Listening To The News

There is racism involved regularly

There is an abundance of crime stories

The television and printed media news report horror stories everyday about cases and victims of crimes. Many of these are related to police shootings. You would have thought that these incidents would become more rare after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis almost a year ago. The shootings and deaths continue.

The news can be a bit depressing when you see that racism is on the rise in some areas. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began over a year ago and Donald Trump kept referring to China and Asia in relation to the pandemic, people in the United States of Asian descent became regular targets of racist rants and hate crimes. Now some people are afraid to go out because of it.

The racism against people of Asian backgrounds started to be so bad that Representative Grace Meng of New York brought a resolution to the U.S. House of Representatives in September of 2020 to condemn the racist acts being committed against Asian Americans.

Although Speaker Pelosi stated that the simple resolution should have passed unanimously, Republicans would not support it. Seemingly because they were afraid to go against Trump in any way, all but ten Republicans voted against condemning racism toward Asian people.

Then matters became worse as hate crimes and racist rants escalated toward Asian Americans. There were injuries and even deaths which occurred mostly to older people of Asian heritage. They were acts of violence committed because Asian Americans were blamed for bringing COVID to the United States. The perpetrators had listened to and followed Trump.

The racism against Black people has not eased as the news regularly reports shootings and deaths of mostly young, Black men.

It will be a good day if and when there are not so many news stories about racism and violence. Life should not include so much hate.