Anti-Asian sentiment has emerged again during the pandemic.The Centre for the Study of Hate and Extremism, a think-tank, found that whereas, overall, hate crimes dropped by 7% from 2019 to 2020,those against people of Asian descent rose by nearly 150%.Similarly, the Pew Research Centre, a pollster, reported in June 2020 thatroughly two-fifths of Americans said that people expressed racist views about Asians more often than before the pandemic.Many fault Donald Trump for emboldening people to act upon their prejudices.Perpetrators often target Asian women.Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition of Asian advocacy groups, received 3,795 reports of anti-Asian incidents between March 2020 and February 2021-most of them from women.The incidents ranged from verbal harassment to being spat upon,a particularly vile act during a pandemic caused by a virus that spreads through respiratory droplets.The report contends that these are “only a fraction” of the incidents that have actually occurred.On the afternoon of March 17th police officers said that the alleged shooter― Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old charged with eight counts of murder and one of aggravated assault―
