Clubhouse chat on Anti-Asian hate
[00:00:00] Arjun: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. And welcome to the factual club. My name is Arjun. And Morsi and the co-founder and CEO of the factual, the factual is a tech company that helps people find unbiased news on trending topics every day. Today's topic of discussion is what's behind the rise in anti-Asian hate crime. The center for the study of hate and extremism at California state university. 
[00:00:23] Recently released findings that showed hate crimes against Asian-Americans spiked 145%. Between 2019 and 2020. Up from 49 to 120 crimes, even though hate crimes overall declined. Another survey from the Anti-Defamation league revealed that 17% of Asian-Americans reported severe online harassment, including sexual harassment, stalking or physical threats. 
[00:00:48] This is up 11% from last year. As a baseline comparison, 27% of respondents said they experience such severe harassment. And then a few weeks ago. Actor Daniel Dae. Kim [00:01:00] testified in front of Congress about the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. Urging Congress to pass a bill that granted money to community organizations to improve data collection on hate crimes and provide counseling for those convicted of hate crimes. 
[00:01:14] What is driving this apparent increase in hate crimes against Asians. And what can we do to reverse the trend? And what role does the media play in reporting on these stories? And where we can do better.  
[00:01:25]To discuss these questions and more, I'm delighted to have three impressive and thoughtful public figures. Ben  Liu, De Kai Wu, and Francis Wang. Welcome to the discussion. Could you please take a minute to introduce yourselves particularly highlighting your backgrounds that are relevant to today's discussion? 
[00:01:42] Bin Liu: [00:01:42] Sounds good. Thanks Arjun. And honored to be here. I, I, I'm really here to learn from the experts and you know, really hope that we can do more together to reverse the trend or to really, you know fight against racism. My name's Ben I, my day job is a I [00:02:00] lead the creators engineering teams organization at Pinterest and Recently, as you all know you know, just like what Arjun was talking about we're all shocked and heartbroken by all these things.
[00:02:12] And we all know that the history of discrimination and hate against the API community is. Is not like just starting last year. It's been many, many years of that. And I personally you know, been personally is rooted in the tech industry, but I've been working with many organizations and leaders in the tech industry to pull our energy phones and power together.
[00:02:32] So we can make some meaningful changes long lasting social changes. And I've been I'm a co-founder at this we're funding, this new nonprofit called tag for API Alliance. We're finalizing the details there, but in the past two, three weeks, we've been hosting online rallies with a lot of influential tech Leaders and we hope to do more in the space.
[00:02:53]But also just like I said, I'm here to learn a lot of us in the tech industry have actually little knowledge or [00:03:00] experiences in the space of politics or policy. So I'm really hoping to, you know together with the organizations that I'm working with to work with, with experts in the, in the domain to to really work together, to do more.
[00:03:12] So that's me and I'll pass over to De Kai. 
[00:03:17] De Kai: [00:03:17] Hi I'm really happy to be here. My name is De Kai. I work in several different areas, some of which are highly relevant. I'm a longtime AI professor I've been doing research in AI, specifically natural language processing, especially for over 35 years.
[00:03:33]I work heavily also in applying that, that sort of machine learning of natural language processing work in several other areas, including computational creativity music and computational social science. I, I Pioneered the things like Google translate, Microsoft translate, Yahoo translate, and specifically have looking at the ways we can use that technology [00:04:00] to understand the, the way that the framing of social political issues reflects underlying unconscious mindsets, as well as Perhaps more conscious values the, the role of misinformation and how AI prostates that through social media in ways that appeal to unconscious cognitive biases is a central piece of the puzzle that I work on.
[00:04:23]Both in the research, the hardcore technology, and also in the work on AI ethics and society that I spend a lot of time on including the talks that I helped to lead every week here on clubhouse, on Wednesdays at 6:00 PM, California time. We do deep dives into AI, ethics that touch on a lot of the issues that give.
[00:04:45] Rise to bias and and polarization hatred and so on.  Thanks, I'm De Kai and I'll pass it over to Frances. 
