About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

17 J. Hate Stud. 1 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/jnlhtst17 and id is 1 raw text is: JOURNAL OF Silvestri, L. (2021). Editorial Introduction. Journal of Hate HATE STUDIES Studies, 17(1), 1-3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33972/jhs.213 EDITORIAL Editorial Introduction Lisa Silvestri Gonzaga University, US silvestri@gonzaga.edu For the past fifteen years I have written almost exclusively about American warfare in some capacity. As a Communication Studies scholar, my interest in war stems from its exemplary failure. War is communication through force; it is a last resort. As I continue to think, write, and reflect on the subject, I recognize that at the heart of my fascination with war is its induce- ment. How do we arrive at a warlike mind? On top of that, knowing what we know about war's horror and trauma, why do we keep doing it? I'm not sure I will ever arrive at a satisfying answer to the latter question but speaking with colleagues in the field of hate studies is helping me understand the first. A historical survey of the zeitgeists surrounding America's most prominent wars highlights the conspicuous role of hatred. Hate is a response to a perceived threat and is linked to feelings of fear and a loss of control. Thus, war might be conceived of as an international expression of hate. At the time of my invitation to guest edit this issue, and even now as I pen this introduction, hate abounds. In 2020, the festering wound of American racism bubbled to the surface, demanding our attention. Even before the start of the COVID- 19 Pandemic, the run-up to the presidential election began agitating our nation's deepest wound. Conversations about statues, public memorials and how to accurately remember our past led some white Americans to mistakenly believe they were under threat. Then as the first cases of COVID-19 landed on American soil, Asian Americans became emotional punch- ing bags for a nation overcome with fear and grief. In my home state of Washington, a 41-year-old white man named Sean Jeremy Holdip attacked a Japanese language teacher, Noriko Nasu, as she was walking to her car in Seattle's Chinatown. Holdip knocked her out, fractured her nose and cheek, leaving her with a concussion and broken teeth. In a press interview following the attack, Nasu said the most painful outcome was the fact that the courts did not consider Holdip's assault a hate crime (Woods, 2021). Definitions of hate crimes vary from place to place, and methods of reporting and documentation are not always straightforward. Seattle police, for example, count hate and bias together. This includes hate crimes, other crimes where bias played a role, as well as noncriminal bias incidents. Barriers to reporting and inconsistencies in prosecuting at state and local levels make it difficult to obtain meaningful national data. It could take years for the empirical evidence needed to prove the pandemic's relationship to a nationwide increase in attacks on Asian Americans. Still, it's hard to deny the lived experiences among Asian Americans this past year, which have included blatant and subtle microaggressions, social and economic exclusion, racism, and fear-based backlash. Some Asian Americans have reported that simply sneezing or coughing in public can trigger harassment and violence (Bosman, Stockman, & Fuller, 2020). The United States has a long history of linking disease to ethnicity and race (Lee, 2019). Public fear surrounding epidemics and pandemics exacerbates this tendency. COVID-19 was not the first time the US encountered the spread of misinformation that leads to scapegoating and discrimination. For example, Americans have previously blamed Italians for Tuberculosis, Irish for Typhus, Africans for Ebola, Latinx Americans for H1N1, and Chinese for SARS. The propensity to demonize others in response to public health crises led the World Health Organization to issue guidance for naming novel human infectious diseases in 2015 recommending that they do not include geographic locations or reference to culture. In 2020, despite such cautions from the World Health Organization, the Trump administration including the president himself, regularly referred to COVID-19 as Chinese virus and a host of other similarly themed nicknames. In response to a surge in reports of anti-Asian and Pacific Islander discrimination, newly elected President Biden signed a memorandum pledging to combat the harmful and ignorant link sustained by the former president. In a public address on January 26, 2021, President Biden said: The Federal Government must recognize that it has played a role in furthering these xenophobic sentiments through the actions of political leaders, including references to the COVID-19 pandemic by the geographic location of its origin.Such statements have stoked unfounded fears and perpetuated stigma about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and have contributed to increasing rates of bullying, harassment, and hate crimes against AAPI persons (Memorandum, 2021).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most