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Asian Hate Crimes have grown by one hundred and fifty percent from the previous year, according to a report of police departments statistics across America by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. The campaign to raise awareness of these crimes has been picking up the pace and growing substantially louder over the last couple of weeks after the shooting of eight people in three different massage parlors in Georgia.
Since writing this story, I’ve made a couple of changes after peace activist Ken Nwadike Jr., a.k.a., the Free Hugs guy, brought to my attention the importance of using “End Asian Hate” messages. Ken shared a video on his Facebook page, Free Hugs project, where he was addressing the people on his page who were angry with him for sharing the “End Asian Hate” message and not an “End All Hate” message. I was one of the people sharing the “end all hate” messages on my social media pages, but I was grateful to Ken for using his platform to share the “End Asian Hate” message. Ken explained in his video why the message “End Asian Hate” in particular is so vital now. He said, and I am paraphrasing here, it’s because the Asian community has largely been unheard and invisible for years. If we share the “End All Hate” message, we drown out the message of the Asian community. I’m Asian, and I didn’t…
