'Hate has no place in British Columbia,' says premier on rise in anti-Asian crimes

Sayinghe was angryafter hearing about recent incidents of hate crimes directed against peopleof Asian descent,Premier John Horgan implored British Columbians to stand together against racism on Wednesday.

"Hate has no place in British Columbia. Period," the premier stated during a news conference to announce the province's next moves in the pandemic.

"If we're going to get through this, we have to stop finger pointing. Put our differences aside and work together to get it done."

The Vancouver Police Department said 20anti-Asian hate crimes have been reported to police so far this year. In comparison, there were 12 anti-Asian hate crimes reported in all of 2019.

Some of the incidents include offensive graffiti on the Chinese Cultural Centre, a verbal and physical assault on an elderly man in a convenience storeand another assault on an Asian woman on Granville Street.

Doris, a longtime volunteer in Vancouver's Chinatown whose last name CBC has withheld, says she's experienced four or five racist incidents since January.

In one case,she was walking with a friend and a passerby directed racial slurs and derogatory remarks at them.

"It was very obvious that it was directed at us, and very obvious that it was because we were Asian," she said.

Watch Premier John Horgan's comments on racism:

Premier Horgan says he's angry about rise in anti-Asian crime

4 years ago

Duration 0:32

'COVID-19 does not discriminate. British Columbians shouldn't discriminate either,' says B.C. Premier John Horgan.

A different way to report

But Doris says reporting these incidents can be tough.

"Technically nothing criminal happened. Uttering racial slurs isn't criminal. So do we call the VPD around this?" she said.

Nevertheless, these incidentshave a serious impact on people and Doris wanted a way todocument this behaviour. So, helped bya friend, she startedan online data collection form.

TheCOVID-19 Racism Incident Report Formis available in multiple languages and isanonymous, although people can submit their name or contact information if desired.

Dorissays they've received 80 responses since launching the form on April 22.

The majority of the reports are fromwomen who have been verbally harassed or coughed at in public spaces like the grocery store or transit.

Doris acknowledges there's no way of verifying whether each incident took place as reported since the reporting is anonymous but says it's an important outlet for people.

"Culturally in the Asian community, [being targeted in racist incidents] arevery hidden and not spoken about because there's a lot of shame and feelings of not wanting to be a nuisance," she said.

"We want to give a clearer picture of what's going on and those kinds of experiences."

Historical context

Henry Yu, a professorof history at the University of British Columbia, says he isn't surprised by the rise in hate crimes against people of Asian descent in B.C.

Yu notes the long history of racist legislation against non-whites in the province, starting from confederation.

"Even though we took away the legal support for that by the 1960s ... still there's a lot of political rhetoric and an access to that kind of blaming when things go wrong."

Yu says its importantto take these incidents of racist violence seriously and not dismiss it as though racism isa thing of the past.

He says combatingtheseracist incidents is comparableto our fight against COVID-19.

"There are very few people that may have COVID-19, but it's how the rest of us respond that really will contain it and keep it suppressed and make that statement that this is not who we are."

If you have a COVID-19-related story we should pursue that affects British Columbians, please email us atimpact@cbc.ca