the corporate world (the difficulty Asian executives have in breaking through to upper management).”

Anyway, the Hollywood Reporter has since changed that headline to something white people won’t get mad about on behalf of people of color because we must always, always, always center white ignorance and white comfort and do workarounds for white #fakefacts.

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'Bamboo ceiling' and 'Bamboo curtain' are longstanding terms. :rolleyes:

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Copying this to Stop-Asian-Hate too, just because it's related.

...but this one is happening in Fremont, which is where Tiger Claw HQ is.

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Buddhist Temple Takes on Fremont Over Unpermitted Buildings
By Marianne Favro • Published May 11, 2021 • Updated on May 11, 2021 at 6:40 pm

The co-founder of a Buddhist temple in the Fremont hills is now threatening to sue the city for religious, gender and racial discrimination. She claims the city is unfairly forcing her to demolish much of her private religious facility. Marianne Favro reports.

The co-founder of a Buddhist temple in the Fremont hills is now threatening to sue the city for religious, gender and racial discrimination. She claims the city is unfairly forcing her to demolish much of her private religious facility.

Fremont said the temple's co-founder has been building on her property for years without proper permits.

"Why are they doing that to me? It's because I am Asian, a religious woman and they don't want a temple here," said Miaolan Lee, temple co-founder.

Lee owns 29 acres off Mill Creek Road in the Fremont foothills where she co-founded the private Temple of 1001 Buddhas. Her attorney said the city now wants her to demolish her main temple hall - a Hindu God house - and four other structures.

The city said the requests are due to Lee building without needed permits for years.

"After an investigation that lasted several months and included multiple inspections with other government agencies, including the state water board and Alameda County Environmental Health, the city determined multiple buildings had been constructed without building permits and in violation of city zoning regulations," the City of Fremont said in a statement.

Lee's legal team, however, claim their client repeatedly tried to get permits.

"Our client began permitting in 2011-2014 and has been trying to get permits ever since," said Tal Finney, Lee's attorney. "And the city has been obstructionist about granting permits."

Attorney Angela Alioto said she has taken the first steps to file a federal civil rights lawsuits against Fremont "because she is an Asian, who is a religious woman building a temple to Buddha -- she is being discriminated against."

City officials will hold a hearing on May 18 to discuss whether to move forward with the order to demolish the structures.

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Note that I've never been to Temple of 1001 Buddhas. I didn't even know it existed until this. There's a lot in the Fremont foothills that I never explored. I was closer to the Bay side of the city.

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Likely an artifact of the 'model minority' myth.

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About 1 in 4 White People Don’t See Anti-Asian Racism as a Problem, Survey Finds

BY CARL SAMSON
MAY 11, 2021
2 MINUTE READ
https://cdn.statically.io/img/nextsh...lity=80&f=auto
Featured Image (Representation Only) via Jason Leung on Unsplash

Nearly a quarter of white people do not see racism against Asian people as a problem to be fixed, a new poll has found.

Nonprofit Leading Asian Americans to Unite for Change (LAAUNCH) published the finding in its first STAATUS (Social Tracking of Asian Americans in the U.S.) Index, which shows national attitudes toward Asian Americans.

Key findings: STAATUS, among the first of its kind in 20 years, surveyed a total of 2,766 U.S. adults between March 29 and April 14.

Eight out of 10 Asian Americans reported feeling discriminated against, according to the poll. Specifically, 77% of the group do not feel respected — slightly lower than African Americans (86%), on par with Hispanic Americans (77%), but above white Americans (31%).
Despite global coverage, 37% of white Americans said they were not aware of the increase in anti-Asian incidents in the past year. Furthermore, 24% of the group do not believe that anti-Asian racism is a problem to be addressed.
The survey found that the model minority myth persists, with adjectives such as “smart,” “intelligent” and “hard-working” still being used to describe Asian Americans. However, respondents are most comfortable to have Asian Americans as doctors, nurses, friends or co-workers, but less comfortable to have them as bosses or as president of the country.
Twenty-six percent of Republicans, 6% of Democrats and 24% of people above 65 believe “China Virus” is an appropriate term for COVID-19. Twenty percent of all respondents also believe Asian Americans are more loyal to their home countries than to the U.S.

Why this matters: The poll reinforces the fact that some still fail to see Asian people as a marginalized group in American society.

LAAUNCH is working with partner organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Gold House and others to evaluate data, raise awareness, promote solidarity and develop programs that tackle bias against Asian Americans.
“Inspired by the ADL’s research, we developed the STAATUS Index in collaboration with academics from University of Massachusetts, Boston; University of California, Los Angeles; and Princeton University to not only understand the root causes of racism and violence towards Asian Americans, but also to help shape American attitudes toward our community moving forward,” said Norman Chen, co-founder and chief executive officer of LAAUNCH.
LAAUNCH plans to release the survey annually to track changes in perception and inform new programs that address underlying causes of racism.
The nonprofit calls for more education on Asian American history, increased Asian American representation and a greater understanding of the impact of systemic racism.
Dominic Ng, chairman and CEO of East West Bank, whose Foundation provided a grant for the survey, said that while the findings were unsurprising, getting them matters.

“What’s important is that now we have data. That is crucial to create greater awareness, educate stakeholders and inform policymaking moving forward,” Ng said.

Featured Image (Representation Only) via Jason Leung on Unsplash

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Trump SUED for Saying ‘China Virus’, ‘Kung Flu’ While He Was in Office
Carl Samson
2 hours ago
https://cdn.statically.io/img/nextsh...lity=80&f=auto
Former President Donald Trump is reportedly being sued for his repeated use of “China virus” — among other phrases — in reference to COVID-19 while he was still in office.

