Photo by Adam Chau
The House passed the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act Tuesday, a bill that aims to stop the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, CNBC reports.
The Senate approved the bill last month, and this afternoon the House passed the bill in a 364-62 vote. It now awaits President Joe Biden’s signature.
The bill would instruct the Department of Justice to designate an administrator to expedite the review of hate crimes related to COVID-19, NPR reports. It would also ease the reporting process at the state and local-level by providing online reporting resources in different languages.
John C. Yang, AAJC’s president and executive director, said the bill was a step in the right direcion.
“The passage of this bill today begins a much-needed step forward in prioritizing language access and culturally competent outreach to our communities in reporting and addressing anti-Asian hate, while also giving the communities power to allocate resources for community solutions to hate and discrimination, including non-law enforcement support services for victims and communities,” he said according to a press release. “This step forward also improves hate crimes reporting and data collection infrastructure to keep government agencies and law enforcement accountable to our communities’ needs.”
Wade Henderson, interim president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, applauded the bill but also added more needed to be done to confront white supremacy. He said legislators should oppose policies that attempt to further criminalize Black and Brown communities.
“While passage of this bill is an important victory, more must be done to prevent and investigate white nationalist violence,” Henderson said in a press release. “Congress must hold white supremacists accountable for their actions, pass the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act to ensure accurate hate crime reporting, and oppose the creation of any new charge that would criminalize Black and Brown communities targeted for hate by violent white nationalists.”
Nearly 85 Asian American groups opposed the bill, expressing concerns similar to Henderson’s, NBC Asian America reports. They argued the bill ignores police violence against Black and Brown communities and fails to address the root causes of anti-Asian racism.
“What we’re trying to do is we’re calling for a redistribution of wealth and resources into things like health care, and housing, social services, because we know that’s at the root of the violence that we see in our communities, is due to inequality,” Jason Wu, co-chair of the GAPIMNY-Empowering Queer & Trans Asian Pacific Islanders, which helped spearhead the statement, told NBC Asian America.
Wu also noted that the bill does not provide resources for communities that have been affected by anti-Asian racism. Many victims of anti-Asian violence have resorted to crowd funding to pay for medical bills. Asian American small businesses have struggled to obtain government assistance.
“Hate crimes, prosecution and incarceration of the attacker does nothing to address those needs,” Wu told NBC Asian America. “It also doesn’t address the reality that, at least in New York City, many of the attacks involve people who do have mental health issues, who are poor, potentially homeless … we have to address inequality in our society.”
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