THE UNSETTLING Oakland OF ANTI-ASIAN RACISM

The video opens on a sunny Oakland street corner, where two men are walking down the sidewalk. The way they move, the composition of their bodies, suggests they don’t know each other. Their stances will feel familiar to anyone used to sharing city streets with strangers. 

The man in front appears older, walking with deliberate caution, when the other approaches quickly from behind and gives him one vigorous shove. The motion is UFABET swift, dispassionate. As the older man falls to the ground, the assailant bounds back with inverse force, releasing his hands above his head in what could be a display of triumph — or merely a reflex — before strolling out of the frame. 

The whole thing is abrupt and sudden. Maybe you’ve seen it, autoplayed on loop, almost like a GIF, as it moves through your timelines.

The next day, at a press conference held by the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Libby Schaaf used the recent attacks on Asian Americans as a political gambit, criticizing efforts to reduce the police budget. “I have not forgotten that this last summer,” she said, when local officials “brought a proposal to cut $25 million from the Oakland.

Even those who disagree with Chan carry with them the history of unacknowledged pain. Earlier that day