Hate Crimes Against the AAPI Community and the Newest Form of Resistance

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian sentiments and incidents of violence have surged around the country. AAPI advocates have criticized social and political responses to anti-AAPI violence and the minimal recognition of these incidents as hate crimes. In the wake of the March 2021 Atlanta spa shootings that left eight individuals dead—six of whom were Asian-American women, Americans are once again asking a tragically familiar question: When is a mass shooting legally considered a hate crime in the U.S.? And what difference does this label make?

In this podcast, we speak with Manjusha P. Kulkarni, a racial justice attorney and an activist who has worked on behalf of communities of color for over twenty years. In March of 2020, she and the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council helped found the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center to combat the rise in anti-Asian American racism. Today, Kulkarni discusses the legal underpinnings of hate crime prosecution with the Harvard Undergraduate Law Review.