 A new study shows that most Asian Americans living in New York City are concerned about their safety. Let's talk about it. Yeah, we're talking about a brand new study from the Asian American Foundation, aka TAF. We got a couple slides for you. Let's just get into it. Make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. 54% of Asian Americans who experienced a hate incident in New York City did not report the experience to anyone. Here's the truth, Andrew. Asians tend to not talk about things that are bad that happen to them. It's a cultural thing. Repression, emotional repression. Well, embarrassment. They don't want to make it a big deal. You're going to talk, there's more stats to go. Let's go through it and we'll give our opinions on it. Let's say one in two Asian Americans in New York City report personally experiencing either insults, harassment, threats, or physical attacks in the past 12 months because of the race and ethnicity. So, I guess, is that surprising to you? Not really, to be honest. If you guys know about the streets in New York, it's just a place where everybody meets everybody. This is not the suburbs, Andrew, where you're sort of like around one type of person, you know, this type of people in your school district. You see, you can walk next to a billionaire and somebody who should be in jail for a billion years right next to each other in New York City. That's sort of the nature of the density. Yeah, but I also think obviously we're going to get into it, and we've mentioned on this channel before, a lot of people view Asians as easy targets. So, it's like, let's say you're crazy and on the street and you want to talk crap to one type of person, you're probably going to target this smaller Asian person. Yes, because it's viewed as like kicking a pigeon versus like trying to attack a falcon with like really sharp talons. That's the mind perception. All right, so let's talk about major issues that affect Asian-Americans. 78% of Asian-Americans polled said public safety is a major problem, and then other ones was treatment of Asian-Americans, treatment of the particular ethnic group, inclusion in city government, opportunities for Asian-Americans. So obviously, David, almost 80% of Asians say that public safety and particularly for Asian-Americans is a concern. Yeah, I mean, I think it's honestly a concern in every city right now, just in America. Like even in Seattle, it's actually a huge trending topic right now. In a lot of cities right now, cities, cities, particularly, there's a lot of concern. SF, LA, Seattle, New York obviously, New York's a big city, but here's the thing, crime has always been a concern in New York because there's just a lot of people, right? I mean, that's just what the city is, to be honest. Well, New York was famous in the 80s and 90s for having a tremendously high crime rate and then it got really low and it seems like it rebounded a little bit, maybe not halfway, but like got more dangerous. So when asked, have you ever felt unsafe or uncomfortable in any of these places because of your race or ethnicity? 51% said public transportation and I'm guessing they probably mean the MTA subway. And then 29% said they've never felt unsafe and then 21% said at a local market and in my neighborhood and at my workplace. So Dave, I'm not gonna lie, I read the subway, a lot of people out there ride the subway MTA. It can be kind of a dark place, especially if you're standing by yourself and especially when, you know, if you know a girl who's taking the subway, you gotta be extra cautious. I say, share the location. If not, get a car. Don't do the subway. Bro, in the latest Robinson, Robert Pattinson Batman, there's literally an old Chinese man getting beat up in the subway. That's the whole opening scene of Batman. Yeah, I think subway. So I just saw that the government, Cathy Hochul, promised like a lot more security. Oh no, they've got the National Guard up in there right now. Right now, today they have the National Guard in there. Yeah, so is that going to help? Maybe? No, because part of it is the design of the subway. It's a little creepy sometimes. Anyways. Well, it's like from a hundred years ago. Yeah, but I do like to take it, it's very cheap. Who is more likely to report to NYPD or law enforcement when something happens, the people who experienced it firsthand or witness it, actually more people that are witnesses reported, David, and that's interesting. So we're gonna talk about that because it seems like Asians, and depending on if you're maybe an immigrant or you don't speak the language, if something happens to you, almost you're less likely to report it because you wanna keep that internal. For sure, for sure. If you're an immigrant and let's be honest, I don't know like whatever the legal situation is of yourself or people in your family might not have papers. You just don't wanna even get into the system and go through 20 interviews, you know? Exactly, so this next slide is for those who did report it, who did they report to and most people reported to a friend or family. And then secondary was local police. Isn't this interesting? But it makes sense because you're probably gonna report it to the people closest to you first because you wanna come together and figure out what's the next steps because a lot of like, I just know a lot of people don't like talking to police. They don't like filing reports. They don't like having the police come over. They don't like drawing that attention. If their neighbors see that the police come over to their house, oh, what happened? Are they bad? It becomes a big deal. In my experience, and I don't know, you know, it could vary department to department but like NYPD, FD, NY have been pretty good relative to police anywhere else. So you're saying people should not be afraid in your experience to talk to the police or FDR? Obviously it depends on the quality of the officer. Some are gonna like more pursue the case to the case's end and other people are gonna more like try to pass it off. Brings us on to our next slide. Barriers to report for those who experienced a hate crime for people who personally experienced something, 42% said they did not want to bring attention to themselves. 