Fiscal Note
No fiscal impact.
Title
Condemning anti-Asian hate and affirming commitment to Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander residents.
Body
WHEREAS, during the COVID-19 pandemic Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) have been the targets of xenophobic and racist attacks and harassment, including physical and verbal attacks, due to systemic racism, misogyny, and hateful rhetoric; and
WHEREAS, on Tuesday March 16, 2021, a white man murdered eight people in Georgia, including six women of Asian descent; and
WHEREAS, the United States has a long history of scapegoating Asians and Asian Americans for the spread of illness, spurred on by a pernicious and violent "perpetual foreigner" stereotype that is still circulated in the US today; and
WHEREAS, Asian and Asian American women and femmes have long been targets of misogynist and racist stereotypes and violence in the United States; and
WHEREAS, Stop AAPI Hate has received 3,795 reports of hate-related incidents between March 19, 2020 and February 28, 2021 alone, more than two-thirds of which were submitted by women, and issued a statement in the wake of the shootings in Georgia calling for concrete action to protect Asian Americans; and
WHEREAS, in only 18 weeks between March and July of 2020, Stop AAPI Hate received 341 reports of anti-Asian discrimination directed at Asian American and Pacific Islander youth nationwide, including harassment at school and online, shunning, and physical assaults; and
WHEREAS, the Pew Research Center found that since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, 31% of Asian Americans reported experiencing slurs or jokes about their ethnicity, 26% express the fear that someone could physically attack them, and that 38% of Americans overall and 58% of Asian Americans believe that it is now more common for people to express racist or culturally insensitive views about Asian Americans than before the pandemic; and
WHEREAS, in an April 2020 poll, the Cent...
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