Asian American community rallies online to address hate crimes and violent attacks
More than 3,000 people gathered on the Clubhouse app for four hours Saturday Feb. 6, to listen to Asian American leaders discuss ways to stop acts of violence and discrimination against the community. The event kicked off national media awareness. I wrote this after the online rally ended, but waited to publish because the rules around journalists reporting on Clubhouses are murky and I wanted to make sure everyone I wrote about was aware I was doing it.
Journalist Lisa Ling, Hollywood heavyweights Daniel Dae Kim and Daniel Wu, and Asian American news outlet NextShark founder Benny Luo hosted the conversation following a series of vicious attacks against elderly Asians in recent weeks — a cruel trend that is not new.
On Friday, an unidentified assailant slashed 61-year-old Noel Quintana’s face across both cheeks with a box cutter during a rush-hour argument on the subway in New York.
On Thursday, an unidentified attacker in Oakland, California pushed a 91-year-old man to the curb of a sidewalk and victimized two other people, a 55-year-old woman and 60-year-old man, the same day.
Last week in San Francisco, a nearly blind 84-year-old grandfather, Vicha Ratanapakdee, died from injuries he suffered two days prior when a 19-year-old…