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Mar 10, 2021: Hate Crimes Target Asian-Americans


Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Hate crimes were down overall last year across America, with a glaring exception. Asian-Americans were increasingly targeted for violence and abuse.

Meanwhile, a new study puts sobering numbers on a global problem: violence against women. There are new calls for men to step up and end it.

And lastly, Harry and Meghan’s big interview with Oprah could hasten the unraveling of the British Commonwealth. Don’t say they never did anything meaningful!

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Hate has festered across America. NBC News reports that an analysis of police department statistics has revealed that the United States experienced a significant hike in anti-Asian hate crimes last year across major cities. The analysis was released by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, this month. It examined hate crimes in sixteen of America’s largest cities. It revealed that while such crimes in 2020 decreased overall by seven percent, those targeting Asian people rose by nearly one hundred and fifty percent. Experts said Donald Trump’s incendiary, racist rhetoric about the coronavirus played a role, but they also noted the problem is complex.

According to NBC, the analysis revealed a surge in cities such as New York, where anti-Asian hate crimes rose from three in 2019 to twenty eight in 2020. Los Angeles and Boston also experienced notable rises, from seven to fifteen and six to fourteen, respectively. According to the analysis, it's likely that overall hate crimes declined due to the pandemic and a subsequent lack of interaction in public areas and other gathering places. The first spike in anti-Asian hate crimes occurred in March and April last year. However, it occurred alongside a rise in Covid-19 cases and ongoing negative associations of Asian Americans with the virus.

NBC notes that the new report compares figures from 2019 and 2020, which does not include recent graphic attacks on Asian American elders earlier this year that have prompted significant media coverage in recent weeks. The longer this trend continues, the less blame can be heaped exclusively on Trump and his hateful legacy.

One-Third Of Women Suffer Violence

The numbers are horrifying. One in four women and girls around the world have been physically or sexually assaulted by a husband or male partner, the Guardian reports. The statistics come from the largest study yet of the prevalence of violence against women. The report, conducted by the World Health Organization and UN partners, found that domestic violence started young, with a quarter of fifteen- to nineteen-year-old women estimated to have been abused at least once in their lives. The highest rates were found to be among thirty- to thirty nine-year-olds. When figures for non-partner violence are included, the WHO estimates that about a third of women aged fifteen or older – up to eight hundred and fifty two million in total – will experience some form of sexual or physical violence in their lifetime. The WHO report focused on physical and sexual violence, but noted that actual rates would be far higher if other types of abuse were included, such as online violence and sexual harassment.

Levels of violence were higher in low- and middle-income countries, the Guardian reports. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa had some of the highest rates of intimate partner violence. The lowest rates of violence were found in southern and eastern Europe and central and eastern Asia. Doctor Claudia García-Moreno, who leads the WHO’s work on violence against women, said the figures should be a wake-up call to governments about the urgency of the situation. She said QUOTE There’s an urgent need to reduce stigma around this issue, train health professionals to interview survivors with compassion, and dismantle the foundations of gender inequality ENDQUOTE. Fundamentally, she said, violence against women had to be treated as a societal problem, with men and boys involved in tackling it. That’s a polite way of putting it. It’s all men’s fault!

Commonwealth Sours On Monarchy

The sun may finally set on what’s left of the British Empire, per this story from the Washington Post. On Monday, former British colonies from Antigua to Zambia observed Commonwealth Day, an occasion traditionally marked by addresses from the British royal family. But this year’s celebration was overshadowed by Oprah Winfrey’s explosive interview with Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, which unfurled new allegations of racism against members of the royal family. The tell-all has ignited fresh debates about abolishing the monarchy in some of the fifty four nations that make up the commonwealth. Calls to remove the vestiges of a colonial past have gained momentum over the past year, fueled by protests against racism and oppression worldwide. Now some politicians have been forced to address whether it still makes sense to retain Queen Elizabeth II as a figurehead.

Some of the loudest calls to sever ties with the monarchy have come from Australia, the Post reports. Members of Australia’s Labor Party have expressed hopes that the explosive interview will reignite the decades-old movement to make Australia a republic. Even before the interview aired, former British colonies in the Caribbean were growing increasingly queasy about their lingering ties to a nation that built its wealth through the slave trade. In September, Barbados announced plans to remove Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. Meanwhile, support for a break with the monarchy is growing in Canada, where a February poll found record levels of support for removing the queen as head of state. But achieving that goal would be a challenge, since all ten provincial legislatures would need to get on board. Similarly, a symbolic split with the monarchy seems unlikely to occur in New Zealand anytime soon. When will the royals get real jobs?

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The House is poised to approve a sweeping $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill today and send it to President Joe Biden to sign, according to the Washington Post. Final passage comes ahead of a prime-time speech Biden is planning for Thursday to mark the one-year anniversary of the nation plunging into widespread shutdowns. So, not a happy anniversary.

The arduous task of seating a jury in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death, began in earnest yesterday, the Post reports. Both sides agreed to dismiss sixteen of the first fifty jurors they reviewed for cause based on their answers to a sixteen-page questionnaire. No reasons were given. Maybe they expressed an opinion about the police.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson yesterday signed into law legislation banning nearly all abortions in the state, a sweeping measure that supporters hope will force the US Supreme Court to revisit its landmark Roe versus Wade decision, the Associated Press reports. Abortion rights supporters said they plan to challenge the ban in court. Arkansas is one of at least fourteen states where legislators have proposed outright abortion bans this year. Yipes.

The House Democrats’ campaign arm is officially ending its controversial ban on political consultants who work with candidates challenging sitting Democratic incumbents in primaries, Politico reports. New York Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the newly installed chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, officially reversed the policy yesterday morning. Fellow New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said QUOTE It's an enormous win ENDQUOTE. Hear hear. May the next class of Democrats be more progressive than the last.

MAR 10, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn


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 March 10, 2021  8m