29% said I did not know really how to report it. 27% said I did not know how to report. Oh, 29% said I did not know I could report it. 26% said I'm uncomfortable reporting the law enforcement. 19% said they're embarrassed. So basically, David, all these top reasons are either out of embarrassment or I don't wanna deal with the system or I didn't know I could. Yeah, I mean... Is that a legit reason that you didn't know you could report it? Because isn't it like, if it's your first time talking to police, maybe you don't know if that's something you should report to the police. Maybe you're thinking, well, the police are dealing with more serious things. I didn't get hurt, hurt. I didn't get beat up, but something bad happened, but maybe I shouldn't report it. Yeah, I mean, it's tough. I mean, it's almost like kids getting picked on in school. You know how some kids, they do go and then some people call them tattle tails and then other people, they don't say anything and they just sort of like internalize it or feel fear. Yeah. Like everybody has a variance of reaction when this negative stimulus from an external source like comes to them. I admit that there is a barrier to calling the police. I think that when you grow up thinking that you gotta call the police only for something hyper serious. Like, there was a dude that we saw during the pandemic and he was a crazy dude, clearly on substances and he was out in the middle of Delancey Street and he was yelling mean things. He wasn't hurting anybody. We had a Nazi tattoo on his leg. Yeah, but he was like hailing Hitler and he was saying all this crazy stuff, kind of talking about- With a leather skirt on. He had a leather skirt on. Yeah, he was talking about Asians, but he wasn't saying it to us. And then I thought to myself, we kind of had this conversation. We were like, yo, should we report this? Cause we're like, I'm not gonna like go over and fight this cause he hasn't done anything. And then I talked to a police friend later and I said, yo, what if I reported that? And then the police friend was like, yeah, it'd be tough cause if he didn't do anything yet, there's probably not that much we could have done. You know, maybe a guy could have rolled by and driven by and just taking a look at him, but they're not gonna like arrest him just for screaming out loud, you know? So it's like, again, there's all these barriers we don't know, but I can understand that it's hard for people to pick up the phone. Next one is how many Asian Americans in New York have adopted at least one avoidance behavior to avoid hate victimization? Three out of four. That's a lot. I mean, especially women, I think, I think guys too, especially if you're smaller, you're older, it's gonna depend on your physicality. Listen, if you're six, three, you're buff, you're tatted up, you're from the hood. You don't need to run as much risk avoidance. Right. You know what I mean? Because the risk is like, people scared of you like. Asian women were especially likely to say they avoided going out late at night and taking public transportation. David, have you adopted any avoidance behaviors since getting to New York? Yeah, I do think you gotta up your street smarts because the streets are crazy. Yeah. I would just say. You have to essentially up your IQ for whatever environment that you're entering, but it is difficult because I have seen some immigrants. Sometimes, let's just say you're from a village in rural Asia, you come over, unless you get heavy coaching, training, and even then some people, they just can't get it fully to sink into their brain. Right, right, right. It's unfortunate. I've seen it a lot, man. I think that that's the part that makes me feel really unfortunate because I've seen people on the street where I was just like, man, this person just doesn't get it. They don't even know where they're at. They don't know the probabilities. They don't know the risk exposures. They don't know the probable outcomes based on this shifting multifactorial equation of IRL or not. They just don't got it. Right, right, right. And then, yeah, I would say for me, avoiding people, I mean, I definitely just keep your distance from shady people, especially like, I'm not gonna lie on the subway. When you see someone who's very, very stinky, now I'm just saying, and I'm talking about like, they're crazy stinky, not just like, oh, they smell like food. I'm saying they stink stink, or they look like in bad shape. I just keep a little distance, just because those people generally they're kind of crazy. So that's not like, I'm not avoiding all people, but I just like, you just know how to keep your distance from people who seem volatile. It's not just the people in the subway cart itself. It's like the people that are hanging out on the different levels sometimes. Sometimes they just feel like it's just depending on the stop. Yeah. No, I'm not saying be scared to everybody. I'm