My mom has been pretty scared to leave the house for the last year. It’s not just because of the fear of catching the virus, but also because of the anti-Asian hate crimes that have gone up over a thousand percent in this country since stupid politicians kept calling the virus the “China virus” or “kung flu.” My parents are the king and queen of keeping up with scary news, so they have heard all of the stories of the elderly Asians who have been punched, beaten, spat on, pushed down. They’ve heard of the Asians who have been stabbed. They’ve also heard of the ones who have been spat on, blamed for the virus, and told to “go back to China.”

My mom was telling me on the phone yesterday, “Don’t leave the house unless you have to. If you go out, only go with Chris because there’s power in numbers. They will beat you for no reason. Be careful!”

She said she doesn’t feel safe leaving the house by herself anymore, even to walk around the block for exercise, so she tries to only leave with my dad or my aunt. When she leaves the house now, she also said she will only take, at most, $10 with her, in fear that someone will rob her. “It doesn’t matter if it’s just $5, but they will stab you and take your five dollars!” she exclaimed. I suggested she get pepper spray. She said she’d have no idea how to use it and would be scared that it would be used against her. Well… okay, good point.

My mom has been through a very hellish life, particularly for her first 20 years. Then, she immigrated to this country hoping for better opportunities and a good future for her soon to be son and daughter, the way most immigrants have hope for a better tomorrow. What she probably never thought about when she was on that plane from Saigon to San Francisco is the racism she’d have to endure here as a person of Asian descent.

It is a sad reality to think about: racism existed then. It exists now. And when you’re Asian in a society that seems to only “get” race as “Black and White,” you’re just invisible. Hate crimes against your people don’t even get labeled “hate crimes.” It’s like your life doesn’t even matter. It’s been a really depressing week.

So what, now anti-Asian hate crimes get national attention finally after a year-plus of what our former President Dipshit called the “China virus” because a stupid white man in Atlanta decides to storm into multiple Asian massage parlors and shoot them dead? This is what it takes to get national attention when you are Asian in the United States of America?

And yet.. the sheriff refuses to call it a “hate crime” because this shooter “was just having a bad day” and claimed he did not harbor hatred of Asians. We’re supposed to believe this murderer???? And we’re also supposed to believe the racist sheriff and his incompetent and racist police unit?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/18/politics/white-supremacy-racism-asian-americans/index.html

I’ll leave this link here.

An elderly Chinese woman was attacked from behind by a racist white man along Market Street in San Francisco today. But instead of letting him go, she somehow found the strength to take some large stick and beat him so badly that he ended up needing to get hospitalized. Her face is grossly bruised and bloody, and she continues to not be able to see out of one eye, which is still bleeding.

It makes me happy to see that she attacked him back. But to be frank, it would have made me even happier to see her be able to beat him dead. He would have deserved a slow, painful, bloody death.

I recently started reading the book Spillover, which was published in 2012. It’s basically a journalistic book (it reads like a mystery, so it’s fun to read) that documents over time all of the pandemics and viruses that we’ve faced that have originated from animals (it’s the majority of them, if you want to know). While I’ve passively participated in vegan groups, I’ve often read the same sentiment over and over: if we humans stopped eating meat and animal-derived products, pandemics and deadly viruses originating from animals would stop.

If you look to data and science for facts, you would understand that this above belief is simply wrong. One notable example is from the Hendra virus, which began (and ended, ahem, talk about contact tracing and control!!) in Queensland, Australia, in the early 90s. Bats were hanging out at some tree where a horse at a horse ranch liked to rest. One day, the horse got super ill, interacted with all her horse friends, and then she died. Her horse friends who got in proximity to her all died within a week (it was about 40 horses in total). Her closest human care taker died shortly after. Another human, a vet, who interacted with the horse and did her autopsy became ill but survived. These horses were devastating not just for the ranch, but also for the big horse racing business in Australia. With horse racing, you do not eat the horses; you watch them race. So what does this mean: we need to eliminate ANY interaction with EVERY animal on the planet to avoid the next pandemic? How sustainable is that????

Welp. We’re doomed.