[00:04:53] Frances Wang: [00:04:53] Hi everyone. Yeah. My name is Frances Wang. I'm currently a morning news anchor here in Miami, Florida. [00:05:00] There's not a huge Asian population here, but I used to work in Sacramento, California where I covered a lot of crimes against Asian elders that weren't necessarily related to the pandemic.
[00:05:13]In some where, you know, Our elders were followed from Asian supermarkets and casinos and followed home and robbed on their way from their cars to their homes. And you know, like the crimes we're seeing now, a lot of them were under reported or not reported at all because of a rot, a variety of factors, but obviously language barrier and not fully understanding how maybe a police agency might work.
[00:05:38]And so we were able to put together a town hall with. Various officers who spoke Chinese Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, other Asian languages to get the message out to the elders. And it actually led to some change. So, so that was. Very cool to see the impact of you know, not just my reporting, but other reporters in [00:06:00] the market trying to, to help the Asian community.
[00:06:02]But now I'm, you know, kind of covering and sharing from a different perspective because I'm not directly covering a lot of these crimes and incidents, but I kind of have that. Bigger picture understanding. And I'm, I'm seeing everything from the bigger picture. And so I try to share and amplify as much as I can, especially with history of covering similar crimes. 
[00:06:24] Arjun: [00:06:24] Great. Thanks everyone. I'd like to kick it off with a question about the data. A group called stop AAPI, hate the port it over 4,000 incidents of hate directed at Asian American Pacific Islanders in 2020. There's a huge discrepancy from the data at the center for study of hate and extremism. What's behind this discrepancy and which numbers should we consider when we're talking about this issue? You know is this a case of an actual increase in hate crimes or simply better reporting of these events? 
[00:06:52] Frances Wang: [00:06:52] I'd love to start if that's okay on this one. So I think it's important to recognize [00:07:00] the difference between crimes of opportunity where Asians are targeted because they're seen as vulnerable targets of versus a crime of I'm attacking you because you're Asian. And I blame you for the pandemic, right?
[00:07:15] The crimes of hate and just ignorance and just. I mean, they're both horrible, but I do think we have to separate the two. I mean, they're they intertwined, but I also think we have to separate the two in order to fully solve each type of crime, right. It's going to require different resources or a different solution.
[00:07:33]But I do think what's happening in light of the pandemic. The, the pure crimes of hate are shedding a light on the other crimes that have already been having happening in the Asian-American community for a long time. And that, you know, again, Not only were they under-reported by the community, but they were under reported by the mainstream media, from local to national news.
[00:07:55] And I think with the backdrop of the pandemic and the scapegoating of the [00:08:00] Asian-American community, it has brought to light, you know, what's been happening in our community for a long time. 
[00:08:07] Bin Liu: [00:08:07] Yeah, I cannot agree more. I think the, the other thing I would just point out and I think for instance already touched on, but it is just a ton of misinformation in the past year about depen dynamic about the COVID and spreading the notions of China virus or food cone flu.
[00:08:23] Has just put a huge burden on the Asian Americans and API community, because, you know, these things are being spread and being you know, just, just people are believing in, in those. Yeah. And, and, and those have caused obviously the surge and the recent couple of months.
[00:08:40]Arjun: [00:08:40] That's a great point, Frances. How... you're in the media. How often, or how well do you think the media does... in painting the nuance of these crimes differentiating between hate crimes versus opportunistic crimes done against Asian Americans?
[00:08:57] Frances Wang: [00:08:57] No, [00:09:00] no. Absolutely not. And you know what, as a member of, you know, I'm part of the local media, but as a member of what we would call the mainstream media industry, I see huge problems and, and. Gaps in the way we cover the black community, the way we cover now, the Asian community. I mean, we saw it with the protest from last summer, right?
[00:09:20] With the death of George Floyd, and even now with the trial happening and what just happened with the 20 year old, who was shot by a police officer who thought she was using a taser? I mean, I think with the pandemic and how communities of color have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic everything from health issues to.
[00:09:41] You know, unemployment, right? I think all of that as the backdrop with everything that happened last summer, and then on top of this, I think this was just like a perfect storm to highlight so many issues in many communities in many industries. And that includes the mainstream media. And I think too, there are.