not scared. I just like, you know, give it a little extra a couple of feet, like why not? Like that's your safety. Yeah, I really think it depends on like, what movies you watch growing up to. You got to have watched like movies on where people handled people in a realistic way. Like, you know, you got to watch movies about the city. Like don't come to New York City if you only watch Disney movies your whole life. And you believe that life is like Disney. Like, it's not Disney. Because my thing is, if you don't give yourself space from potentially volatile, crazy people, and then they bump you or something, and then you feel offended, and then you get disrespect, and then you want to do something about it, and then it turns into this whole thing, that is kind of on you because you're the more sane, smart person. So that's why I say- There's a lot of people that are completely out of their wits, out of their mind. Like any sort of normative social structure that like holds together like spectrums of behavior is gone. There's no more barriers to nothing. Like their borders are not your borders. Yeah, and definitely like, please think about sharing Uber's late at night, especially if you're a female, you know, I think- Or get the Uber share. Uber share can't be that. I mean, it's cheaper, you know, it's still better than taking public transport. Exactly. All right, guys, most of the people who were polled for this survey, because obviously New York has a large Chinese population, no wonder, 40% of the respondents were Chinese, 17% were Indian, 7% Korean, 7% Bangladeshi, 6% Japanese, 6% Filipino, and then there's Pakistani, Pacific Islander, Vietnamese, and other Asians. So- It makes sense because Chinese make up by far the primary Asian in New York City. Like most people are just Chinese. And most people who also replied to this came from Queens, 42%, so it was probably a lot of Chinese people in Queens, 27% from Brooklyn and 17% from Manhattan. It's tough too, because Queens, it's a little bit more suburban, there's a lot more other Asians out there, and then if you're taking a train and another part, Brooklyn, I don't know, it's just like, even different parts of New York, different boroughs, different neighborhoods within the borough could be so different. Yeah. So I guess they have some conclusion pages here about like people agreed that there needs to be training on how to report hate crimes, like whether organizations need to talk, whether it's a church or some other type of organization that you're a part of, you need to at least talk about how to report a hate crime, because a lot of people honestly are not prepared. Yeah, they should have that training at local community institutions, whether that's a church or whatever it may be. I know that it sounds as simple as pick up the phone and call 911, but it's like, no, you see something, you process it, how to process it, and then you talk to them and you know. It's tough, I've been to a couple Buddhist temples and it's like, man, it's so good for your spirit, especially if you do align with Buddhism, but it's like, they're not gonna give you that coaching necessarily, and they're not gonna teach you that in school either. Yeah. And then they also say there's a need for reporting accessibility, meaning that just I think when the community all knows that reporting things is the right thing to do, then you feel more comfortable doing it. So in conclusion, to combat anti-Asian incidences, a large majority of Asian Americans strongly supported these resources. Let's just, this is from what the survey said, better relationships with the police, mental health and legal services, senior services, youth activities, and training on how to report incidences. So, David, do you think better relationships with the police would help Asians feel more safe? Yeah, if there was more famous Asian police officers, but specifically you would need to get granular with it, you would need a famous Fujinese police officer to speak Fujinese with the Fujinese community in their dialect. You know what I'm talking about? That level of granularity would be necessary to increase the engagement. Or I guess personally knowing a police officer makes you feel more safe, right? Yeah, there would need to be at public events, at restaurant openings, at, you know, maybe somebody who retired from the police force needs to open up a boba chain or something. You know what I mean? Like just something that's more like, an NYPD. In the community. NYPD boba. If a boba was good, I don't think Chinese would have anything against it. Right, right. I guess, David, in your opinion, and you know, we've looked a lot into self-defense. We've covered a lot of these kind of stories and statistics over the years. I guess, what do you think that Asians can do to feel safer in New York City? We all love the city. We love New York, the opportunities, the fiber, the culture, it's fun. It moves fast, lots of things to do. On the downside, there is this kind of like looming, like concern, we're like, all right, just a little bit more safe up against us. Yeah, let's be real, let's be real. As far as New York City goes, any city, probably every group has killed Asians more than Asians have killed another group. Yes. That's, I'll stand on it. I mean, find us the stats that prove that. Yeah, yeah, like in just in general, Asians have been killed by probably everybody, more than Asians have killed anybody in America in just a macro bird's eye too. So it's like, of course, I don't know what, listen guys, you got to talk to your family, man. You