500 Black and Asian Community Members Rally in Oakland as Holiday Weekend Sees Wave of Attacks, Robberies
February 15, 2021
Members of Black and Asian communities convened on Saturday in Oakland, CA to rally against recent anti-Asian attacks, especially those in the Bay Area.
What happened: During the rally, various speakers discussed the importance of solidarity among Black and Asian communities.
- More than 500 people showed up at Madison Park, according to NBC Bay Area.
- Some attendees mentioned the incidents their friends and family members have faced, from being spit on to being robbed.
- Leaders in the Black community addressed the stereotype that members of Oakland’s Black community are specifically attacking Asian Americans, especially the elderly.
- Julia Liou of the Oakland Chinatown Coalition claimed that now is “a time to come to unity in this moment, because we do need to work together to address what needs to be the long term, community-centered solutions.”
Who attended: A diverse group of attendees participated in the rally, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
- Many of them were from Asian community organizations such as the Oakland Chinatown Coalition and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network.
- A few attendees brought signs with messages such as, “Asian Americans save lives as your doctors, nurses, grocers, farmers and teachers — we are not the enemy,” and, “We stand with our neighbors — end white supremacy.”
- Some attendees also wore T-shirts that said, “Black-Asian unity.”
- Sine Hwang Jensen, a Berkeley resident and one of the protest’s many attendees, was “very inspired by the solidarity being shown by the communities of color.”
A string of attacks: This recent rally was created in response to anti-Asian attacks, as NextShark previously reported.
- Many of the attacks took place in Oakland, from the attack against a 91-year-old man to a man being robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight.
- Attacks against elderly victims have also occurred in other parts of the Bay Area, such as the fatal attack against an 84-year-old man in San Francisco.
- Serious incidents have also taken place in other states such as New York, where a 61-year-old man’s face was slashed on the subway.
Incidents over the holiday weekend: Several cases of robbery, assaults and vandalism of Asian businesses also surfaced during the Lunar New Year weekend.
- One of the incidents involved Ari Daoheuang, a woman who was attacked by four people in Oakland. After being pistol-whipped, the suspects stole her car, according to ABC7 News’ Dion Lim.
- In another incident, a woman was robbed near a Quickly Store in Oakland. The robbery occurred close to the spot where a 70-year-old woman was robbed a few days beforehand.⠀
Across the country in Baltimore, four Asian-owned restaurants were burglarized on the night of February 11. Urban Hot Pot, Bonchon, Kung Fu Tea, East Moon Asian Bistro were all broken into overnight and all had money stolen. Police are not ruling out the burglaries as hate-crimes, but are also not currently investigating them as such.
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