Georgia Attack Sparks Fear of Increased Anti-Asian Sentiment

Tuesday night 8 people were killed in and around Atlanta, Georgia, with 6 of the victims being Asian women. A 21-year old man has been taken into custody and it is too early to determine whether the shooting was a hate crime. However, this tragedy comes as there have been over 3,800 anti-Asian hate crimes according to the Stop AAPI Hate National Report.

Since the start of 2021, there have been over 500 anti-Asian hate crime incidents. These are only the number of incidents that have been reported. It is suspected that there are many more incidents that have not been reported. Women were more than twice as likely to report hate crimes than their male counterparts according to NBC News. A study from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino said that Anti-Asian hate incidents rose by 149% in 2020.

Asian women are facing inter-sectional attacks because of their gender and race. Women have dealt with safety concerns before the pandemic, but anti-Asian rhetoric surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic has made Asian-women at greater risk of attack.

Not all anti-Asian hate is explicitly violent. The Stop AAPI Hate National Report said that verbal harassment made up 68.1% of incidents reported and shunning, or the purposeful avoidance of individuals, made up 20.5% of incidents from March 19th, 2020 to February 28th, 2021. The Stop AAPI Hate National Report said that 11.1% of incidents were physical assault.

Erin Henkel - News and Politics Editor