zlacker

I'd like to first take an aside and apologize for a previous error. I divided incidents by population and came to 0.0006. This is off by an order of magnitude. But that is not the worst of it. This number belongs in the context of crime rates. Gallup [1] tells me that 1-3% of people are victims of violent crimes. So I must further multiply by 100 and conclude that hate crimes represent 0.6% of the total violent crimes experienced by Asian-Americans. And once again, I have to add that I did find numbers that suggested Asian-Americans may be victimized much less than the general population, although these numbers were from 2006. 0.6-6% is the final answer. This is a massive misrepresentation, and I want to be clear that this was not intentionally manipulative. It was quick thinking and poor judgment.

I agree that the US response to the threat of terrorism was also very much an overreaction, so at least you can say I'm consistent.

From what I understand, the total number of hate crimes decreased in 2020. I haven't been able to find the data and if, for example, this is because the number of hate crimes against whites dropped, the following is false. But in my mind this fits a model where X people are going to attack minorities in a given year, and this year, for obvious and insane reasons, they typically targeted Asians.

I understand the frustration and pain and cause for pushback. I say this because the next part will come across as cold. From a utilitarian perspective, there is not any material difference between worlds where different minorities are victimized. Changing the targets doesn't solve anything.

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/285644/percentage-americans-rec...