NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The New York Mets have issued a statement, denouncing anti-Asian violence in the wake of the series of shootings that killed eight people, including six women of of Asian descent, at three Atlanta-area massage businesses.
"We are proud that our home in Flushing is also the home to more Asian and Pacific Islander New Yorkers than any neighborhood in the City," the team said Friday. "We are raising our voices alongside our colleagues and neighbors in the Tri-State area to say that anti-Asian violence is intolerable and repugnant. We have offered our help to our local leaders to assist them to put an end to this prejudice and hate. What makes New York New York is the respect we all have for each other, no matter who we are or where we're from. We have no room or time for hate in New York."
The Mets ended their statement with the hashtag #StopAsianHate, which has become a rallying cry across the nation and was a top trending topic on Twitter hours after the shootings Tuesday evening.
Anti-Asian hate crimes in New York City, and across the country, soared last year due to pandemic-fueled racist attacks.
Outrage has been growing as the troubling trend continues.
New York State Sen. John Liu said the stares and slurs are common, telling WCBS 880's Peter Haskell that he sees and hears them every day.
"I felt this my whole life. What do I have to do to show people that I'm American like everybody else?" Liu said. He wants leaders to be more vocal in taking a stand against hate.
"What really needs to happen is for high level officials to recognize that there is an Asian American community," Liu said.
The Asian American Federation has counted 700 bias incidents in the city this past year and Deputy Director Joo Han said she knows the number is higher.
"Because most people don't report due to language barriers because they don't want to interact with law enforcement," Han said, adding that the city needs to do more to address the bias incidents.
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The 21-year-old suspect in the Georgia shootings has not been charged with hate crimes. Authorities said the suspect told them the attack was not racially motivated and claimed that he targeted the spas because of a sex addiction.
This week, mayoral candidate Andrew Yang said he's been bullied all his life, but that Asian prejudice 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. “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.”
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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The Reverend Al Sharpton also called on Black churches to include the Atlanta-area shootings in their Sunday sermons, asking parishioners to stamp out hate wherever they see it.
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the rise in anti-Asian violence Thursday, New York Congresswoman Meng slammed Republicans for supporting former President Donald Trump, who often referred to coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus.”
“Your president and your party and your colleagues can talk about issues with any other country that you want but, you don't have to do it by putting a bullseye on the back of Asian Americans across this country – on our grandparents, on our kids,” Meng said.
Meng told WCBS 880 it is crucial that the country address the rise in hate against Asian Americans.
The Associated Press reports President Joe Biden has expressed support for the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, a bill that would strengthen the government's reporting and response to hate crimes and provide resources to Asian American communities.
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