To all Asian Americans: What would you do if you witnessed a hate crime?

The title says it all.

Would you continue walking away from this hate scene, as if you saw nothing—as if nothing happened.

Or would you call the licensed authorities—the cops and the ambulance—to request assistance.

Or would you interrupt a crime scene full of hate and risk being a victim of hate crime.

I would not walk away because of my moral compass. If I am witnessing a hate crime, I am partially responsible for its outcome, because my decisions indirectly affect the victim. My decision could spell life or death for this victim.

Let us apply these questions to a case study involving Atul lall, a 32-year-old East Indian industrial designer who now fears the public scenes because he was brutally beaten by three men outside a Lucky store, and called a “terrorist.”

If I were there, my first thought would be to call the cops because the authorities ultimately break up the crime scenes. But who knows how long the cops will arrive, and what would have happened to the victim.

This 32-year-old certainly would not have lost his teeth and suffered a broken jaw—traumas causing him fear the public, because the authorities were not present to diffuse this racial violence.

I know what I would do: I would wreck the hate scene. How? I would go in there, and call those three idiots ‘idiots!’

But I would not go in there alone, not without my iPhone to record the hate scene.

But why stop there. Why not distract these idiots by luring the attention away from the 32-year-old, doing whatever it takes to make sure this victim does not lose teeth and suffer a broken jaw.

I might become a victim of a hate crime, but I could have also prevented one.

Enough about me. What would you do?

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