[00:10:00] [00:10:00] A lot of, I would call them non-traditional journalists, you know, everything from podcasters to people posting on social media, just people who don't work for your typical, you know, NBC, ABC, who I actually think are doing a much better job of diving into the layers. But I also think too, I mean, if you look at a local newscast, right?
[00:10:21] I mean, there's only, or like my, my morning newscast is two and a half hours and a lot of it is, you know, Very repetitive, right. Or even our 6:00 PM. It's a 30 minute newscasts. There's only so much you can fit into it. Whereas on a platform like social media, even Instagram or Twitter, I mean, or even just a web article, you can just dive way more into it.
[00:10:43] And I actually think a lot of these digital. Journalists and writers are doing a much better job than, than broadcasters, except for, except for the, the specials that a lot of the networks have done. The digital specialist as well, or when they actually dedicate time to the [00:11:00] segment and interviewing experts and people who are familiar with what's going on, unless they do it that way.
[00:11:06] I don't think they're fully diving into the layers and doing a good job of covering.
[00:11:10]De Kai: [00:11:10] So. The issue here, I think is that it's, the coverage is uniformly triggering the unconscious biases. There's not an outlet that has really not been doing it. And, and the issue is this is that this, the, the. Things that are triggering. The biases that lead to the explosion in violence against agents are not things that seem to be explicitly targeting Asian Americans, but there are things that have been really widespread and, and repeated on every media channel.
[00:11:45] So when when Trump started using or popularizing phrases like China virus when, when there are you know, there there's this recent move from the way China was being used in his campaign earlier, for [00:12:00] example to starting to constantly talk about the CCP. Every, every news outlets started picking up on these terms.
[00:12:07]And there's a, you know there's a great piece of work by one of my old PhD mentors at Berkeley. A fellow by the name of George Lakoff, who wrote the best sellers, like metaphors we live by but also don't think of an elephant applying the, the cognitive linguistics study of. Oh, how metaphors shaped the way we conceptualize things to the domain of social political issues.
[00:12:35]And I think what's really important to recognize in that is that when you, when you hear the phrase, don't think of an elephant, what's the first thing you think of. And again, it's you think of an elephant? And so people can can say until they're blue in the face, why I told you not to think of the elephant, but that doesn't change the fact that your unconscious is absolutely going to kick an elephant image into your head.
[00:12:59] And [00:13:00] so when you have phrases that are being propagated by the media. You know, w whether it's trying to virus for CCP, CCP is one of those things. That's just like, don't think of an elephant. It's like, Oh, no, we're not attacking Chinese people. It's the, it's the Chinese communist party. That's not how brains work, the brains demonize and associate with Chinese, no matter what.
[00:13:23]It's not conscious. 95% of our mental processing is probably done by the unconscious what automatic mental processes, what Danny Conoman called system one and in thinking fast and slow, and you can't stop yourself from doing that. And so, you know, when, when you have people amplify you know, phrases like China lied, people died, or the talking about the China initiative and you know, Chinese influence operations and things like that.
[00:13:53] You you're creating a massive unconscious trigger. And every, [00:14:00] every part of the media has been repeating these phrases, even as some of them have covered why we shouldn't be using those phrases just by. By putting that out there, this is contributing to the don't think of an elephant phenomenon.
[00:14:15]And so I, it's very difficult to say that some media channels have been more complicit than others. Yes. We can see a little bit of degree, but the problem is more fundamental it's that these terms are successfully being brought in by folks who want to demonize into mass usage, even by supposedly more conscious or progressive media chimps.
[00:14:41] Frances Wang: [00:14:41] I want to jump in here too.  I, a hundred percent agree with everything you're saying as a member of the media. I also think too, it highlights the lack of representation in media. I mean, the higher up you go, the. More males, the more white males you encounter but especially [00:15:00] the ones making the decisions.
[00:15:01]And I think too, it took, what's been happening over the past year. And then this explosion of, you know, anti-Asian hate rising to the national media level. And then the horrible, horrible tragedy in Atlanta with the eight people killed, including six Asian women at the Asian spas. It took that for a lot of newsrooms to realize.