Anti-China rhetoric: Blaming China for “unleashing” the coronavirus, Trump routinely used terms such as “Chinese virus,” “Wuhan virus” and “Kung Flu” during his term, arguing that it is “not racist” to refer to the pathogen’s geographic origin.

Trump accused China of withholding vital information about the coronavirus, a claim corroborated by U.S. intelligence reports of officials in Wuhan keeping the threat under wraps for weeks.

Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor regarded as the “Wuhan whistleblower” — and who subsequently died from COVID-19 himself — was summoned to a police station for “spreading rumors online” and was forced to admit “illegal behavior.”

A group of international scientists previously shot down rumors of COVID-19 originating in a Wuhan laboratory, but a new group recently published a letter stating that “theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable.”

In a tweet last March, Trump called for the protection of Asian Americans — saying COVID-19 “is NOT their fault in any way, shape or form” — but continued to use controversial terms anyway, which were parroted by other Republican politicians.

The World Health Organization has advised against attaching locations or ethnicity to COVID-19, saying the official name was “deliberately chosen to avoid stigmatization.”

Who’s suing: Trump is reportedly being sued by the Chinese American Civil Rights Coalition (CACRC) for defamation and infliction of emotional distress.

The organization claims that Trump’s use of those terms contributed to the surge of violence against Chinese and other Asian Americans, according to TMZ, which obtained a copy of the suit.

They also said the former president should not have used “Chinese virus,” since “it’s not entirely clear where the virus actually originated,” TMZ noted.

The CACRC wants Trump to give every Asian American $1 for an estimated total of $22.9 million, which will be used to build a museum showcasing the history and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to the U.S.

Trump, who has launched his own communications platform, has not responded to the news of the suit.


Featured Image via Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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$1? srsly?

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Steph Curry’s Bruce Lee NBA-worn shoes raise US$51,000 for Atlanta shooting victims families
Auction ends for footwear worn against Atlanta Hawks featuring images and quote from Hong Kong-born martial arts superstar
Two-time MVP and Bruce Lee Foundation promise proceeds to families of victims of Atlanta-area spa shootings
Topic |
NBA (National Basketball Association)
Jonathan White

Published: 1:54pm, 23 May, 2021

https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image...w&v=1621749288

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry smiles after shooting a basket over Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James in the NBA. Curry’s game worn shoes featuring Bruce Lee imagery have raised more than US$50,000. Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA Today Sports
NBA star Steph Curry’s gameworn Bruce Lee-customised shoes have raised more than US$50,000 for the families of the victims of the Atlanta spa shootings.
Curry wore the shoes to show solidarity with the Asian community in the Golden State Warriors game against the Atlanta Hawks in Atlanta on April 4, three weeks after the shootings on March 16 where eight people, including six women of Asian descent, were killed by a white gunman.
“This is a significant opportunity to raise some money. We’re gonna auction them off,” Curry said after that game, after being praised for showing solidarity with Asian-Americans amid rising violence and racism in the US.
“Obviously stopping Asian hate is huge across the country and across this world but here the shoes are a very small way to hopefully raise money for that work and that cause and, you know, raise awareness,” he added.

Curry worked with the Bruce Lee Foundation on the project, which saw his signature Under Armour Curry 8 shoes customised by Kreative Custom Kicks.

“Obviously, what Bruce Lee stood for in terms of unifying people, speaking on the collective harmony of everybody from different backgrounds, different races, but especially his Asian heritage,” Curry added after the loss to Atlanta on April 4.
Jeremy Lin praises Curry for Bruce Lee shoe auction for Asian community
6 Apr 2021

“I think he has a lot of quotes and just narratives and themes that he spoke on consistently that still ring true today, and I know his foundation is doing a lot to live that out and to impact people’s lives and continue to spark change.”
The auction listing on Goldin Auctions confirmed that “100 per cent of the proceeds from this auction will go to charity in conjunction with the Bruce Lee Foundation to support victims of Asian-American violence”.

Curry’s US size 13 shoes feature an image of Lee and his family on the right shoe and an image of Lee alone on the left.

They also feature the Lee quote “Under the heavens, there is only family” while the black and yellow colourway is reminiscent of the Hong Kong-born martial arts superstar’s iconic Onitsuka Tiger shoes.
The auction ended with a winning bid of US$51,000 from 15 total bids, the Goldin Auctions website said.
Curry had said that he would also sign the shoes for the winning bidder at no extra cost.

The two-time NBA MVP was praised by Lee’s daughter Shannon and former Golden State Warriors teammate Jeremy Lin.
“Respect,” Lin wrote on Twitter. “Man of God speaking out for others.”
Curry’s season is now over after the Warriors lost in the NBA play-offs play-in tournament against the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night (US time).

They had lost their previous play-in game to the NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers.


Jonathan White
Jonathan White joined the Post in 2017 after a decade reporting on sport from China. He originally moved to Beijing to coach football in 2007 and later spent two years in Shanghai.

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Watching Martial Arts Movies Amid Anti-Asian Violence Is Much-Needed Catharsis
Movies and TV shows like 'The Paper Tigers' and 'Warrior' show the beauty of Asian American survival.
By Frances Nguyen
June 8, 2021, 4:00am

https://video-images.vice.com/articl...al-kombat.jpeg
IMAGE VIA YOUTUBE
When I saw the opening seven minutes of Mortal Kombat on Instagram, it was the first time I’d felt anything in the realm of joy in over a month. Given the contents of the clip, I was also a little horrified at myself.

