(calm music) - Waddup, journalist Myles Bess.

Here again hosting another episode of Above the Noise.

Now we've talked a bunch about the pandemic since it started.

I mean, obviously it's changed all of our lives.

And I've been collabing with some student reporters from Cleveland Heights High School in Ohio.

And I mean, we talked a bunch about how the world's responded to the pandemic.

And one awful by-product that came up in that conversation was the increase in violence against Asian Americans.

Now, I really wish that I didn't have to keep covering topics like racism and hate crimes.

I'd much rather the world not feel like it's filled with hate.

You know what I mean?

That way I can just hang out and water my plants, guilt-free (chuckles).

But this year's been really intense.

And I mean, I keep seeing it on my social media, and in my actual neighborhoods that are being impacted by these issues.

And as much as I want it to all just go away, the only way that that can happen is if we talk about it and if we deal with it.

So today I'm going to be focusing on something that's got me real riled up; the huge number of cases of hate directed at Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, aka the AAPI community.

Now you've probably seen the acronym AAPI around, but who and what are we really talking about?

Well, AAPI is a really broad term that covers a lot of very different communities.

I mean, we're talking about Both U.S. citizens and immigrants whose origins are from a lot of different parts of the world.

I mean, you've got Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, The Philippines, Samoa, Fiji, Guam, the U.S. Trust Territories of the Pacific, or the Northern Mariana's.

Plus you got South Asian countries like India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Pakistan.

Now the countries I've included might vary depending on the source, so apologies if I left anybody out.

But it's so wild to me, how one acronym has come to represent all those distinct cultures, different languages, and unique experiences.

And as a black person that gets lumped in with POC and BIPOC, I can relate.

As I'm sure Latinx folks and Indigenous folks can too.

But all these groups do share a history of struggles with colonialism and racism in this country.

And a lot of folks feel the AAPI label is about building coalition, so that there's more strength and representation, together, and as allies.

And y'all, it's pretty wild, the AAPI community is dealing with a lot of hate.

According to a survey from AAPI DATA, since the beginning of the pandemic, it's estimated that an upwards of 2 million Asian-Americans or Pacific Islanders have experienced some form of hate.

Whether that's a hate crime, harassment, or discrimination because of their race.

So, what's going on?

Why the intense increase in hate against Asian Americans?

Well, it appears many people are blaming this community for the Coronavirus.

And I'm sure Trump continually calling it the 'China Virus' or the 'Kung Flu' didn't help matters.

And this hate has translated into crime too.

Even though overall hate crimes fell in 2020, anti-Asian hate crimes grew nearly 150% in major us cities.

And what's even worse, is this is probably a huge underestimate, because many folks don't report to police what happened to them.

Only 30% of Asian-Americans and 36% of Pacific Islanders feel very comfortable reporting hate crimes to police.

They are the least likely racial group to report such incidents.

And when they do report these crimes, they rarely get classified as a hate crime.

(whoosh sound) So today we're asking, "Why is it so hard to get racist violence charged as hate crimes?".

(scratched vinyl disc sound) First things first, legally speaking, what exactly is a hate crime?

Well, like these instructions for Ikea furniture, it's a little complicated.

You got federal laws and then you got state laws, and then you got some states like Wyoming, Arkansas and South Carolina, that don't even have hate crime laws to begin with.

But generally speaking, a hate crime is a crime motivated by the perpetrator's hatred for an entire group of people.

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the first Federal Hate Crime Statute, making it a crime to use or threaten to use force to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin.

In 1988 protections on the basis of familial status and disability were added.

In 2009, Congress added new federal protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

And I mean, it's a pretty big deal to get something classified as a hate crime, because it's got more severe penalties compared to non-hate crimes.

So, basically there's two things that need to be met in order for something to be considered a hate crime.

First off, a crime has to have been committed.

Examples include: assault, vandalism, harassment, battery, so forth.

And then the other big factor in determining if something is a hate crime, is whether you can prove that the victim was targeted because of their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or their gender identity.

Now, some crimes are easier to prove that they were motivated by a bias against a group, like painting a Swastika on someone's car or their house or something like that.

But if you have just like a one-off instance of someone of like, let's say Asian descent getting assaulted without the assailant blatantly saying something racist to them.

Then it's harder to prove that that crime was racially motivated.

You know, we can't read a criminal's mind when they're trying to find a motive.

You know what I mean?