[00:15:23] Oh, we don't have enough Asians to, you know, kind of defer to on, on the best way to cover or, or how to pronounce these names. I mean, a perfect and a perfect example, too, is how the the coroner's office, the medical examiner's office, when they released the names of the victims, including the Korean names, they mistook the second part of the first name for.
[00:15:48] Middle name, right? Because they looked at it with a Western point of view. And so when they released the names, they either excluded the second name or they reduce it to a middle initial a, which [00:16:00] obviously had the Korean community upset. Rightfully so, because I think we all knew too, as Asian Americans, that in some way they would.
[00:16:08] Take away from our community and the way talking about like the law enforcement and officials, the way they release information that then went to the media then, then was released by the media. Right. And, and it was a Korean reporter who in Atlanta who noticed the error and, and notified the medical examiner's office, who then had to issue a correction.
[00:16:27] But by that point, the first set of names had already been shared by. Everybody, including, you know, Washington post and New York times. And it had already gotten to that national level and let's be real a lot of times it's whatever comes out first that spreads to the masses. Right. And then the corrections or the clarification's, they don't get seen as much, unfortunately.
[00:16:49] And so I do agree that. Media can be a part of the problem. But I think part of the problem is within the media, which is something, a lot of journalists, including like myself are fighting against, right? [00:17:00] We want more representation and diversity at all levels, not just, not just on camera and not just behind the by-lines, but the people actually making these decisions.
[00:17:09] And I can tell you, it is a fight week we deal with every day. But I think this movement is, is giving. All communities of color, all journalists of color, that momentum to really show the people who make the decisions, why it's so important to have that diversity and representation.
[00:18:04] [00:18:00] Right. No, it's a group of Asian journalists and I actually had this conversation. And again, you know, following the lead of black journalists last summer and the press release about what happened with George Floyd, when reading it, you would have. Had a completely different narrative of what the video cameras showed.
[00:18:27] Right. And I think that just, again, highlights a problem in our industry is that we take what police say, what law enforcement say, we consider them a primary source and we take what they say as fact that is a problem because so many communities, distrust law enforcement and, and I think the Asian community saw that firsthand.
[00:18:46] Right. I know a lot of Asian-American women, especially when we saw the headlines and we saw that three Asian spas were involved. And honestly, when we saw the picture of the suspect, [00:19:00] I know what we all thought. And I think we all sort of knew that law enforcement might not frame it that way from the beginning, you know, they'd obviously have to investigate, but I think what was such a slap in the face to our community, specifically AAPI women, was that not only did they not frame it as that, what we knew it to be true, but they, they went the complete opposite direction and completely dismissed it from the get-go.
[00:19:30]And so, yeah. So when they presented it that way at the press conference I know a lot of local stations, especially, you know, they went with that. Right. Okay. Wait, we can't frame it as a hate crime. You know, this is what law enforcement said and a lot of Asian journalists in those newsrooms pushed back and a lot of Asian journalists at different outlets pitch these stories of.
[00:19:53] Explaining the, the layers and the nuances that come with being Asian American, specifically a woman and, and the things that we've [00:20:00] dealt with. Right. And so as, as things that we've dealt with as to how to put into context, why this. Was a hate crime, you know, and, and really explaining to people, which I don't know why it needs to be explained.
[00:20:12] It can be all of those things, right. It could be, it could be racist, it could be sexist, it could be a sex addiction. It could be a mental health issue. The man clearly struggled from all of those things. And, and it's not, it doesn't have to be one or the other. I don't know why it had to pass to be framed that way, but, but, but that's not the truth.
[00:20:32] It can be. All part of the problem. But I, again, I think it took Asian-American journalists. The few that there are in newsrooms pushing back to make sure that those layers were covered. [00:21:00]
[00:21:49]Arjun: [00:21:49] That's a great point, Francis that the shooting in Atlanta could have a complex motive, multiple reasons, and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. I [00:22:00] want to touch on something that we talked about earlier, which is unconscious bias when it comes to Asian Americans and how the media plays a role in that. 
