This article has absolutely zero actual description of motive regarding these assaults. They wax poetic about the outgoing administration's stoking of racist tensions regarding COVID's origins, which they have little actual evidence is related to the assaults.
It might be worth mentioning reduced police presence & funding, a direct response to racial politics and protests throughout 2020. I don't think that explanation aligns with the author's worldview...
Recently on my nextdoor, there was a report of an attempted break in with a crowbar at 7 in the morning while residents were home. The target? A couple of packages of Amazon. People are becoming very alarmed at the brazenness of perps.
Yes, robberies, theft and strongarming are way up due to less policing and particularly in SF the refusal of the DA to prosecute and when he does, he often suggests "restorative justice". The same crimes do not happen with the same per-capita number in Daly City.
You honestly think people are tackling senior citizens just because there are fewer police officers to stop them? You might be the one with a questionable worldview here, not the author.
You honestly think reduced police presence has no effect? If you put that in context with race-based rhetoric characterising Asians as part of "white supremacy", it makes as much sense as the other thing. How about a third hypothesis: this idea went viral and people figure they can get away with it now. Or a fourth: the people doing this probably should already have been in jail in many cases.
Because people think they can get away with it now? You think people are sitting around waiting for the day they can get away with seriously injuring a senior citizen?
I think this is about xenophobia and hatred towards China as a source of the coronavirus, amplified by the former president’s rhetoric about the “kung-flu” or “China virus” as he repeatedly called it.
As a matter of fact, some people do wait around for moments when they can get away with violent crime. I've met them and this is how some people think (maybe even most violent people are this way). During one weekend of the protests in Chicago this summer, there was a weekend with over 20 murders, which happened partly because people knew all the police were downtown and it was a good moment to settle scores (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52984535). I agree with you this could have something to do with the rhetoric you mention, just as well as other political rhetoric. It could also just have to do with virality, the impression of lawlessness/lack of repercussions, the "fun" of being violent, and people in public who shouldn't be. In the end, if you shoot a woman in the head with a flare gun, I'm not too concerned whether you claim you did it because "of the president's rhetoric", "to fight white/asian supremacy", or "to steal her pocketbook for economic motivations". I'm more concerned that the police arrest you and the government locks you up until you know better. Anything else looks like more deflection of responsibility to me.
A while ago, in my youth, I worked longside guys who had been let out. Yes, they do seek weaknesses and they know what they are. They know the vulnerable population and the population that does not fight. Example, they would hit richer folks for certain things because they would not get chased as they would more than likely have insurance. They had many stories to tell. They go to SF and they avoid DC (San Mateo Co.). It's not xenophobia or wealthphobia or whatnotphobia. No it's easyphilia.
The article calls out multiple thefts, i.e. economically motivated crimes of opportunity. Classifying this as a hate crime justifies shifting blame and focus away from means of preventing and prosecuting crimes of opportunity.
@xboxnolifes. As I posted elsewhere, watch this and tell me if it looks "economically motivated". Even in the cases where this violence is "economically motivated", does that mean hate isn't a factor? So as long as I steal some money nothing is a hate crime? (I don't really know what I think of the category "hate crime", but if we are going to have them it seems the rules should be elucidated). https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-senior-attacked-sf-man-pu...
[edit for clarity: Not a fan of jumping to call things "hate crimes". Also not a fan of trying to caste a mitigating aura on violent crime by saying it is all "economically motivated", especially when that is not true of all these crimes. Double plus fan of police enforcing the law and keeping violent people locked away.]
Calling it "economically motivated" diminish the heinous act of mugging and theft, which is predatory and driven from greed and wanton disregard for others rights and property.
I’m not saying police aren’t a crime deterrent, and I don’t support the idea of defunding or vilifying the police as a whole. I do support common-sense reforms to reduce the use of force and make police more accountable, though.
I’m saying that it takes a very sick and twisted state of mind to commit violence towards the elderly like this, and it isn’t “normal” crime. It takes real hatred and rage to do something like this.
Disclaimer: I'm an Indian, so a person of color.
[Edited: I had said Asian before and there was some resistance to that]
Is there data to support that these are indeed racially motivated and not something else, especially due to economy and unemployment and just the fact that seniors are easy targets?
How many such muggings and incidents happened during the same period against people of other races? Was the rate of crimes against other races the same and only increased against the Asians?
A few years ago, the black rapper YG was criticized by the Chinese-American community in the Bay Area for writing songs about robbing Asians. The stereotype has been around for a while. There are other stereotypes about Asians being easy victims floating about.
>First, you find a house and scope it out.
>Find a Chinese neighborhood, cause they don’t believe in bank accounts.
>Second, you find a crew and a driver, someone who ring the doorbell. And someone that ain’t scared to do what it do.
>Third, you pull up at the spot. Park, watch, ring the doorbell and knock.
