Advancing Justice | AAJC and Hollaback! Provide Training Amid COVID-19 Racist Attacks

More Than 2.6K Individuals Sign-Up for Initial Training
For Immediate Release
Contact
Michelle Boykins (202) 296-2300, ext. 0144 mboykins@advancingjustice-aajc.org

Washington, D.C. — Today, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC and Hollaback! announce additional bystander intervention training sessions after more than 2,600 people registered for the initial trainings.

While anti-Asian and Asian American racism and xenophobia are not new -- we have seen discrimination manifested against different communities in many ways over the years -- as the coronavirus pandemic escalates, our communities are experiencing harassment, discrimination, and even violence. The fear is palpable and very real.

“We are proud to offer this new bystander intervention training through a partnership with Hollaback!,” said Marita Etcubañez, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. “In these difficult times, we now have individuals who are trained in intervention tactics and now better able to ’take care, of one another’ and contribute to building a world where hate, including racism and xenophobia, is unacceptable in all of its forms.”

Advancing Justice | AAJC is part of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, an affiliation of five Asian American civil rights organizations, which has been documenting hate crimes and hate incidents at StandAgainstHatred.org, which is available in English, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. We continue to encourage people to report their experiences to this site to help us to monitor and push back against hate. This information supports our work to educate the public, empower others, show service providers where help is needed, and strengthen advocacy efforts for hate crimes response and prevention.

"When harassment happens too often, we freeze. We stay silent. We don't know what to do,” said Emily May, Executive Director, Hollaback!  “We're proud to partner with Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC to teach people how to safely intervene when they see harassment happening. Using bystander intervention, we can chip away at the culture that makes violence and harassment of our Asian/American sisters and brothers all too common."

Advancing Justice | AAJC and Hollaback! will continue to offer these trainings free-of-charge. We have scheduled two trainings per week for the rest of April.

  • Tuesday, April 21st at 3pm ET / 2pm CT / 1pm MT / 12pm PT / 9am HT
  • Thursday, April 23rd at 7pm ET / 6pm CT / 5pm MT / 4pm PT / 1pm HT
  • Monday, April 27th at 7pm ET / 6pm CT / 5pm MT / 4pm PT / 1pm HT

Thanks to the Advancing Justice affiliates and many Community Partners who helped improve and workshop this training, we continue to improve upon it and will now have a number of sessions scheduled for May. Stay tuned for the schedule.

For more background, please see Hollaback’s publication, Show Up: Your Guide to Bystander Intervention.