[00:22:08] You know, if you look at the news cycle over the last year, particularly, there's been this constant drum beat of news coming out of China that's generally negative. It was XinJiang concentration camps, Hong Kong's democracy being crushed, aggression towards Taiwan and the troubles in the South China sea. 
[00:22:27] I'm curious, particularly you De Kai, do you have any thoughts on how this news cycle plays a role in how asian-americans are being treated in the US?
[00:22:37] De Kai: [00:22:37] Absolutely. There is I I'm going to, there's a book out called Stronger - by Ryan Haas. He's a diplomat. He served, he was posted to Beijing for four years. And this was during the Obama presidency. This book called Stronger: Adapting America's China Strategy In An [00:23:00] Age Of Competitive Interdependence.
[00:23:02]I, you know, I really highly recommend a read through, I, I don't mean that I agree with everything in the book, but I think that it is a much more level headed assessment of the the relationship between the U.S. and Chinese and the misperceptions and and he refers in a number of places to sort of the hyperventilation that we, we get in the media... and it is driven by various political actors.
[00:23:27]But then it gets repeated and he points out how it has precedence. It had precedents, for example, in the 1980s when Japan was the new threat and notice that had nothing to do with any communist party, but we saw the same dynamics and we saw you know, the brutal Beating to death of Fitz and chin in Detroit who was targeted because people didn't even bother to find out whether he was of Chinese ethnicity or Japanese ethnicity.
[00:23:53] And I'm going to quote from Brian Hass conclusion. He, he writes any decision to [00:24:00] approach China as a cold war, like adversary will generate pressure to mobilize, to counter the threat. If past is prologue, we will see heightened efforts to scrutinize activities of ethnic Chinese who are residing legally in the United States, as well as Americans deemed to be sympathetic to Chinese aims.
[00:24:19] Historically, this has been the pattern when the United States has faced challenges in the past from Germany, Japan, and the Soviet union. Indeed FBI director, Christopher Ray has already warned in congressional testimony in 2018 that the United States must mobilize to counter the quote whole of society threat being posed by China.
[00:24:37]This is again, The don't think of an elephant phenomenon at work here. The unconscious does not distinguish between these things and Chinese Americans, Asian Americans who are living in the U S this type of demonization simply get translated directly into widespread. Upticks in [00:25:00] violence against Asians.
[00:25:01] And w we've seen that already in the statistics this year, just as we saw it against Asians, when the Japanese were forming <TAG>    
[00:25:11] Arjun: [00:25:11] That's fascinating and really insightful De Kai. I just realized we're close to the bottom of the half hour and I know Bin Liu, you said you would have to leave a little early. So I wanted to just briefly give you a chance to share some recommendations on how you at the grassroot levels are helping people reverse the trend of anti-Asian hate crimes.
[00:25:34] Bin Liu: [00:25:34] Absolutely. And I apologize for leaving a half hour early. And I, I personally just learned a lot by hearing a lot of things that decay and Francis had had said a couple of things that we are doing, you know, like myself and a lot of people in my organization works at various, you know large tech platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and I think everyone has taken it upon themselves to, you know, work within [00:26:00] their system to, you know make sure that we are spreading, you know, the right.
[00:26:05]Kind of information, making sure that we try to, you know, stop misinformation, being, being, being spread. And on the side, we also really hope to, you know, work with people in the, in the, you know, the policymakers, the, the, the, the media, and, you know, try to get our voices heard, you know, in general myself is very guilty of that is like, we, we, we tend to.
[00:26:27] Mind our own business. I tend to mind my own business. And you know, this, these, these, you know, incidents, you know, horrible events that are happening, whether or not it came from a hate you know, mindset or not, it doesn't actually even matter because we all know the discrimination against the, the AAPI community exists.
[00:26:47]It exists, you know, everywhere, and we just need to fight back. So we really want our voices to be heard.
[00:26:54]Arjun: [00:26:54] Thanks very much Bin LIu and I will now turn it over to audience [00:27:00] questions and I'll turn off the recording so that we can have a Q and A session.