Naomi Osaka raises voice against anti-Asian hate crimes

Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka objected on her Twitter feed to the recent increase in hate crimes against the Asians in the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“If people loved Asian people as much as they love bubble tea, anime, mochi, sushi, matcha etc…” wrote Osaka, who has a Haitian father and a Japanese mother and has lived in the United States since she was three.

“Imagine profiting/enjoying things that come from a culture and then attacking/diminishing the ethnic group that created it.”

The first case of the coronavirus infection was reported in Wuhan, central China, in late 2019.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he is “profoundly concerned” about the rise of violence against Asians and people of Asian descent since the pandemic began.

The statement followed a deadly shooting in Atlanta on March 16 by a white male suspect, in which six of the eight murder victims were women of Asian descent.

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“It’s really sad that this even has to be a hashtag/slogan,” Osaka wrote on her Instagram in reference to the #stopasianhate. “It should be common sense but it seems like common sense is uncommon in this world now.”

In each round of the U.S. Open last summer, which she won for the second time, Osaka wore a face mask bearing a name of a black victim of police brutality in the United States in support of Black Lives Matter and the fight against racial injustice.