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United Against Hate Week was conceived at Berkeley in 2017, and was passed as a motion to take place in LA beginning in 2018. The initiative partners with LA v. Hate, a community-based organization that focuses on uniting against hate incidents.
LA v. Hate’s marketing partner Dana Coffman spoke further a bout the group’s approach and the rise of hate incident reported to their offices in recent years.
Coffman: “The longer term goals of this program and in our collaboration with community and county partners is to, you know, over time, see those numbers fall. But that would be a reflection of, you know, decrease in actual hate incidents, which, you know, we are not expecting that to happen as soon as this month. It will definitely be a a uphill battle.”
Esther Young Lim, chair of the AAPI Advisory Board for the District Attorney’s Office, spoke more about the specific trainings being hosted as part of the the week. Lim is hosting a hate crime workshop with bystander training, taking place this Saturday. Lim stated that the workshop, hosted in both English and Korean, aims to educate those in the Korean areas of LA about their rights and ways to limit fear in Korean communities.
Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and Executive Director of AAPI Equity Alliance, gave more insight to how communities in LA can benefit from the panels, events, and workshops occurring within the coming weeks.
Kulkarni: It’s part of a concerted effort of hate to bring awareness and address not only hate crimes, but also hate incidents that our community members have experienced. I hope the takeaways are from this is that there are ways that we can engage together in community education and that we can show our support for one another.
Kulkarni spoke further into specific ways communities can band together.
Kulkarni: So whether it be like a unity walk, poetry slam or a concert, there are those ways in which we can be in community with each other to show our shared values.
As we are fresh out of the pandemic-induced wave of AAPI hate incidents and are now facing an onslaught of anti-Semitic discourse, the trainings and discussions offered in the coming weeks are crucial to ensuring the safety of communities across Los Angeles.