Feel Good Friday - Stop AAPI Hate

May is Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month so in today’s Feel Good Friday we’re going to highlight an organization that’s been addressing anti-Asian hate amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Stop AAPI Hate. 

Stop AAPI Hate was launched on March 19, 2020 in response to the escalation of xenophobia and bigotry resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The center “tracks and responds to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.” 

 

It’s founding members represent three organizations: Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University. They came together to track incidents of anti-Asian racism after the Attorney General’s office in California denied their request to track these incidents. Read more about the origins of Stop AAPI Hate in this NBS News article.

 

In their work, they acknowledge that “in order to effectively address anti-Asian racism we must work to end all forms of structural racism leveled at Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color.” They do this by focusing their efforts to:

• Serve as the leading aggregator of anti-Asian and anti-Pacific Islander hate incidents
• Offer multilingual resources for impacted community members
• Provide technical assistance from rapid response to preventative measures
• Support community-based safety measures and restorative justice efforts
• Advocate for local, state, and national policies that reinforces human rights and civil rights protections

 

In the period from March 19, 2020 to March 31, 2021, Stop AAPI Hate recorded 6,603 incidents of verbal harassment, physical assault, civil rights violations (such as workplace discrimination) and online harassment. Read the full report here. 

 

Stop AAPI Hate uses data gathered from incident reporting on their website to identify patterns and sources of anti-Asian racism. This helps them offer practical solutions and policy recommendations to government agencies and community-based organizations that request their assistance. They also educate corporations, schools, and community groups about anti-Asian racism and how we can collectively address it.

There are safety tips and resources (in 13 languages) for people experiencing or witnessing hate here and you can report an incident at this link. If you’d like to learn more about the Stop AAPI Hate coalition and how to address root causes of racism and xenophobia, you can register for a FREE virtual event coming up on May 11^th. Finally, to support the work of Stop AAPI Hate you can make a donation and amplify their message by liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @StopAAPIHate. #stopaapihate