Since the COVID-19 pandemic, hate crimes against Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities have seen a disturbing spike. According to Stop AAPI Hate, nearly 3800 AAPI hate crimes have been reported since March 2020. The victims of these attacks included the elderly, families with children and women.

A small fraction of the attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic includes Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old San Francisco man who died from an assault in 2020. Also in 2020, a man stabbed and slashed the Cung family (a father and his 3-year-old & 6-year-old sons)  in Sam’s Club.

More recently, 6 Asian women (Xiaojie, Daoyou, Soon, Huyn, Suncha, Yong) were fatally shot at three different spas Tuesday, March 16, 2021. Just a few days later, on Saturday, March 20, 2021, Sia Marie was fatally shot in the Los Angeles-area.

White supremacy is responsible for these hate crimes. We urge everyone to stand against the rising Anti-AAPI xenophobia and racism pervasive in our country. We encourage you to support our AAPI communities.

Together, we can stop AAPI hate. Please join us at C3 Equity Consulting as we stand in solidarity with our AAPI communities. Here are some simple things you can do to help stop the hate:

• Report hate crimes

• Support AAPI-owned businesses

• Put a stop to all microaggressions and bullying

• Donate to charities & funds that support the AAPI community

• Visit StopAAPI.Org for safety tips for those witnessing or experiencing hate crimes

• Educate yourself on the history of anti-Asian hate in the U.S.

• Stay informed on current events

Violent racism against AAPI communities in the United States is not a recent development. Anti-Asian sentiment runs deeply through centuries of America’s history: the 1871 massacre of 10% of Los Angeles’s Chinese population, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the bubonic plague quarantine of San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1900, Japanese internment camps during WWII, a spike in anti-South East Asian and anti-Muslim violence and deportation after 9/11, and Filipino World War II veterans still fighting for benefits through at least 2019.

And let’s remember, our fight for equity and justice is not about just one race or culture. It’s about all marginalized people, especially those who live at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities. When Brown communities stand for Black people, when Black communities stand for Brown people, when Communities of Color stand for LGBTQ+ people, when LGBTQ+ communities stand for People of Color, and when white people accept their implicit and explicit roles in white supremacy, our resistance becomes bolder and stronger. Together is the only way we will dismantle white supremacy.

#StopAAPIHate #StopAsianHate