Congress introduces ‘No Hate Act’ aimed at recent racist attacks
Although hate crimes appeared to go down by 7 percent, attacks directed at Asian-Americans specifically went up by a whopping 150 percent
In response to all the hate crimes against Asians across the country, this week a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation meant to combat the disturbing uptick in violence.
According to NBC News, the No Hate Act was introduced in the House led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Reps. Don Beyer, D-Va., Fred Upton, R-Mich., Judy Chu, D-Calif., and Vern Buchanan, R-Fla. On Monday, it will be introduced in Senate.
The bill created intends to “streamline the national reporting systems used by law enforcement, train law enforcement on investigating hate crimes, create a hate crimes hotline, establish programs to rehabilitate offenders, and expand assistance and resources for victims of hate crimes.”
READ MORE: CDC says that racism ‘a serious public health threat’
“Hate crimes are so insidious because they’re intended to harm and terrorize an entire community, not just one person or property. We know that hate crimes are on the rise, but individual viral videos — no matter how horrifying and stomach-churning — only tell part of the story,” Sen. Blumenthal said in a statement.
“Better reporting might sound basic, but it’s absolutely fundamental to understanding and addressing the full scope of the problem.”
The most recent FBI data about hate crimes are from 2019 and reported 7,314 hate crime incidents that year – a number that advocates say is incredibly conservative given how underreported these crimes tend to be.
However, a much more recent analysis of reports from police indicates that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an undeniable spike in anti-Asian hate crimes across major cities over the last year.
In March, the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, did its own independent probe into hate crimes that took place in 16 of the nation’s largest cities. They found that while hate crimes, in general, appeared to go down by 7 percent, attacks directed at Asian-Americans specifically went up by a whopping 150 percent.
“Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Asian Americans across the nation have been terrified by the alarming surge in anti-Asian hate and violence,” said Sen. Chu. “We know that many hate crimes are never documented by local law enforcement and reported to the FBI, which is why we still do not have a complete understanding of the problem.”
A different type of pandemic
As theGrio previously reported, the bigotry that has spawned the rise in anti-Asian attacks is just one more example of why this week the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that racism has become a “serious public health threat” in this country.
Walensky began her statement by highlighting that the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted communities of color, populations that have “experienced disproportionate case counts and deaths, and where the social impact of the pandemic has been most extreme.”
“Yet, the disparities seen over the past year were not a result of COVID-19,” she wrote. “Instead, the pandemic illuminated inequities that have existed for generations and revealed for all of America a known, but often unaddressed, epidemic impacting public health: racism.”
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“What we know is this: racism is a serious public health threat that directly affects the well-being of millions of Americans,” Walensky maintained. “As a result, it affects the health of our entire nation.”
“Racism is not just the discrimination against one group based on the color of their skin or their race or ethnicity,” she continued, “but the structural barriers that impact racial and ethnic groups differently to influence where a person lives, where they work, where their children play, and where they worship and gather in community.”
Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, who was named head of the agency by President Joe Biden, said the CDC will be “accelerating” its work to address racism as a fundamental driver of racial and ethnic health inequities in the United States.
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