Faithful to its video game source material, the violence in the film begins almost immediately. Within the opening minutes, a woman dies. A child dies. Hanzo Hasashi—the man who will become Scorpion, the character in the game I played most often growing up—liberates what looks like quarts of blood from the bodies of his masked opponents before confronting his nemesis, the man who will become the ice-wielding assassin Sub-Zero. The teaser leaves you at the edge of a fight that promises to be an enthralling one; here, once again, someone will surely die violently.


The theatrically gory film was an odd source of comfort during the weeks-long despondency I felt following a series of shootings in Atlanta that left eight people dead, six of whom were women of Asian descent. With a never-ending reel of brutal violence against Asians circulating online, there was something refreshing about escaping into a world populated by people who look like me and who are portrayed as strong.

Coming at the end of a year that gave rise to more than 6,600 reported instances of anti-Asian hate between March 2020 and March 2021, and where assaults continue almost daily across the country, watching a group of Asian characters wield their bodies with physics-defying agility and precision to deliver bouts that look and feel more like physical dialogue than combat made for a stark contrast to the images I was seeing on news broadcasts and social media, which tend to foreground Asian bodies as quiet, passive vessels for someone else’s rage.

Examining some of the most brutal recorded attacks that have taken place this year—on elders Vicha Ratanapakdee, Vilma Kari, and Yao Pan Ma—the abridged stories captured on camera repeat the same refrain: The Asian body appears and is brutalized; that’s all that we see. For Asian Americans, these scenes invite us to participate in a ritual of vicarious trauma: Without sound, our minds train instead on the movements of the bodies that appear on screen. We imagine ourselves and our loved ones in the only body that bears our likeness—the victim’s—and our own bodies are activated by the input of threat.

Up until recently, however, Hollywood has arguably done little to provide counter-narratives to these stories, narratives that acknowledge the real-life experiences and agency of the individuals who are navigating what it means to be Asian in America in real time. A report released last month—co-authored by sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, author of Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism, and Stacy L. Smith, founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative—revealed that in the top 100 films of 2019, just over a quarter of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) characters die by the end of the film—and all but one dies violently. The study also notes that 42 percent of the API characters experienced disparagement, including racist/sexist slurs, with 30 percent being tokenized (meaning they were the only Asian character in the film or scene) and 67 percent channeling tired Asian stereotypes. Notably, only 13 percent were portrayed as “fully human,” (ie, complex characters with agency) which the report measured in terms of them having a wide spectrum of relationships.

I wasn’t alone in gravitating toward media where strong Asian characters took center stage. After the shootings in Atlanta—and after the video of Vilma Kari’s attack went viral—Yuen, the report’s co-author, told me that she and her friends started watching Kung Fu on The CW, a reboot of the 70s show starring David Carradine that premiered in early April.

Though the original was not without its shortcomings (the lead role, of a half-Chinese Shaolin monk who wanders the Wild West, went to the white actor instead of Bruce Lee, despite Carradine having no prior martial arts training), the CW series gives the story a 21st century update. This time around, the lead is an Asian woman—and, importantly, an Asian woman who kicks ass. Olivia Liang’s Nicky Shen stands alone as the only Asian American woman lead on network television right now, and her characterization as a strong and capable defender of her hometown of San Francisco offers some counterweight to the blunt fact that Asian women are twice as likely to report being targets of anti-Asian hate than Asian men are.

“Certainly, our show is not the solution, but I hope that we are a part of the solution,” showrunner Christina M. Kim said in a press conference a day after the Atlanta shootings.

As Yuen sees it, the show’s main draw is its constellation of rich characters with developed backstories. “As an Asian American watching it, I feel empowered, not just because there’s martial arts but also in seeing people who aren’t just the sidekick, or the friend, or the villain,” she said. “They are the leads, and you feel like you can see yourself in different parts of them.” Ultimately, she said, that’s the goal of the report: for Hollywood to represent API characters as complex, multidimensional human beings—just like in real life.

The Kung Fu reboot isn’t the only recent work that draws on martial arts as a vehicle for telling more three-dimensional human stories. The Paper Tigers—a charming comedy about three washed-up, middle-aged former kung fu disciples looking to avenge their sifu’s murder—uses the martial art as a way of telling a story about redemption, brotherhood, and becoming men.

Released to streaming platforms and select theaters on May 7, The Paper Tigers complicates the strong-versus-weak narrative by presenting its heroes as both in different moments. They’re strong when they’re aligned to the teachings of kung fu—which espouse traditional Eastern values like honor, discipline, humility, and bravery—and weak, both physically and morally, when they stray from them. Throughout the film, the men contend with choosing when to fight and when to walk away: When his son gets beat up by the school bully, Danny, the lead character, tells the boy that he should have walked away from the kid who has been terrorizing him and his friend. Later, after one of the Tigers is sorely wounded, Danny heads off to a fight, but not before calling his son to tell him that he’s proud of him for sticking up for his friend. Fearing that he might not make it to see another day, he tells his son how to make a fist, but offers this information with a warning: “If you go looking for a fight, that makes you the bully.”

Beyond the moments of pitch-perfect comedy (see: the many fortune cookie-worthy proverbs doled out by a white sifu, the men’s former schoolmate rival, in Cantonese, which none of them understand), there’s also something deeply gratifying about seeing bodies, out of practice for 25 years, reckon with their limitations and slowly relearn their discipline, building back their strength over time. Tran Quoc Bao, the film’s writer and director, said he wanted to highlight martial arts as a practice of discovering one’s inner strength, and learning the right moment to express it. “With martial arts,” he said, “it’s that constant sharpening of the sword knowing that you can hang it up and not use it.”

