Aside from causing 14 million cases worldwide, COVID-19 has also brought on sudden hostility towards the Asian community. Only within the past three months, there have been over 2,100 reported incidents of harassment towards Asians. Asian owned businesses were graffitied with racial slurs, anti-Asian comments have been posted all over social media, and many have been beaten or threatened by xenophobes. Despite the high increase in xenophobia, the US federal government has not been putting an effort into preventing nor even acknowledging it— if anything, they have been adding to the flame. President Donald Trump has been calling COVID-19, the official name of the novel respiratory virus, “Chinese virus” or “Kung flu,” which fuels the hatred towards the Asian community. Due to this tremendous backlash, “civil rights groups, marketing agencies, social media accounts, and nonprofit organizations, which have promoted hashtags like #IAmNotCovid19, #RacismIsAVirus, #HealthNotHate, and #MakeNoiseToday” says Tiffany Hsu from The New York Times. These social media campaigns all aim to bring about greater awareness to anti-Asian xenophobia. With these campaigns and technology, we can stand together and help the effort to stop hate while also staying safely at home too.


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