Fox Business reporter Susan Li on Friday detailed her own personal experiences with racism while responding to the surge in anti-Asian attacks over the past year, arguing that “someone needs to stand up for us.”
Li, who was born in China and raised in Canada from the age of two, told Fox News host Charles Payne during a segment on “Your World,” that it has been a “really tough week for the Asian-American community,” following Tuesday’s shooting spree in Atlanta, in which eight people were killed, including six women of Asian descent.
Li said that while “the motives are still playing out,” the facts surrounding the attacks are clear.
“In journalism, we deal with facts,” she explained. “And the fact is that six out of the eight victims were Asian women.
“It’s a fact that anti-Asian violence has surged 150 percent over the past year, according to one California study,” she added, referring to a recent analysis of police data by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
Li went on to say, “it’s a fact that the Asian community is now fearful after these shootings, regardless of motive, and that will play out later on.”
“It’s this long-simmering fear that’s been percolating throughout the community over the past year,” she continued, adding that there have been multiple instances when she and her relatives have walked around in public and others passing by “shouted ‘virus’ at them, or some other derogatory terms which I don’t think I want to share on television.”
“It’s just something that needs to stop. Someone needs to stand up for us,” Li added. “Hopefully, there’s something coming from the White House and also some maybe something from Congress in denouncements and heightened policing would be great.”
The reporter said that while anti-Asian attacks have spiked in the past year, racist sentiments against the Asian community is not something new for the U.S.
“It’s been there for a long time because even growing up as somebody in North America, as one that’s been here since I was two years old, you know, you’ve been called names in the playground,” Li said. “For some reason, just over the past year, you’ve just heard this replay of things that you thought and hoped for were in the past.
“But maybe it’s because of what happened to the economy,” she continued. “People have lost their jobs. Obviously, COVID has been horrendous for everybody over the past 12 months.”
Li explained that the Asian-American community is now “standing up for ourselves, finally,” adding that “the Asians have been called the model minority, so we’ve been silent.”
“We’ve been taught to not cause problems,” she argued. “But I like the fact that it’s been galvanized and that we’re all getting together and we’re all standing as one hoping for a voice to say, please stop.
“We’re all in this together,” she concluded. “We’re all Americans as well, and we all want to be part of this community.”
The attacks in Atlanta have prompted increased conversations on anti-Asian discrimination in the country, with the White House and others arguing that the rise in attacks have been fueled by former President Trump’s rhetoric surrounding COVID-19, which he repeatedly called the “China virus” and “Wuhan virus.”