Celebs Call Out Rise In Hate Crimes Against Asian Americans Amid Pandemic
Actors Daniel Dae Kim, Daniel Wu and Gemma Chan want the public, authorities and the media to pay more attention to anti-Asian attacks related to COVID-19.
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Actors Daniel Dae Kim, Daniel Wu and Gemma Chan are calling out the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes amid the pandemic and demanding that law enforcement, the media and the American public not ignore them.
Speaking in an interview on MSNBC on Sunday, Wu pointed to an increase in racist, verbal and physical assaults reported by Asian Americans nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic began, saying, "We're not going to take this anymore."
Dae Kim noted that Asian elders have been particularly hard-hit, as older people with health conditions are at higher risk of severe cases of coronavirus and, with the spate of anti-Asian attacks, older Asian Americans are even more "scared to go out."
"It just makes our community fearful," Dae Kim told MSNBC, "and it actually silences the community."
Last week, Dae Kim and Wu offered a $25,000 reward to anyone who had information on the case of a 91-year-old man who was violently shoved to the ground in the Chinatown neighborhood of Oakland, California, in late January.
Gemma Chan shared a video on Twitter from activist Amanda Nguyen highlighting other recent attacks on Asians across the country, including one of an 84-year-old Thai man shoved and killed in San Francisco late last month. Chan lamented that "too often these attacks are ignored."
Thankfully me and others I know haven't been victims of violence. But the increasing number of attacks against Asian-Americans because of the pandemic (especially the elderly) is pretty fucked up, and I'm glad Daniel Dae Kim and others are bringing attention to this.