On Sunday February 27 in Manhattan, a 28-year-old man approached a 50-year-old of Asian origin, before punching her in the face. The beginning of a path made up of racism, sexism and violence, his successive victims all having the same profile: he indeed attacked seven women identified as Asian, young adults for the most part.
The seven victims were injured by the attacks of the man, whose modus operandi was systematically the same: strike them a blow (with a fist or shoulder) in the face, then quickly leave the scene. Two of the women thus assaulted had to be admitted to hospital for treatment, relate The Cut.
Quickly identified, this man named Steven Zajonc was arrested four days later after briefly barricading himself in the New York Public Library. The man, who lives in the Manhattan neighborhood, was not known to police. He had never met any of his victims and had had no interaction with them, even just before attacking them.
Unfortunately, these serial attacks are only the latest example of anti-Asian violence. In New York, Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, representing the district where the seven attacks took place, said she was “as devastated as enraged” by these “crimes motivated by gender and race issues”. She also added that “condemn is not enough”.
Anti-Asian racism explodes violently
According to the latest estimates, crimes perpetrated against members of the Asian community increased by 339% last year, but their racist nature is rarely taken into account by justice. This is fortunately the case this time, probably because of the repetition of attacks against people with all the same characteristics. Steven Zajonc is notably prosecuted for hate crimes, which simultaneously refers to the racist and sexist motivation of his actions.
In New York, the AAPI communities (for “Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders”) continue to be moved and scandalized by the repetition of acts of hatred against their members. Demonstrations take place regularly on this subject. At the end of February, we learned of the death of GuiYing Ma, a 61-year-old Chinese woman living in New York. This woman had been brutally attacked at the end of November and ended up succumbing to her injuries. According to The Cut, three other New Yorkers or New Yorkers of Asian origin have died in recent months after suffering similar attacks.
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