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As it turns out, the film’s resonance with the present moment is something of a coincidence: Tran conceived the story a decade ago, drawing on his experiences growing up in a multicultural martial arts community in Seattle. He never imagined it would be released during a pandemic, much less at a time of surging racist violence.

“Obviously, there’s a different subtext now that kind of lingers in the air,” he told me. Still, with its subtle allusions to race and cultural appropriation, the film hits upon facets of the Asian American experience that feel just as relevant now as they did several decades ago. Importantly, it’s also an Asian American film that exists on its own terms. Though it centers non-white experience, it doesn’t announce itself as such—not to the point of color-blindness, but in a way where cultural difference feels normal, and honored.

It’s nice to see martial arts, and kung fu especially, treated with reverence and respect. Although kung fu and martial arts movies have been a part of Hollywood’s diet since the 70s, the form has too often been relegated to an unintentional sub-genre of comedy—one replete with its fair share of racist stereotypes. As the report notes, a large component of the anti-Asian racism perpetuated in pop culture is the representation of Asian men as weak and effeminate compared to their Western counterparts—an emasculation that continues to be expressed by Hollywood through the physical domination of Asian characters by predominantly white leading characters.

One of the most notorious examples is Quentin Tarantino’s characterization of Lee, the most beloved and celebrated martial artist of all time. In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the Lee character—caricatured as a toxically masculine showboat—challenges Brad Pitt’s stuntman character Cliff Booth to a three-round fight. It technically results in a draw, but Lee walks away humiliated after Booth handily throws him into a car.

Yuen described the scene as exemplifying American pop culture’s impulse “to take a strong Asian man down a notch.”

“They get these really amazing Asian actors who are at the top of their martial arts game, and then they have the white lead beat them up in order to show his prowess and maintain a kind of racial hierarchy,” she said.

Not surprisingly, over the past year, there have been disturbing reflections of that dynamic in real life. After a man of Chinese descent was assaulted in an unprovoked attack outside New York City’s Penn Station in March, his attacker reportedly assumed a mocking kung fu stance before fleeing the scene.

“It makes them feel better about themselves to beat up an Asian whom they feel is the enemy, because Hollywood has historically represented Asians as enemies,” said Yuen. Trump’s “kung flu” rhetoric from last year, part of his campaign to scapegoat Asians as foreign vectors of disease, certainly hasn’t helped.

Warrior, a Cinemax original series with an Asian-dominant cast that premiered in 2019, is yet another martial arts-related project that attempts to examine and subvert this sort of racist scapegoating. With a premise conceived by the late Bruce Lee himself, the show is set during the Tong Wars of San Francisco in the 1870s—a period in American history that arguably gave birth to some of the most enduring and damaging Asian American stereotypes, from that of the disease-carrying foreigner to the Chinatown gangster and the brothel worker. The series follows Ah Sahm (played by Andrew Koji), a kung fu prodigy who becomes a hatchet man for a powerful tong, or criminal brotherhood, as it vies with rivals in Chinatown for control over resources. Notably, it’s set on the eve of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which effectively banned all immigration from China until 1943, in addition to prohibiting Chinese immigrants from becoming American citizens.

“[In the show], we are dealing with the introduction of the Chinese mythology and propaganda machine,” said Olivia Cheng, who plays Ah Toy, a fictionalized version of the eponymous Chinatown madame known as the first recorded Chinese prostitute in America. In an interview with VICE, Cheng said that she was challenged with not only honoring the real Ah Toy’s life but also playing against the traps of one of Hollywood’s favorite and most harmful tropes about Asian women: the “dragon lady,” an Asian femme fatale who wields power through sex.

I began the show a month after the Atlanta shootings, shortly after it was announced that the series would be renewed for a third season, on HBO Max. Given the heartbreak and impotence I felt, I wasn’t surprised to find myself drawn to Ah Toy, an Asian female character who seems fully possessed of her power as she navigates gender dynamics and a racist criminal justice system—power structures that are not only designed to oppress her but that render women like her entirely disposable. In the first season, when the police raid Ah Toy’s brothel as a means of signalling to its white citizens that it’s “cracking down” on Chinatown crime, she bribes the sergeant with a few calm words and a small red envelope. “A gift for Chinese New Year,” she says, meeting his gaze with an unflinching stare.

Cheng told me that other Asian women have expressed being triggered by her character’s profession, which she understands. She said she had to overcome her own reticence about Ah Toy, but ultimately decided to lead with her character’s humanity. “I definitely feel a responsibility,” she said. “I think you’d have to be incredibly vacuous to be in my position and not.”

Every character in Warrior contends with different articulations of power, said Shannon Lee, executive producer of the show and Bruce Lee’s daughter. “We’re presenting power when it gets out of control and the people who have to participate in that culture, who are the victims of that culture but who don’t think of themselves as victims,” she said. “They think of themselves as humans. They want what every human wants, and are fighting for it.”

As violent as Warrior can be (and disquietingly close to our current reality), I have been enjoying getting to know these kaleidoscopic characters—people who reveal new sides of themselves with every power play. Even as I tense at the scenes of racist confrontation (in the opening two minutes of the series, a white immigration officer singles out a man disembarking from the boat, calls him “Ching Chong,” and knocks him to the ground), I can take cover in characters with the agency to defend themselves. I can see them fight, and I can see them win.

“Catharsis is something that people need right now,” said Hoon Lee, who plays Wang Chao, a quick-witted black market arms dealer. “In the context of a show, you can experience—and, hopefully, exorcise—some of that rage that you might not know what to do with otherwise. That’s a primary function of storytelling.”