I really think a lot is economic motivation. Asians tend to carry more cash and seniors are easy targets. If you look at recent home robberies in the Bay Area, most that were targeted are Asian, particularly Indians because they usually have a lot of jewelry/gold.
Conflating the South East as a part of the South or East Asia because it has both names is as someone saying Texas is not West or Eastern US while being in the "middle" geographically.
South East Asia is markedly different to South or East Asia. It's a melting pot of both cultures + Melayu and other groups. South East Asians that descended from South Asia (Ex: Malaysian/Singaporean with Indian ancestry) mostly identifies as South East Asians. Same with people who have East Asian ancestry (Ex: mainly Chinese ancestry across SEA). The immigration happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago and some are very distinct groups and cultures from their origins due to time and separation.
Secondly, I'm in the Bay Area, if that was not evident.
Third, Manju Kulkarni quoted in the article as Manju Kulkarni, executive director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council is also of Indian decent.
So, yes, I'm an Asian.
BTW, if you go to UK, people from Indian sub-continent are referred to as Asians..
So is Russia. The objection isn't that you're calling yourself Asian but that your definition is likely different from that in the article, so using that description to associate yourself with the article can come across as misleading/wrong.
This makes no sense, because Indians are literally and indisputably from Asia. What is Asian genetics but the genetics of people who live in Asia? Asian is not a specific nationality or people, and applies to the people of any Asian country.
sure, i'm not saying indians aren't asian. but in the context of this article, when the attacks are based on people looking a certain way, indians don't fit that mold.
FYI this isn't how gene pools work, mathematically; there's no specific profiles of genes which are "Caucasian" or "Asian". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_collapse will get you started on a better understanding.
The link doesn't support that you are saying, it illustrates there must overlap between ancestry else the growth is exponential. But doesn't prove that there aren't groups or clusters of gene pools
Genes have physical loci, sure, but there's no partition of humans into haves and have-nots which prohibits gene transfer; humans aren't Sneeches [0] and our offspring often inherit a spectrum of possible features. Pedigree collapse is one of the two main reasons why we are not even as genetically diverse as chimpanzees [1], with the other main reason being that our parliament of genes [2] is very homogenous and rejects many sorts of non-hereditary gene transfer.
Ironically, humans form only one race because our genes are in strong agreement with one another and work to reject any radical gene changes, which is likely because human population had a bottleneck in recent history [3]. We haven't had enough time to speciate; we haven't even had enough time to genetically specialize to a degree which would allow speciation to be a possibility.
I know HN is nitpicky, but whether you like it or not, "asian" refers to "east asian" in terms of US pop-culture racial discourse. It may not be right but it's the way it is.
Is US pop-culture racial discourse really the arbiter of truth for discussions on HN? I understand that it can appear slightly confusing to people here in the united states, but over a billion people who you don't consider asian, refer to themselves as asian.
"US pop-culture racial discourse" is a generous way of representing the de facto racial caste system in America as some kind of consensus.
Because people get browner the further southwest in Asia you go, a distinction is made.
Though its most fascinating that in America only recent immigrants would be referred to as European-American, if not their by their specific ethnicity, even though the majority of the country is European-descent; they're called "white" instead. "White" is a racial caste designation, European indicates a person descends from the people in a specific place on Earth; "white" is not a place on Earth.
And yet everyone who is not white gets referred to by where they're ancestors are from
I see there is confusion here about what Asian refers to. In the US, it's East Asian. In Europe it includes the Indian sub-continent (and by extension, every other country on the Asian continent, despite huge racial differences). But on HN, perhaps we should just reference countries instead of continents?
They very subtly suggest it here: "In the wake of the attacks several Oakland city council members including Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, whose district includes Chinatown, have joined social justice groups warning against scapegoating and calling for solidarity between Asian American and African American communities."
What I find more interesting though is this passage: "It's not clear, however, that race or ethnicity played any role in the attack. "There is no evidence of motive related to hate," says the DA's spokesperson, Rachel Marshall, adding "the case is still under investigation.""
“ Yahya Muslim, 28, was charged with assault, battery and elder abuse. He has not been charged with hate crimes. Muslim already had two prior felony assault convictions, according to the Alameda County Sheriff and district attorney offices.”
I have no idea what this guy’s ethnicity was, but the fact he was not charged with a hate crime completely undermines the argument of the posted article
But there’s no reason to think that blacks in particular have a problem with Asians. I’m guessing 99% of us figured this was an income-level (class) thing at first glance but they didn’t mention their income levels either.
Wasn’t me. Flagging doesn’t indicate that you were empirically wrong, just that someone isn’t willing to engage you in a fair fight (or that you did something illegal lol)
It might be worth mentioning reduced police presence & funding, a direct response to racial politics and protests throughout 2020. I don't think that explanation aligns with the author's worldview...