By Joseph Juhn, documentary filmmaker

COVID-19 was not the only virus that spread throughout American society in 2020. Another virus emerged, exposing a dark side of the US: the virus of anti-Asian hate. 

Numerous Asian Americans were attacked on the streets and in subway stations, with people from New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, and other cities, losing their lives to hate crimes. Some Koreans residing in the US stirred up controversy by selling t-shirts with the slogan “I’m Korean, Not Chinese,” as the message implies that while the Chinese are legitimate targets of hate, other Asian Americans are not. Another form of discrimination lurks within such a mindset. 

The heart of a problem like anti-Asian hate is not whether one is valid in hating a given group, but the “hate” itself. At the time, Asian Americans had to stand up for themselves, had to plead their innocence to the world, had to vocalize the pride that comes with being Asian American and, above all, advocate for the respect every individual deserves.
 
History has repeatedly taught us about the tragedies that unfold when certain groups become targets of hate and witch hunts. Following the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, thousands of Koreans were massacred after being unjustly accused of poisoning wells. The Japanese government will forever be condemned by history for its attempts to alleviate its internal turmoil by demonizing others, namely Koreans.
 
What about our next example? When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US government incarcerated 120,000 Japanese Americans, most of whom were US citizens, in internment camps for three years. Even if no evidence existed to prove that they had been spies or otherwise betrayed US interests, Japanese Americans were treated inhumanely, as if they were lesser beings than their fellow citizens. 

This period in which Japanese Americans were relocated and jailed now remains one of the biggest stains on US modern history. US hypocrisy was on full display as it fought valiantly against Nazi Germany, which had massacred millions of Jews, while simultaneously incarcerating Japanese Americans back home. 

The hatred toward and dehumanization of certain groups, as demonstrated in the racial discrimination faced by African Americans in the US and the oppression of the Muslim Uyghur people in China’s Xinjiang region, has repeated itself throughout time and space.
 
South Korea is no exception. Recently, hundreds of young people paraded through Seoul’s Gwangjin District, wielding Korean and US flags, while spouting racist vitriol against Chinese people and threatening innocent passersby. The extreme Sinophobia rampant within online communities and the far-right “Taegeukgi rallies” was being displayed on the streets in broad daylight. 

Rather than be wary of the ramifications of such hate, some politicians and religious figures with ties to the far right use these young people as their own political pawns. This Sinophobia is an amalgam of anti-communist and racist sentiments and is surprisingly similar to a political system that these groups claim to abhor: totalitarianism. Political slogans that stoke Sinophobia are being bandied about even during the presidential election.
 
In her book “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” Hannah Arendt identified government systems that exploit the anxieties and desires of the public during times of great societal chaos and economic crises to power blind hatred toward certain groups of people that are labeled as the root of all evil. Arendt emphasized how the morality of the public becomes paralyzed when a country justifies violence and oppression in the name of “order” and “justice.” 

Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil heavily criticizes situations in which ordinary people mindlessly discriminate and oppress the “other.” Her analysis pertains to more than Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was a key figure in implementing the plan to massacre millions of Jews in concentration camps.
 
We should resist the impulse to label the young Koreans marauding through the streets with Korean flags in their hands as being inherently evil, just as we should resist attempts to vilify the people of China, a group those young Koreans are so determined to hate. True evil is found within a public that has relinquished its capacity to think for itself and the forces that systematically exploit the anxieties of that public for their own gain. 

Dangers do exist within China’s centralized governmental system, and some of its policies are foreboding. The expansion of China’s political influence is a problem that we need to approach with caution in the real world. But that cannot justify the animosity directed towards Chinese people living in South Korea. Hating groups of individuals for problems of national concern will only set our society spinning down a vicious circle of hate.
 
Asian Americans displayed unprecedented solidarity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before 2020, the community remained heavily fractured, but the pandemic widened and strengthened the spectrum of what it means to be Asian American. I learned while marching through New York and Los Angeles with people who came from various ethnic backgrounds that if we turn our backs on the oppressed, no one will stand up for us when our community becomes the target.
 
South Korea, too, must squarely face the evil represented by those who propagate hate toward particular groups of people for their own political gain and escape the cycle of blind hate. South Korean society should look to the Trump administration, which is persecuting and banishing immigrants, as an example of what not to do, and embark on the path of solidarity through introspection.

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