30 March 2021
Data: Survey Monkey and AAPI Data; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios
One in four Asian Americans have experienced a hate incident while more than two-thirds have been asked "where they're really from," a poll from Survey Monkey and AAPI Data published Tuesday has found.
The big picture: Data about hate crimes is often incomplete, but the Atlanta spa killings of eight people, six of whom were Asian, has provided an intense focus on the issue.
- The poll asked English-speaking adults to ask if they ever had been a victim of a hate crime, verbally or physically abused or experienced property damage specifically because of race or ethnicity.
- Respondents were asked if that happened before the pandemic, last year or this year.
"It seems like there is something about 2021, where Black folks, Latinos and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, there’s not a statistically significant difference when it comes to experiencing hate experiences. But it’s not to say that we’re all experiencing racism the same way."
AAPI director Karthick Ramakrishnan
Of note: The myth of the "perpetual foreigner" remains as strong for Asian American and Pacific Islanders as it has for Latinos, with 64%of Asian Americans encountering questions that assumed they were not American.
- People were also highly likely to ask whethere they spoke English (45%) or to "Americanize" their names (20%).
- In contrast, Black respondents were more likely to report that people acted if they were afraid of them (45%) or if they thought they were being dishonest (47%).
For the record: So far this year, 10 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islanders report experiencing hate incidents, compared to six percent of Americans overall.
- 27% of Asian Americans and 24% of Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders have ever been a victim of a hate crime, higher than the national average of 22%
- 12% of Asian Americans and 10% of Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders experienced a hate crime or hate incident in 2020 (national average 8%)
Yes, but: The survey was conducted in English, which researchers noted not just “biases the sample” towards U.S. born and dominant English-speakers, when a majority of the sample reported speaking a language other than English in their homes, but also then likely means the overall incidents are likely to be higher.
The bottom line: "What I find important about this survey is it shows racism affects all of us, but it affects different communities in different ways, and you have to be attentive to all of it," Ramakrishnan, who also teaches public policy at University of California Riverside, said.
Methodology: SurveyMonkey conducted the poll online from March 18-26, with 16,336 adult U.S. residents. The margin of error is +/- 1.5 percentage points for the full sample and +/- 3.5 percentage points for the Asian American or Pacific Islander subgroup.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.