The Daily UbuntuThread 07 · Digital Solitude · September 8, 2026
The virus had a face, they said
In 2020, hate crimes targeting people of Asian origin soared in Canada. A rumour can single out an entire group; a gesture can remind us these are neighbours.
1 · The scene
Rush hour on the metro. A student gets on, mask on her face, earbuds in. An elderly woman sitting near the door picks up her bag and moves over one seat, without looking at her.
The student hesitates. Then she lowers her mask for a second and smiles, simply. The woman looks away, looks back, and ends up smiling in turn, a little embarrassed. Two stations later, they are talking about the cold. Nothing has been said about the rest. Something, though, has shifted.
Original vignette
2 · The documented case
A rise in hate in the middle of a pandemic
According to Statistics Canada, police-reported hate crimes reached 2,669 in 2020, the highest since 2009. Those targeting people of East or Southeast Asian origin rose from 67 to 269, an increase of 301% in one year. In Vancouver, police recorded 98 anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020, compared with 12 the year before, including the assault of a 92-year-old man with dementia.
As early as May 2020, in a Statistics Canada crowdsourcing survey, whose results do not represent the whole population, 30% of participants of Chinese origin said they perceived an increase in harassment linked to their origin, compared with 6% of other participants. The words used online and in public to refer to the virus weighed on people who had nothing to do with it.
Community groups and cities, such as Richmond, British Columbia, launched campaigns to report incidents and support victims. Because hate takes hold when silence lets it, and retreats when witnesses decide to show up.
3 · The voice
“The reality is, people have just given up.”
4 · The question
When an online rumour singles out an entire group, what can each of us do to remind others that these are our neighbours?
Sources
- Police-reported hate crime, 2020 (Statistics Canada, The Daily, 2022, French version) www150.statcan.gc.ca
- Perceptions of discriminatory incidents during COVID-19 (Statistics Canada, 2020, French version) www150.statcan.gc.ca
- Anti-Asian hate crimes up 717% in Vancouver (CTV News Vancouver, 2021) bc.ctvnews.ca
- Three years after the start of the pandemic (CBC News, 2023) www.cbc.ca
Every figure on this page links to a verifiable public source.
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