It's not like they're just going to yell out, "Hey, I just committed a hate crime".

And you know, that makes prosecutors hesitant to bring forward such charges.

(whoosh sound) So given all of these challenges around hate crime convictions, what should we do about seeking justice for Asian-American communities?

I reached out to the Youth Activists of Alameda to get their perspective on the issue.

Now they started organizing last year after George Floyd's murder.

And have since continued to speak out about social injustices like Asian hate in their communities, in order to raise awareness and bring about change.

- We are a very diverse group.

So a lot of the hate crimes that are happening around us, whether it be Asian hate or Black Lives Matter, it really touches home for a lot of us.

It's a lot of our family members are dealing with these problems all across the country.

My grandmother who lives in Southern California, often faces these like, Asian hate problems.

- This could happen to like my grandparents or my moms.

So like, I live with this mentality that I can't leave them alone.

Or if they get out of my sight it like, my brain goes crazy thinking about where are they and like what's going on?

- [Myles Bess] So I started wondering what President Biden and other politicians were doing to deal with all of this.

After the incident in the Atlanta area when a white gunman fatally shot eight people, including six Asian women, I started seeing some effort.

Here's some of the stuff The White House rolled out.

A task force to end xenophobia against Asian-Americans.

An initiative to focus on anti-Asian violence and bias.

Plus Senator Mazie Hirono and U.S. representative Grace Meng stepped up and got the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act passed.

Now this bill improves the hate crimes reporting, and makes sure that this info is more accessible to AAPI communities.

And that's a huge step towards making it easier to prosecute hate crimes on a federal and state level.

- It's so important that we get the statistics, so that we can actually create change in our communities.

And then also it's important in discouraging these crimes.

If people know that they can do it and get away with it like it's any other crime, they're going to continue to do it.

- But we all know that the government can only do so much to make real change.

And I wonder how effective classifying something as a hate crime.

Is that actually preventing them from happening in the first place?

So, there's also more on the ground efforts on a local level in many communities but I've been seeing a lot of heated debates about what's the best way to stop the violence.

Some folks are calling for more police as a way to keep folks safe, but in the wake of the national reckoning last summer with systemic police brutality and the disproportionate harm it causes black and brown communities, who often share space with Asian American folks.

More police presence can lead to unintended consequences for other communities of color.

- I think people of color have been so taught to be fearful of the police.

And taught to not call the police even when they're in trouble and not to deal with them.

That these hate crimes are not being reported adequately and not being talked about well enough.

And people are taught to undermine what actually happened to them.

- So by increasing policing, what are you doing?

You're increasing the fear of the people in the neighborhood, the neighborhood that you swore to protect.

I think to combat that, it's to have alternative options to the police.

Instead of taking that money and you know putting more police there, reallocate that money and put into resources where people don't have to fear calling a number because they're scared that the person that they're calling for or themselves, they're going to die.

- Community organizers have been providing resources constantly since these attacks started.

Check out a description below for links.

And one important thing folks can do if they don't feel comfortable calling the police, is to use the stop AAPI Hate database, where you can go online and report hate incidents.

Now tracking these incidents is super important, but only goes so far.

Now this all got me thinking, that in order to prevent these types of hate crimes, I really think we as a society need to learn about communities that are different from our own.

I mean, learning about their culture, learning about their histories, and you know if there's any discriminatory laws that they faced in this country.

And I mean, I've said this in a previous episode before about racism in schools.

Research shows, that teaching Ethnic Studies in schools can lead to more racial empathy and understanding.

Now all this sounds good, but we're still working our way towards justice and holding folks responsible for the harm that they commit to others based on you know, who they are and how they identify.

And while we won't solve these issues overnight I'll leave you with these powerful words from one of the Alameda Youth Activists.

- It's going to be when our communities are finally not being killed, and our communities feel safe where they live, and they don't go outside fearing that this time outside might be the last time they're outside; that's when justice is going to occur.

It's going to occur when the systems that are in place that have held, held this nation in a racial stronghold for so long, are finally going to be destroyed.

They're not going to be here anymore.

And the people around us are going to feel safe.

- But what do y'all think?

Should it be easier to designate racist violence as hate crimes?

Again, a special shout out to the PBS News Hour Student Reporting Labs, students at Cleveland Heights High School who inspired this episode.

I very much appreciate it.

Thank y'all so much.

As always, I'm your host Myles Bess.

Til next time, peace out.