Racial attacks and hate crimes are rampant in the US, and the latest reported episode is another example.
Also on the rise are people using their cell phones to record events they see in public, and you can easily end up on Facebook or other social media, or have your name and photo plastered all over the internet, if you aren’t careful.
A woman shooting-her-mouth-off in a parking lot in Dallas was arrested and may face a hate crime charge for her rant and attack on South Asian women.
The episode happened Wednesday, August 24. Esmeralda Upton, 58, a Plano, Texas resident, was jailed with $10,000 bail, and was charged with an assault misdemeanor and terroristic threat charge.
According to Dallas TV station WFAA, a Indian-American woman named Rani Banerjee, and her friends, went into the parking lot after eating at a restaurant around 8 pm. Upton approached them in the parking lot and out-of-the-blue, Upton started yelling at them with racial slurs.
The attack was condemned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“The level of vitriol and alleged physical assault against four Indian-American women in Plano is truly appalling,” Faizan Syed, executive director of CAIR-DFW, told the TV station. “This type of hate has no place in North Texas, and we call on law enforcement to investigate this incident as a hate crime.”
The police confirmed that the incident is being investigated and hate crime charges may apply.
As is often the case these days, a video was taken and widely circulated online. The video shows Upton ranting racial slurs and threatening to shoot the women. It is also shows that Banerjee was physically assaulted, while she was recording the incident on her cell phone.
Anti-Asian violence has increased over the years in the US. In 2021, six Asian women were killed in an Atlanta massage business. Asian Americans, as well as other minorities, are in fear for their lives.
Earlier in August, a man was arrested for a hate crime involving a shooting of three Asian-American women at a nail salon in Dallas. Also in August, a Texas man was sent to prison for a 25 year sentence for attacking a family of Asian origin in 2020 because he thought they were Chinese and believed that China was responsible for the pandemic.
