As the first cases of the novel coronavirus were diagnosed in the United States, a second scourge appeared across the country: attacks on Asian Americans and Chinese Americans in particular.
I witnessed some of this personally. Last February, I was walking along East 29th Street in Manhattan when I heard a loud, raging voice. I turned to find a middle-aged white man screaming at an elderly Chinese man, “Get the [expletive] of my country, you piece of Chinese [expletive]!” The old man was stunned. So was I, before I bellowed back (deploying the full range of my native Australian vocabulary), “[Expletive] off and leave him alone, you white racist piece of [expletive]!”
The pedestrian traffic stopped. A young white guy came storming toward me. As a non-pugilist by instinct and training, I braced for what was coming. But he stopped just short of me and said, “Thank you for standing up for him.”
Read the complete article at: San Francisco Chronicle
