S01E29 Linda Chong, Vaccinating Against Hate
The Persecution of Asian Americans has a Hidden, Horrible U.S. History
April 25, 2021 – Americans should enroll in racial sensitivity training and financially support anti-hate groups to combat the alarming rise of attacks on Asian Americans, a former journalist and Asian history scholar told the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields.
Linda Chong, a former China correspondent, blamed the 3,800 reported incidents of assaults and harassment reported since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic on unproven claims that the deadly virus started in China.
“The tensions have been simmering,” Chong said. “Suspicions of the Asian population in the U.S. is kind of something that unfortunately has gone hand in hand with American history...it seemed easier to scapegoat Asians.”
Unlike more well-known persecutions of Blacks and Native Americans, the terrorizing of Asians in the United States has mostly gone unreported due to fears of repercussions, Chong said. Like Blacks, Asians have been the subject of massacres, lynchings, and U.S. Supreme Court rulings undermining their citizenship, Chong said.
Chong has not told her 86-year-old parents of the recent violent spike against Asian Americans, she said.
“They’re very patriotic and very proud of being Americans and this would devastate them,” Chong said. “They disavowed their Chinese citizenship in the 70s to become Americans, my father was so proud of it.. I’m not sure he would feel the same way.”
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Listen to the Retail Politics Podcast with Gerry Shields at: http://www.retailpoliticspodcast or on Apple or Spotify.