Martial arts might be a safe bet for a Hollywood looking for low-hanging fruit when it comes Asian representation, but in this new slate of film and television shows, it’s also the Trojan Horse: a vehicle for Asian characters whose identities are as layered and complex as people are in real life. And while, yes, these bodies encounter brutal violence, they survive to experience what lies beyond it—joy, grief, rage, and humor together. In devastating times like these, we need storytelling that shows us that access to the full spectrum of human experience is possible—not just suffering.

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‘Hard pass’: Netflix’s ‘Kate’ criticized for having a white protagonist who’s out to ‘kill Asians’
Carl Samson

August 10, 2021
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A number of social media users are saying no to a new action-adventure film from Netflix after learning that its white protagonist is headed for an Asian murder spree.

What’s it about: “Kate,” which releases on Sept. 10, centers on a “ruthless criminal operative” who was poisoned and left with less than 24 hours to exact revenge on her enemies. In the process, she forms an “unexpected bond” with the daughter of one of her past victims.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who received praises for her performance as Huntress in the film “Birds of Prey,” will play the lead role. As per Indie Wire, Netflix’s official synopsis states that Kate “uncharacteristically blows an assignment targeting a member of the yakuza in Tokyo,” which leads her to being poisoned.
The film also stars Woody Harrelson as Kate’s handler. Other cast members include Miku Martineau, Tadanobu Asano, Michiel Huisman and Jun Kunimura.
The action-adventure is helmed by French film director and visual effects artist Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. It is written by Umair Aleem and produced by Bryan Unkeless, Kelly McCormick and Patrick Newall, according to Entertainment Weekly.

What critics are saying: “Kate” has received more positive comments as of this writing, with many thrilled to see the involvement of Japanese rock band BAND-MAID and Winstead’s return in an action role. However, some laid out reasons why the film is problematic, and they’re all based on the idea that the lead character — a white person — is killing Asians.

One Twitter user accused the film of Asian fetishization: “Shame on Netflix for this. After this past year especially, to then release a film that is literally white people murdering Asian people based on stereotypes and fetishization??? Hard pass.”
Another called out the presence of white lead characters in Asian settings: “Love Winstead. But stop putting white leads around Asian culture in an Asian city while every antagonist is Asian. And what’s Hollywood’s obsession with the Yakuza, like, ****.”
Meanwhile, one simply wrote: “#StopAsianHate. That’s it. That’s the tweet.”

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Opinion
I'm Not Really Afraid Of Anti-Asian Hate And Racism. I'm Enraged.
"Many of us Asian New Yorkers are afraid. But the emotion that rises in me is not crippling fear; it is un-****ing-adulterated rage."
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"Here is my exhortation to America: Open up your myopic, microscopic vision of us and let us all in," the author writes.
SOPA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Sophia Chang, VIP Guest Writer
Mar. 31, 2022, 05:45 AM EDT | Updated an hour ago


I stared incredulously at the photo of GuiYing Ma in the hospital after she was bashed over the head with a large rock. There must be something wrong with this picture, I thought, because the right quadrant of her head was missing, almost as if it had melted — like a Dali. Surreal. My disbelief converted to ire when I saw my mother and ajummas in Ma’s beautiful white hair and wise wrinkles.
I held my breath as I read of Christina Yuna Lee’s murder. Oh, no, not again, I thought. My consternation gave way to fury as I imagined my daughter walking to the train every morning, just a few short blocks from where Christina was killed.
In the wake of the recent torrent of anti-Asian violence, many of us Asian New Yorkers are afraid. But the emotion that rises in me is not crippling fear; it is un-****ing-adulterated rage.
Of course, I am not immune to the fear. Like all women, I live with the deeply internalized, incessant, insidious fear of assault. To paraphrase Margaret Atwood, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
Further, I am a petite Asian woman careening through middle age. Like many of my city sisters, I have developed hyper-peripheral vision. I don’t listen to music loudly on my headphones, and at night, I avoid desolate streets and watch the shadows of those behind me elongate on the sidewalk when streetlamps grant me the rearview. That said, 27 years of Shaolin Kung Fu training has resulted in my reflexes, physical awareness and instincts being sharper and more potent. Furthermore, to many, I appear like a man and am less likely to be targeted.
Asian women make up almost 62% of the victims of reported attacks on our community, according to a study conducted by Stop AAPI Hate. It’s been just over a year since eight people were shot and killed in the Atlanta area — six of them Asian women. I still remember how my voice trembled with tears as I read out the names of the six Asian women who were murdered.
My anguish morphed into anger when it was suggested that the murders were not racially motivated. I and my sisters knew better.
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"In America, Asian women are sexually reduced to the extremes of two stereotypes: the submissive geisha or the dominating dragon lady," Chang writes. "There’s nothing wrong whatsoever if we are one or the other or both. My issue is that we are not allowed to be self-determining and self-defining."
NATHAN CONGLETON/NBC/NBCU PHOTO BANK VIA GETTY IMAGES
As of last spring, 81% of Asian adults surveyed by Pew Research Center said they believed violence against us is on the rise. According to NBC News, anti-Asian crime was up 339% in 2021 from 2020. And we should assume the numbers are far greater, as many crimes go unreported.
Indubitably, the rise in violence against us was brought on by the abhorrent racist rhetoric around the coronavirus that granted gleeful permission for people to act out their racist fantasies against us. Remember the U.K. variant? Were people with British accents targeted? Hell ****ing no!
But don’t get it twisted; Asians have faced racism and violence from the gate. As is the case with so many marginalized populations, the hatred is codified into law, thus undergirding the othering and fear of us — from the Page Act of 1875 to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Then there’s the MSG that enhances the hate recipe: the model minority myth, which gives everyone the impression that we’re all doing Gucci — taking their kids’ spots in the best schools, getting the top jobs, making the fattest checks.
But not so fast, cowboy. In New York, almost 1 in 4 of us live below the poverty line. The model minority myth is particularly draconian because it pits yellow against Black. You know; divide and conquer. When the crimes started accumulating, many of the images I saw were of folx of color, particularly Black people, perpetrating the attacks. As it turns out, Janelle Wong, professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, found that 75% of the crimes had been committed by white people. I believe that there have been perpetrators of color, and I do think that anti-Blackness, particularly in my community, accepted this narrative with a degree of facility. I can hold two truths simultaneously.
I have long thought that one of my responsibilities is to bridge communities. As the first Asian woman in hip-hop who managed Ol’ Dirty ******* (RIP), RZA, and GZA of Wu-Tang Clan, then introduced them to a real-live Shaolin monk who would become my partner, I believe I have done a small part to create cross-cultural alliances. I was a fan of hip-hop when I moved to New York in ’87, but it was the community that embraced me.
Though I point to government policies as enforcers of anti-Asianness, I can’t ignore the deleterious impact that the media has had on our safety. The eroticization, exoticization and fetishization of Asian women in this country ― aided and abetted by the largely white male leer of Hollywood — has surely exacerbated the attacks. When the Atlanta massage parlor murders occurred last March, there was a question as to whether or not they were racially motivated. I don’t believe that every assault against a marginalized person is a hate crime, but this was crystal ****ing clear to me.
In America, Asian women are sexually reduced to the extremes of two stereotypes: the submissive geisha or the dominating dragon lady. There’s nothing wrong whatsoever if we are one or the other or both. My issue is that we are not allowed to be self-determining and self-defining. Many Asian women have been courted with such dulcet phrases as “Me love you long time” and “Is your ***** sideways?” I don’t even know what the **** that means. Aren’t all pussies sideways?! And if one more white boy tells me he had an insert-Asian nationality-here girlfriend, that he speaks insert-Asian-language-here, or that he studied insert-Asian-martial-art-here, I will summon all the Han of my Korean ancestors and asphyxiate him with red hot dukbokki.
When I was writing my memoir, “The Baddest ***** In The Room,” my very smart brother Heesok Chang said, “Sophia, what you’re doing with your book is simply asking the world to imagine that you exist.” And here is my exhortation to America: Open up your myopic, microscopic vision of us and let us all in, and grant us the grace of being whatever the **** we want — even angry.


Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang, VIP Guest Writer

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Community members show up to restore defaced ‘8 Immortals’ mural in Vancouver’s Chinatown
Michelle De Pacina
5 hours ago
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Members of Vancouver’s Chinatown community reportedly lined up on East Georgia Street on April 16 to help restore the “Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” mural that was defaced last month by graffiti taggers.
Artists Sean Cao and Katharine Yi of the Bagua Artist Association organized the mural’s repair as a way to gather people through art and build a sense of community.
The mural, which was meticulously painted onto the side of a two-story building of the Liang You Bookstore, was meant to promote cultural redress.
The social event was supported by the City of Vancouver’s Chinatown Transformation Team, who is working to revitalize the community and combat anti-Asian racism.
Community members of Vancouver’s Chinatown came together on Saturday to restore the “Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” mural that was defaced last month by graffiti taggers.

Artists and volunteers lined up on East Georgia Street on Saturday afternoon with paint brushes in hand to cover up the over five-feet-high black letters graffitied across the mural.

Meticulously painted onto the side of a two-story building of the Liang You Bookstore, the mural was meant to represent the diversity of people throughout Chinatown’s history and to promote cultural redress. The painting was based on a Chinese folktale about eight immortals who use their unique powers to cross the East Sea.

The vandalism left mural artists Sean Cao and Katharine Yi of the Bagua Artist Association heartbroken. They organized the mural’s repair as a way to gather people through art and build a sense of community.

“Seeing this is very touching and people are so supportive,” Cao told Global News.

“It just means that all of us are standing together to make this community better, and to treasure our public cultural assets,” Yi said.

Terry Hunter, a volunteer who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, told CBC News, “When it’s damaged we all feel hurt, we all feel the pain and to be here today to heal the mural is really important. What we need is a sustained, coordinated effort to change the whole attitude about this neighborhood and what can and cannot be done here.”

“There is a sense of ownership, and so that’s where the community effort comes in,” a volunteer identified as “June” told Global News. “We need to turn it into not just being angry. It’s about action.”

The social event was supported by the City of Vancouver’s Chinatown Transformation Team, who is working to revitalize the community and combat anti-Asian racism.

City councilors including Sarah Kirby-Yung, Pete Fry and Lisa Dominato also attended the event. The city has said it will provide more funding to restore murals in Chinatown.

“In the future when people walk by, they can probably say, ‘Oh hey I contributed to that,’” Yi told Global News. “It becomes everyone’s, not just to the artists. It’s the community’s.”

Featured Image via @baguabagua

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Babylon Bee is a conservative satire news site. Nevertheless I saw this on social media being propounded as news :rolleyes:

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Biden Welcomes BTS By Pulling Out His Phone And Playing 'Kung Fu Fighting'
Celebs
June 1st, 2022 - BabylonBee.com

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WASHINGTON, D.C.—K-Pop music sensation BTS has been invited to the White House to discuss anti-Asian hate and discrimination. When the artists entered the oval office President Biden welcomed them by pulling out his phone and playing ‘Kung Fu Fighting’.