got to show them videos that you got to, if you pick like a martial arts studio, try to pick a martial arts studio that has more IRL application like distribution in terms of how they spend their time and like their teaching methods, right? Like that's what I would say, but I can't like, you know, even me, I can speak Mandarin and I can speak Cantonese, but it's hard for me to fully like, get through to a different generation that's from back in the motherland. Yeah, especially if that's not like, you were not related to them or family. Yeah, and they don't necessarily have like space. Some do, but not everybody has space in their like, hard drive or their motherboard to like, accept new programming. That's what I've seen. I have some suggestions I think that would help. I mean, this is in the macro, is like Asians becoming a more significant voting block. I do think voting still matters. This is still how America has ran. So if people want our vote, they got to help us out. So if we, if Asians vote, then people got to cater towards us and try to convince us to vote for them, right? Obviously better relationships with the community and police and like just not like, I think a lot of Asians feel like outsiders maybe to the larger community of New York, which is a sad feeling because- Especially Chinese, especially Chinese, keep it real. We've been here, like Chinese been in New York for over a hundred years, the first Asian to be here. And it's still like, you could argue is like- No, it's mostly Chinese in New York. Of the Asians, Chinese is the predominant Asian. Yes, that is true. There's obviously different groups of Chinese, different sub-sex, but- Different immigration waves that don't necessarily communicate even- Different economic classes. But regardless, it is Chinese. So yeah, I think like Chinese people feeling on the outside, it only makes you more unsafe because you don't even understand other people. You don't understand your neighbors. You don't know, keep it real too. Chinese don't necessarily feel like they can go to other Chinese too. It's not like- It's not like Koreans, they're gonna feel comfortable going to another Korean. That's true. Even Chinese, they don't trust the Chinese. There are even splits within the Chinese in New York. Even, I'm not saying they don't mess with each other, but culturally, if you're from Fuzhou and you're from Guangzhou, you're culturally, you just speak a different language. You kind of have different alliances. Yeah, the communities, they might have some whatever- So anyways, but like, yeah, staying prepared, staying alert, train some martial arts just to feel more confident, but don't think you're gonna fight everybody. I would still say, keep your distance, learn how to run away. Be a good witness. The police really need to be on WeChat. They need to have a WeChat, but then now see, can they get a WeChat because they're worried about security information? Right, right, right. Obviously, learn to be a good witness, have a protocol for that. When you see something, are you videotaping it? Are you calling first? Are you gonna try to intervene verbally? Whatever, think about that. And yeah, I mean, just staying alert and just not, you know, obviously I think Manhattan is a little, it feels more safer than other parts of New York, but that's what it is, so. Listen man, sometimes when you're in an unfamiliar place and you feel like you're here for the economic opportunities of your kids, you can kind of like be like, I'm not in my hometown village, I'm not around the dialect that I grew up speaking and it's like, you kind of like, put your life a little bit on autopilot mode and it's like, you're not an MPC, but outwardly I could see why some people feel like you're living life like an MPC. Cause you're so focused on one goal and it's like, I'm just trying to get by, do my job, you know? And he's like, I don't want to think I'm tired and then you're walking down the street. Like I don't know anybody I grew up with or they're not speaking the languages, the expressions, the idioms, the everything that like makes me feel like who I am, you know? I couldn't even happen to them, like they're just outside of their home province in China, like even to like Beijing or something like that. So it's like, let alone New York City or Oakland or whatever, you know what I mean? I think that that's like an overlooked aspect too. So listen guys, I always say it's on the younger generation. If you see something help the older generation out, you don't got to be their caretaker, like you're responsible for them on a, you know, on an everyday basis. But when you have that, if you got more knowledge, you have more boldness, you have a better understanding of the system, help how you can as quick and efficiently as you can. Yeah, definitely. And I think the more community that you feel like you have the safer you feel. So getting to know other people in your community is important. Anyways, guys, we're gonna wrap it up there. Let us know what you thought about this study. Shout out to the Asian American Foundation TAF for putting money into this. That's what they're meant to do. They're trying to bring all these stats out so that we can all talk about it and we have something to maybe even use politically. I don't know. But anyways, guys, let us know what are your tips? Do you think New York feels unsafe for you? What are some things you do to feel safe in the city of any city? Not just New York. So let us know, hit that like button. Hopefully this video was useful and until next time, we out. Peace.