A Stop the Hate panel at the EMS/CBM Expo: (From left) Andrew Wong, Dr Karthick Ramakrishnan, Khydeeja Alam, and Eliana Kaimowitz
California Must Create Permanent Investments to Combat Hate
By Sunita Sohrabji
Sacramento, CA
Thousands of California residents who are vulnerable to hate crimes and incidents have received support and awareness services through a $190 million multi-year grant the state of California has allocated to combat hate.
That funding, which helped build a statewide communication infrastructure pairing ethnic media and community-based organizations, will end over the next 15 months.
$10 million of the AAPI Equity Budget was granted to more than 60 ethnic media outlets around the state. Those outlets used the two-year grant to amplify stories of victims and to address the root causes of hate crimes and incidents, including school bullying. They also partnered with CBOs to be “first responders,” and to collectively work towards permanent solutions to combating hate in the state.
The ethnic media grant, administered by the California State Library, will end in December. With all funding from the AAPI Equity Budget having been allocated, the ethnic media sector will receive no additional funding from that initiative.
‘More Work to Do’
“It’s really remarkable when we think of the countless stories that have been written, the readership of those stories, and how much awareness has been raised,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, founder of Stop AAPI Hate, during a panel discussion on Aug 27 at the Ethnic Media Services/ California Black Media Expo in Sacramento. “It’s also important that individuals in our community know where they can go to get help,” she said.
Kulkarni advocated for an extension of the AAPI Equity Budget, saying there was much more work to do. She did note, however, that California currently faces a $40 billion budget deficit.
“Media play the role of safety,” said Brandon Brooks, a journalist and spokesman for California Black Media. Black people in California are overwhelmingly the most frequent victims of hate attacks: 518 hate crimes against Black people were recorded in 2023, more than 25% of all hate crimes reported last year.
“There is lots of under-reporting. We feel uncomfortable trusting police. Many people call our newsroom before they call police,” said Brooks.
Wallace Allen, publisher of the Westside Story newspaper, which covers the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles, echoed Brooks, noting the scarcity of resources “is placing Black people at the back of the line again.”
Hate Crime Data
The web portal Stop AAPI Hate has collected over 12,000 reports of anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents nationwide since it was founded in 2020.
Hate crimes have slowed down from their peak in 2020, when former President Donald Trump released a volley of anti-Asian hate, blaming China for the Covid-19 pandemic. Still, in 2023, a total of 1,970 hate crimes were reported by law enforcement agencies across California.
This figure marks a drop from 2021 when 2,180 hate crimes were reported throughout the state. Community advocates say more victims now feel emboldened to report the attacks against them, as a result of ethnic media reporting and CBO advocacy.
AAPI Equity Budget
As hate crimes against the Asian American community reached alarming numbers in 2020, Dr Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder of AAPI Data, began to collaborate with California state Senator Richard Pan, formerly the chair of the AAPI Legislative Caucus, and Assemblymember Phil Ting, who served on the Budget Committee. In 2021, the state Legislature approved $166.5 million to establish the AAPI Equity Budget. Ramakrishnan explained at the Expo that the state had a budget surplus that year, which made it much easier to get the historic grant approved. Additional money was allocated the following year, building the AAPI Equity Budget to a total of $190 million.
“Part of the hope we had in putting the AAPI Equity Budget together was to not just think of it as solving a pressing problem in the moment, but to think about the ways that we can use that investment to fundamentally shift how government systems work, how ethnic media is financed, community media is financed in the state of California, and, ultimately, to make sure that people in the state have access to the services that they’re entitled to,” said Ramakrishnan.
Crimes Will Not Stop
“We cannot have a one-time investment to address a surge in hate crimes. We must make permanent investments in communications that promote the health and well-being of our ethnic and minority communities,” said Dr Jose Luis Benavides, a professor of journalism at Cal State Northridge, who moderated a Stop the Hate panel at the Expo.
Andrew Wong, director of advocacy at Chinese for Affirmative Action and co-founder of Stop the Hate, said the state must continue to fund long-term investments in combating hate. “Because these threats continue to exist. We’re continuing to face hate. There is virulent anti-immigrant sentiment.”
“We’re hearing it from political candidates across the country. And regardless of the outcome in November, you better believe that that rhetoric is only going to get worse, not better. And so we have got to prepare for that, and we have to continue to sustain the good work that we’ve collectively been doing,” he said.
Transformative
“The Stop the Hate and transformative grants programs have been nothing short of extraordinary,” said Khydeeja Alam, executive director of the California Commission on Asian Pacific Islander American Affairs. She noted that in the first year, 20,000 people were helped with intervention services, prevention services, and legal aid services, among other resources.
“We are investing in building this multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalition that will support our AAPI communities, Black communities, Latinx communities, LGBT communities, to prevent and stop hate at the state level,” said Alam.
“The Stop the Hate work at the state level is scheduled to end in 2026. The hate is not going to stop in 2026. So we as a commission want to ensure these investments become permanent,” she added.
Sense of Justice
Eliana Kaimowitz, director of the Office of Equity at the California Department of Social Services said much of the work over the past three years has been focused on building trust. “Immigrants may not want to make a call to law enforcement when they experience a hate crime. Encouraging people to report a crime and to seek assistance when these things happen requires trust.”
“People need to be able to feel some sort of justice and feel like they have a sense of belonging and inclusion,” she said. – Ethnic Media Services