"Welcome to the White House my fellow Kung Fu fighters!" said the President while holding out his phone and pretending to karate chop the artists. "HOO! HUH! Gotcha there! You're gonna have to be quicker than that if you wanna block old Joe!"

The BTS members—also known as the Bangtan Boys—shuffled awkwardly and forced a smile as the President of the United States continued to bob his head up and down as he displayed his kung-fu moves.

“HIYAH!" shouted Biden still trying to get the band to respond. "What's the deal? I thought you people are supposed to love this music? C'mon now show me your moves—how else are you gonna stop people from discriminating against you?"

At publishing time, Biden tweeted out a selfie with the Bangtan Boys that has already been deleted that was captioned "The White House rejects racism against Asians. That's why I'm proud to stand by and fight back with the Bangkok Boys!"

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Taking action in Chinatown: Chocolate shop trains employees in kung fu to combat theft and crime
Photo of Elissa Miolene
Elissa Miolene
Aug. 20, 2022
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Scott McTaggert, executive chef at Jade Chocolates, attends the cafe’s first kung fu class at San Francisco WingTsun in May.
Elissa Miolene/The Chronicle

Mindy Fong shut the doors of Jade Chocolates Teahouse and Cafe at just past 5 p.m. on a weekday this spring. Fong had spent the day making chocolate, preparing pastries and serving tea. But now, she was leading her employees to a very different type of shift: their first all-staff kung fu class.

“It’s beneficial for everyone to know some self-defense,” Fong said. “I would hate for something to happen to them here just because they’ve gone to work.”

Fong decided to hold the classes in late March, after a string of robberies coincided with the cafe’s move from Inner Richmond to Chinatown. Fong was excited to move to the neighborhood, where her cafe’s Asian-inspired chocolates could find a cultural home. But immediately, it was clear to Fong that COVID-19, crime and anti-Asian hate had left their mark on the neighborhood.

“Every day, there’s something,” Fong said. “I’ve seen people being chased in the street because they’ve stolen something from the jewelry shops or camera shops.”

Robberies and assaults fell with overall crime rates in San Francisco during the pandemic, but retail break-ins in Union Square and other high-profile crimes may have made people feel less safe. And a series of assaults on Asian Americans has jolted those communities in particular.

In 2021, anti-Asian hate crimes spiked 567% in San Francisco, according to the city’s police department, with 60 attacks targeting people of Asian descent. Chinatown’s crime rate is below that of many parts of San Francisco. So far this year, the police department recorded fewer incidents in Chinatown than in 21 of the city’s 43 neighborhoods, including the Marina and Bernal Heights. But still, hate crimes against Asian residents loom large in residents’ minds.

A block from Jade Chocolates, a mural of Vicha Ratanapakdee - a 84-year-old Thai man who was pushed to the ground during his morning walk in January 2021, and died soon after - seems to watch over Grant Street. Justice for Vicha, the mural reads in big, block letters. #StandForAsians.

Compounded by that history is the day-to-day experience of business owners like Fong, who say they’ve heard of robberies happening in broad daylight, and brazen attacks against storefronts throughout the area. But still, moving back to Chinatown - a neighborhood her family called home for generations - was important to Fong.

“All of the theft and crime in Chinatown is not an obstacle for me,” Fong said. “It’s just one more thing we have to get over. We should be able to defend ourselves.”

Jade Chocolates’ executive chef, Scott McTaggert, has been practicing Wing Tsun - a style of Chinese kung fu focused on self defense - for the last six years. Instead of backing down to the crime, McTaggert and Fong thought they could use Wing Tsun to overcome it.

“Because I’m here in Chinatown with our staff and the crime rate is so high, I thought it would be advantageous to at least mention, hey, if anyone wants to learn some and get some training, this is available to you,” said McTaggert. “I will do everything I can do to make our employees feel safer and more empowered so they can live their lives without being afraid.”

At the end of May, Fong, McTaggert, and two other Jade employees - along with the daughters of two employees - headed to San Francisco WingTsun, the Chinatown-based studio where McTaggert usually practices. Joseph Mah, the head teacher of the studio, walked the employees through the practice’s foundations, coaching them through the proper movements to defend themselves. It was the first of many classes to come: Jade’s employees now hone their skills on the last Wednesday of every month.

“Hopefully, the self-defense program we’re going to establish here is just to know - not to use,” said Fong. “But if the day comes, they’ll be prepared.”

These classes are just the latest in a string of efforts to combat crime in Chinatown. According to Edward Siu, chair of the Chinatown Merchants United Association, business owners in the area are working together to reduce crime in their own ways. A WhatsApp group of 400 merchants, for example, now works as an alert system: If something happens in a shop, Siu said, a chain reaction is set off. That merchant texts the group and Siu contacts the police.

“We’re really working together, as merchants,” said Siu. “We want to make Chinatown better and get more business coming in.”

Elissa Miolene is a graduate student at Stanford University’s journalism school and a former intern with The Chronicle’s multimedia team. Twitter: @elissamio

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I almost wish the Tongs would come back and patrol...

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Man charged with hate crime after vandalism at Wing Luke Museum
Sep. 18, 2023 at 3:33 pm
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Adrien Fonseca, with Marpac Construction, works to remove glass from the Wing Luke Museum’s broken windows on Canton Alley South on Sept. 15. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)
By Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
Seattle Times staff reporter

A man was charged Monday with a hate crime after he smashed the windows of the Wing Luke Museum, King County prosecutors say.

According to the charges, Craig Milne, 76, used a sledgehammer to break the windows of the museum along Canton Alley South in Seattle on Thursday night, as dozens of patrons inside were touring an exhibit.

