Racism and prejudice

After a 2017 rap show got a generation of China’s youth hooked on hip hop, the musical genre has created dozens of Chinese stars and, along with them, billions of streaming views. But despite their enthusiasm for a culture that originated in the African-American community, Chinese hip-hop stars and their legions of fans have largely stayed silent on the Black Lives Matter movement, which has swept across the world after the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minneapolis. Canadian-Chinese hip-hop star Kris Wu has made no comments on the anti-racism protests to his 50.9 million social media followers on Weibo and 7.3 million on Instagram. GAI, a rapping competition winner

After two years of living in Beijing, Jesse Bowens-Xu was tired, annoyed and ready to go home. The daughter of an African-American father and Chinese mother, she had gone to China to study and connect with her heritage. However, her skin color became a source of day-to-day frustration and prejudice. When applying for part-time teaching jobs to support her studies, the message she got was: “unmarketable to Chinese parents,” she said. This despite being a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and completing a master’s degree at the prestigious Peking University in Beijing. Locals running up to snap photos made her feel “like an animal in the zoo,” she said. About two years after

Police in Vancouver say the man suspected of targeting Asian women wearing face masks in a racist incident on a bus has died of an apparent drug overdose. The death was announced on Wednesday, a day after Metro Vancouver Transit Police had asked the public for help in identifying the suspect in the April 15 incident. “The suspect was a 48-year-old man from Vancouver with no fixed address who was well known to police,” Constable Mike Yake said. “We learned that the suspect had passed away from an apparent drug overdose approximately one week after this incident.” Yake thanked the media and the public for their help in identifying the man believed to have been involved in what he called a “di

According to Metro Vancouver Transit Police, the unidentified man boarded a downtown bus on April 15 – then immediately turned his attention to two Asian women, both wearing face masks. “Go back to your country; that’s where it all started,” he told the pair, according to a police request for public assistance issued on Tuesday.  Police say the man then attacked a third woman who came to the pair’s defense, kicking her, wrestling her to the floor of the bus and ripping out a clump of hair. Three days before that attack, a different man was captured on surveillance footage strolling through Vancouver. He veers towards a small Asian woman wearing a hoodie. She glances up before the man punche

Vancouver police are hunting for the suspect in a "despicable" racist attack on a 92-year-old Asian man with dementia, who was thrown to the ground as his attacker shouted slurs about Covid-19. Police said on Wednesday that the March 13 attack was part of a wave of anti-Asian hate crimes in the western Canadian city linked to the coronavirus pandemic. The authorities are seeking the public’s help in identifying the assailant. The victim had just been reported missing by his family when he wandered into a convenience store and encountered his attacker. "Everything about this assault and the behavior of the suspect is despicable," said Constable Tania Visintin, a media relations officer.  "As

A mixed-race contestant on a Chinese singing competition show has been targeted with racial abuse as the treatment of African people living in the country comes under increased scrutiny. Winnie Zhong Feifei, who was born in Liaoning province to a Chinese mother and Congolese father, was recently revealed as a contestant on the singing competition show Produce Camp 2020, a spin-off of the famed South Korean K-pop reality show Produce 101.  Since the announcement, Zhong has had to deal with a storm of derogatory comments on Chinese social media due to her African heritage. In comments left on Zhong’s Weibo account, some netizens have used the transliterated Chinese characters for the derogato

Yue Qu did not expect to be spending the end of his first year of college alone in his room on a deserted campus in California. But he had little choice. Despite booking several tickets home to Chengdu, in southwest China, the flights kept getting canceled as China and other countries imposed air travel restrictions amid the escalating Covid-19 pandemic. “I have two tickets for May, but I’m not confident that those flights will run. There’s no reason for me to be here, and it’s a stressful experience staying here all alone,” he said. Yue is among the roughly 350,000 Chinese students studying at US colleges and universities, the largest group of foreign students in the country. It is not clea

McDonald’s China has apologized after a branch introduced a ban on black customers, just as Africans are complaining of being targeted for enforcement action in China’s fight against the coronavirus. Over the weekend, a video circulating online showed a Chinese staff member at a McDonald’s restaurant showing a sign banning black people from entering.  “We've been informed from now on black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant,” says the notice, written in English. “For the sake of your health, consciously notify the local police for medical isolation, please understand the inconvenience caused.” Again, for those who still doubt that Black people and particularly #AfricansinChina ar

President Donald Trump on Monday stopped referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” and called for the protection of Asian-Americans. “It’s very important that we totally protect our Asian-American community in the United States and all around the world,” Trump said at a White House briefing. “They’re amazing people and the spreading of the virus is not their fault in any way shape or form,” he said.  Trump’s shift in tone was abrupt, having called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus” at least once every day since March 17 – a reference that was made at least eight times on Twitter and another eight times in the White House. Asked in the briefing why he stopped using the term, Trump

China’s proposed bill on granting permanent residency to foreigners has unleashed a wave of xenophobia on the Chinese internet. Even though China has one of the lowest shares of foreign-born people in the entire world, many people worry that a potential rise in foreign immigrants will make their life harder. In response to the bill, people have posted hostile comments online, especially against black people and Muslims, demanding that the government toughen rules on immigration. We spoke with several fierce opponents of the permanent residency bill about why they do not want more immigrants in China.