NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang on Wednesday called for more actions to be taken to address the recent surge in attacks on Asian Americans.
The mayoral candidate, of Taiwanese descent, spoke with reporters in Times Square to express his condolences to the families of the Georgia massage parlor shooting victims.
“These women did not deserve to be targeted like this and have their lives taken away,” Yang said.
While the shooting is currently not being investigated as a hate crime, multiple Asian women were killed in the attack and the NYPD has increased its presence in Asian communities as a precaution.
Yang notes it was just the latest in a string of attacks against the Asian community and pointed to other recent assaults in which a restaurant worker in New York City was punched in the face and a woman was doused with acid.
“Some of these incidents were not treated as hate crimes and that’s not acceptable,” the mayoral candidate said. “The people in the Asian American community know that we are being targeted and we need our leaders to step up and recognize the same.”
Yang notes that as a minority in America, he has grown accustomed to a certain level of bullying, but says these attacks are going too far.
“That has metastasized into something far darker, you can feel it on the streets of New York,” he said, noting that many Asians no longer feel safe.
“So many Asian Americans here in New York do not feel like they can communicate with the police, they cannot communicate with city officials. I can guarantee that the 900% documented surge in anti-Asian violence is missing many, many incidents that we will never hear about,” Yang said.
As mayor, Yang says he'd fully fund the NYPD's Asian Hate Crimes Task Force and hopes that other politicians will step up to defend the Asian community against attacks.
“We have to come together and say that this cannot be allowed to continue,” he said. “In New York, in this country, anti-Asian racism is deadly, it's real, it is going stronger and more powerful.”
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