Milne, who is white, also was charged with first-degree malicious mischief for causing more than $100,000 worth of property damage, charging papers say.

After smashing the windows, Milne remained outside the building, and was heard saying he had come to the Chinatown International District to cause damage and that “the Chinese ruined my life,” according to witnesses.

Almost an hour later, when Seattle Police Department officers arrived and arrested Milne, he “continued making racially biased statements and expressed no remorse,” the charging documents stated, with Milne telling officers, “The Chinese have tortured and tormented me for 14 years. I don’t regret anything I did here.”

“The blatant racist motivations behind the defendant’s actions, the extreme nature of this property destruction, the disregard for individuals who were inside the building, and the lack of remorse gives the State significant community safety concerns,” prosecutors wrote.

Milne first appeared in court Friday, when a judge set his bail at $30,000. He remained in King County Jail on Monday.

The Wing Luke Museum is a major educational and cultural institution in Seattle and an anchor in the neighborhood. It is the only pan-Asian Pacific American community-based museum in the country.

“The attack and the damage, beyond the physical, was in part symbolic,” museum Executive Director Joël Barraquiel Tan previously told The Seattle Times. “It was targeted. It was planned.”

This is not the first time Milne has been accused of a hate crime. In October 2013, Milne was arrested for allegedly attacking and repeatedly punching an Asian man in the locker room at the Spartan Recreation Center in Shoreline.

King County Sheriff’s Office deputies reported they heard Milne shouting racial slurs against Asian people, saying “they ruined my life.” When he was arrested, Milne fought the deputies and called an Asian officer racial slurs, according to charging documents.

Milne was charged with fourth-degree assault and resisting arrest, according to court documents. The charges were dismissed in 2015, prosecutors said.

Community leaders said the attack Thursday ratcheted up already elevated concerns about public safety among some Asian American and Pacific Islander residents in Seattle. Several criticized the police response time, saying the 52 minutes it took for officers to arrive reflected local law enforcement and city leaders’ disregard for their well-being.

Hate crimes targeting Asians and Asian Americans increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, rising more than 73 percent in 2020, according to FBI data. Since 2020, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has filed 130 cases involving hate crimes, with 20 filed this year so far.

Milne’s arraignment is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Oct. 2 at the King County Courthouse.

Times researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.

Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks: 206-464-2246 or ayoonhendricks@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @ayoonhendricks. Staff reporter Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks covers race and equity for The Seattle Times.

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Bruce-Lee-Museums-and-Gallery-Exhibits

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Wing Luke Museum gets $100K from city, state for repairs after vandal smashes windows

By KIRO 7 News Staff
September 29, 2023 at 5:01 pm PDT

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SEATTLE — Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum will be getting $100,000 in funds to help in its recovery efforts after several of its windows were smashed by a vandal in early-September.

Seventy-six-year-old Craig Milne was charged in the incident, after smashing the museum’s windows with a sledgehammer while saying that “the Chinese have ruined my life.”

When officers arrived, he allegedly told them that “the Chinese have tortured and tormented me for 14 years.”

“I don’t regret anything I did here,” he added.

On Friday, the City of Seattle and the Washington State Department of Commerce announced that they would be giving the Wing Luke Museum $100,000 for repairs.

“I’m proud our state could step in alongside the City of Seattle to help the Wing Luke Museum recover from the violence of hate,” said Gov. Jay Inslee in a news release. “The museum is a local treasure honoring Washington’s global diversity. I encourage folks to visit and learn more about the history and culture of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.”

Milne was charged with two felonies, one for a hate crime and another for first degree malicious mischief.

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Stuff like this happens in small towns all the time for years, forever, the azn there just keep their head in the sand.

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Anti-Asian hate crimes decreased for 1st time since pandemic start: FBI
Anti-Asian hate crimes decreased for 1st time since pandemic start: FBIvia Kareem Hayes on Unsplash
The decline is attributed to factors such as decreased use of inflammatory language by leaders
Michelle De Pacina
OCTOBER 30, 2023

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ANTI-ASIAN HATE CRIMES decreased by 34% from 2021 to 2022, according to new data released by the FBI.

Factors in the decline: Experts attributed the recent decline — the first drop in anti-Asian hate crimes since the beginning of the pandemic — to factors like reduced opportunities for COVID-related blaming, decreased use of inflammatory language by leaders and a sense of fatigue in reporting.

Hate crimes are cyclical: However, the decrease may not be a long-term trend, as experts suggest that anti-Asian hate crimes are cyclical and can be influenced by national and international contexts. The initial spike in hate crimes was linked to economic downturns and the blaming of Asians for the coronavirus.

“The data is a reminder that hate never goes away, it only hides. Any hate crime is a stain on the soul of America,” President Joe Biden said in a statement, according to American Kahani.

Data on Sikhs and Muslims: Some groups, like Sikhs and Muslims, did not see a significant decrease in hate crime incidents, most of which may be related to anti-immigrant and Islamophobic rhetoric. The number of bias-motivated incidents against Sikhs decreased from 185 to 181. However, The Sikh Coalition said that anti-Sikh hate crime victimizations were “the highest number ever at 198,” an increase from 195 in 2021.

Important to note: The FBI’s statistics alone may not fully capture the state of anti-Asian hate in the U.S. since they rely on law enforcement data and Asian Americans are less likely to report being victimized in racial incidents, which may end up not even being classified as hate crimes. The absence of adequate performance metrics hinders the assessment of the federal government’s effectiveness in combating hate crimes against the Asian community, as noted by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

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It's all about that final note, isn't it?