The Atlantic Daily: The ‘Hate Crime’ Label Isn’t Enough
Following the Atlanta shootings, calls to address anti-Asian racism in America have intensified.
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Last week’s shootings in the Atlanta area, which killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women, have intensified calls to confront anti-Asian racism.
“The present hour feels like an awakening for the people of Asia and of Asian descent,” our contributing writer Alex Wagner observes. “It is impossible to ignore the cries for justice sweeping the globe.”
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The “happy ending” jokes that followed the Atlanta shootings carried a dehumanizing logic. “Racism and sexism are partners that stoke each other with frightening ease,” Anne Anlin Cheng, a Princeton professor, points out. “Here’s the thing that many people find hard to accept: Hatred does not preclude desire.”
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Calling the Atlanta shootings a hate crime isn’t nearly enough. “The public call for hate-crime prosecution would be better served by an understanding that such designations are often purely symbolic,” Saida Grundy, a Boston University professor, argues.
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For some Asian parents, conversations about racism remain taboo. “Many immigrants such as my dad (and my mom, who has faced her fair share of racism) have built up a code of silence with their children to not discuss the daily indignities of being Asian American,” our former assistant editor Karen Yuan writes.
One question, answered: Do the coronavirus vaccines cure long COVID?
Our staff writer Katherine J. Wu illuminates what we know so far:
A scattering of long-haulers report that their COVID-19 symptoms have mysteriously faded after their shots—an astounding and unexpected pattern that’s captured the attention of experts worldwide.
Stories of symptoms that subside after the shots are intriguing, experts told me. But no clinical trials have tested whether the vaccines can act as makeshift therapeutics for long COVID, either. It’s still unclear how common these ebbs in illness are, or how fleeting they might be. In patient-led surveys, at least as many long-haulers are reporting no postvaccination change in symptoms; a small percentage said that the shots have so far made their illness worse.
For more about the ongoing vaccine rollout: We revisit a 1905 Supreme Court tussle over government-mandated vaccines on this week’s episode of The Experiment, our new podcast with WNYC Studios. Listen.
Tonight’s Atlantic-approved isolation activity:
Are you dreaming too big? Learn how to set realistic goals that move you forward, professionally and spiritually.
Today’s break from the news:
A very big boat is very stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal. Our staff writer Amanda Mull is obsessed with the absurdity of it all.