Racially-charged Incidents Against Asians on the Rise at College Campuses

New American Media reports that racially-charged incidents towards Asian American students on college campuses nationwide are raising serious concerns. In the report, NAM highlights three areas as evidence of the increase in racism: Campus Hatecrimes, Racist Satire, and Institutional Discrimination.

The report discusses several examples of each area:

Hate Crimes

On Jan. 21, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Kyle Descher, a Korean American, headed out to a bar with his roommate after a Washington State University football victory over Oregon. Minutes after hearing a racial slur from one of three unknown men, Descher is “sucker-punched” in an unprovoked attack. Doctors add three titanium plates to Descher’s broken jaw and it’s wired shut.

In November, at the University of Washington, witnesses told Seattle Police several people from the Delta Upsilon fraternity house hurled water balloons and yelled anti-immigrant slurs at an Asian man, who ran from the house.

Racist Satire

In the “Where Asians Don’t Belong” section, staffers of the “Punch Bowl” (a University of Pennsylvania’s "humorous" quarterly student publication) listed Math 104, in a panties drawer, on the basketball court, at a frat party, and behind the wheel.

Colorado University at Boulder student Max Karson wrote the article, describing why he thinks “Asians hate us all” and what people should do about it. This “lesson” includes kidnapping and tying up Asians and yelling racial slurs at them. Karson describes a strange ordeal to teach Asians a “lesson” including, capturing as many Asians as possible with a butterfly net (step #1), forcing them to eat bad sushi (step #2), make facial expressions to match a word on a card, and play Dance Dance Revolution. Once Asians are “corrected” in their ways, they’re freed.

Institutional Racism

University of Washington’s student group, the College Republicans (CR) kicked off an “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” in 2004, where students could purchase baked goods depending upon their racial make up. Whites paid a dollar for a cookie, while Asians paid 50 cents, Latinos 30 cents, etc.

Bellevue Community College Professor Peter Ratener composed a question for a math exam that read, “Condoleezza holds a watermelon just over the edge of the roof of the 300-foot Federal Building, and tosses it up with a velocity of 20 feet per second.”

Read the full report here.

Posted in: Hate Crimes,Institutional Racism,New American Media,Racism,Racist Satire