The COVID-19 pandemic, which was said to originate from Wuhan, China escalated the discrimination and outrage against Asians, mostly to the Chinese community. And even Filipinos and other Asian natives are not spared from the nightmare.

Imagine being in a foreign country, walking home from work, just minding your own business. Then from out of nowhere someone began hurling racial slurs and brandish a weapon ready to slay. All because they thought you are not their color, living in their land, and worse, an emissary of the COVID-19 virus. That’s because you are an Asian. This horrific scene is unimaginable until it happens to the people we love or until we stand witness to the unfolding crime.

Racial discrimination is a long-known social problem that dates back to ancient times. Yet even modern civilization cannot detach the labeling and claim over supremacy. And only recently, we witnessed even more aggression among our Asian brothers and Filipino countrymen overseas.  The hatred of race and color was once again highlighted prompting intense violence to the point of butchery.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which was said to originate from Wuhan, China escalated the discrimination and outrage against Asians, mostly to the Chinese community. And even Filipinos and other Asian natives are not spared from the nightmare. We are stereotyped and linked to the disease and subjected to some inhumane treatment and verbal abuses.

The racial disparity does not anymore center around the white and black. The incomprehensible violence is widespread, breeding anti-Asian hate. It happens everywhere around the globe sprouting microaggressions and stereotyping. We do hear more incidents of violent crimes that some Filipinos suffered from the stigma that arose around the agenda of the pandemic.

According to the Stop AAPI Hate organization, the verbal harassment against Asian and Pacific Islanders rose to about 65 percent from March 2020 to 2021. Most of them are women and the statistics recorded about eight deaths already. Yet unlike the BlackLivesMatter movement, our battle for fairness goes unheard of. We do not hear loud calls for racial justice against Asian abuse since mainstream media and newspapers failed to pick up and emphasized its significance on Asian minorities.

If we remember, the BlackLivesMatter is a movement that started in 2013 that gained attention once again in 2020. The death of George Floyd literally on the knees of a Minneapolis police officer sparked nationwide outrage and call for protest in the United States. A few months thereafter, a similar incident happened to Angelo Quinto in California. He was an Asian-American of Filipino descent. Quinto died in the same manner as Floyd but aside from broadcasting it as a piece of news, it never gained much attention.

Could it be because we are just soft people who do not anymore want to stir anymore ripple of hatred? Or could it be because we are just some racial minorities standing somewhere between the battle of white supremacy and black lives inferiority?

Interestingly, violence and discrimination do not happen on American soil and in foreign countries. We have the same kind of hostility happening in our very own country. The offenses have nothing to do with colors but is one way or another related to the spreading virus.

We direct the same hatred to our nurses, doctors, and medical professionals who are bowed to fate in the frontline. We avoided and showed prejudice to those who fall victims of the disease and their families.

With our effort to save ourselves and our family, some of us have regrettably crossed the threshold of kindness and compassion.

Gladly, the awareness of the global pandemic awakened the profound kindness of the Filipinos towards our frontliners. Somehow, we began to show them the respect that they deserve as our modern-day heroes.

But regardless of race and color, the discrimination against the poor perpetuated by people in power continues to go unnoticed.

Discrimination is as widespread and as harmful to human lives as the COVID-19 pandemic. But this is the kind of social disease that only humanity itself can cure. We do not have immunity vaccines for stupidity but maybe we still have rooms for inculcating compassion in this cruel and prejudicial society./WDJ