Dear colleagues and friends,
I hope that this message finds you well. I’d appreciate much that you can spend a few minutes to read this message, which is very important to me and Asian Americans. I went to the “Stop Asian Hate” event yesterday to mourn the victims slaughtered by a cold-blooded murderer and protested the unjustified hate to the Asian Americans. I was really shocked by the fact that so many people had awful experiences as I had. I feel extremely upset and worried. After the attack that I encountered (see details below), I thought a lot about what I should do and carry to protect myself. I decided to carry a whistle from that day on. I learned yesterday from a friend that a body camera is a smarter choice so I ordered one immediately. The streets and subway could be death traps. I need to be prepared. I do not understand why some people hate Asian people so much for no reason. Similar things have happened to Jewish, African American, and other ethnic groups. People tend to forget about it! To the people who want me to leave this country, I’d like to say that no, this is my country. ---- I tried to forget the very unpleasant experience that I encountered. It is why I deleted the email exchanges with the university police and my department administration. The killing in Atlanta wakes me up. I should share my story again in order to warn people who may become victims in future. This happened in January a day or two before the new presidency took place. I walked towards Washington Square Park and crossed the street on the opposite side of the Law School. A young fellow in his 20s with a red hat approached me and wanted to give me a flyer. When I shook my head for a No, he began to shout out loud at me with nasty languages including f###, go back to China, communist etc. I was shocked for a moment and wanted to talk back but with the mask and also keeping a distance from an unmasked man, I stood there silently for a few minutes. A few bystanders watched the whole event some meters away. One of them comforted me after I fled. Now I recalled after the Atlanta shooting that this man signaled his hand like a gun towards me. If he had a real gun, I would be a dead man like the eight innocent victims. At that moment I did remember to use the NYU Safety app and took his photo and sent it to the NYU police. Unfortunately, I had never experienced such a thing before and was so shocked that I left the scene before the university police arrived. Later they sent me an email to comfort me and mentioned their action after seeing my message. I replied and explained more details about what has happened and forwarded the message to my department administration. Indeed, it took me a long time to recover physically and mentally from the incident. It was hard not to think about it. Why did a stranger attack me for no reason? After so many recent events including bullying, pushing, beating, and finally killing senior, female, and teen Asian Americans, I do not feel safe anymore either walking on the streets or taking the subway. I do hope my whistle and body camera could help, although I wish that I do not need them at all in my life. I have a family that depends on me and I could not imagine anything like this happen to me again or them. May god be with us and protect us from such harm and hatred! Thank you for reading. Best to you all! Tony -- Chunhua Tony Hu, Ph.D. New York University, Department of Chemistry 357A Brown Building, 29 Washington Place Phone: 212-998-8769 (office) Email: c...@nyu.edu <chunhua...@nyu.edu> http://as.nyu.edu/chemistry/research/facilities/xray-diffraction.html -- Chunhua Tony Hu, Ph.D. New York University, Department of Chemistry 357A Brown Building, 29 Washington Place Phone: 212-998-8769 (office) Email: c...@nyu.edu <chunhua...@nyu.edu> http://as.nyu.edu/chemistry/research/facilities/xray-diffraction.html
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