There have been so many of these attacks on Asian-Americans lately that it’s becoming depressing to have to talk about them, and yet the problem is clearly not going away. This was yet another incident that took place in New York City’s Chinatown district last night. And yet again, the entire incident was captured on video. The unnamed 55-year-old woman was walking down the sidewalk when she was about to pass “a man in an orange hoodie” who, out of nowhere, suddenly swung wildly, punching her in the face and knocking her unconscious. She’s expected to be okay and the suspect is in custody thanks to a quick-thinking waiter who directed police to the area where the suspect was heading. But things are clearly still out of control on the streets and Asians are being targeted at random. (NY Post)

An unhinged man randomly slugged an Asian woman in the face, knocking her to the ground, in a brazen attack outside a Chinatown restaurant on Monday, police said.

Surveillance video posted on Twitter by Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, whose district covers Chinatown, captured the horrifying daytime assault on Bayard Street, near Mott Street.

The 55-year-old victim can be seen walking by the Kong Sihk Tong café around 6:15 p.m. — when a man in an orange hoodie and denim jacket whacks her unprovoked.

Here’s the video of the attack along with some background information from CBS News.

One of the reasons I wanted to bring this story to light was not only the appalling nature of what’s been going on but the way the press has been covering these reports. You’ll notice how the assailant is described in the report as “an unhinged man” and “a man in an orange hoodie.” (And this is the New York Post we’re talking about. They’re normally less squeamish.) In the CBS video report, he is similarly described as “a man” and “the suspect.”

Is it just my imagination, or when some random white guy attacks or shoots someone and the victim is a person of color, the races of those involved are blasted in the first sentence of the report and then repeated ad nauseam throughout the article or news clip? You only have to watch that video casually to be able to see that the suspect is Black. And while it’s obviously not the situation in every case, a significant number of these seemingly random attacks on Asians have followed this pattern. The same goes for many of the recent antisemitic attacks on New York City Jews. Of course, that’s a bit less surprising because New York City has a long history of animosity in that demographic pairing.

The question is, why? What are the rules for reporting standards these days? Have the style guides been updated in regard to this question without anyone mentioning the changes? It just seems like if the race of suspects and victims is important information in one case, the same would be true of all cases. Unless, of course, you’re supporting an ongoing narrative and only reports that support that narrative merit mentioning in the press.

The attack has been reported to the hate crimes division at the NYPD. But will they actually take it up? Yes, the victim was a minority resident of the city, but I’m struggling to remember the last time a non-white person was prosecuted for a hate crime. I’ll climb down off my soapbox now.

Meanwhile, in other news, the home of an off-duty NYPD officer was shot up by suspected MS-13 members at 2:30 in the morning while she was eating in her kitchen. More than 30 rounds were reportedly fired into the home. A bullet grazed her skull, but she’s expected to be fine, thankfully. Police suspect that this could have been a case of mistaken identity because she shares the house with a sister who is believed to have MS-13 ties. I suppose that’s possible if the gang bangers were there hunting for the boyfriend, but I don’t think we can entirely rule out the possibility that they were hunting for a cop.

Escape from New York if you can, people. Things are not getting any better.