Olympic gold medalist Sunisa Lee said she was pepper-sprayed on the arm last month as the United States grapples with rising anti-Asian hate crimes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lee said the incident occurred while she was waiting for an Uber in Los Angeles, California, with some friends, who were also Asian Americans. A car drove by, and the passengers shouted racial slurs and told the group to go back to where they came from, Lee told PopSugar.
FBI REPORTS HATE CRIMES ROSE TO 12-YEAR HIGH IN 2020
“I was so mad, but there was nothing I could do or control because they skirted off,” Lee said. “I didn’t do anything to them, and having the reputation, it’s so hard because I didn’t want to do anything that could get me into trouble. I just let it happen.”
There have been increasing incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes since the onset of the pandemic, which some speculate could be due to COVID-19’s origins in China. There have been 9,081 hate crimes reported against the Asian and Pacific Islander community between March 2020 and June of this year, according to a report from nonprofit organization Stop AAPI Hate Crimes.
Hate crimes became more physically aggressive between 2020 and 2021, climbing from 10.8% last year to 16.6% so far this year, while verbal assaults decreased from 69.5% to 58%, the report added.
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Lee, who is of Laotian descent, rose to international fame during the 2020 Olympic Games over the summer, where she became the first Asian American to win an Olympic gold medal, according to the Star Tribune. She clinched the top prize for best all-around in women’s gymnastics, becoming the fifth American to receive the title consecutively. U.S. gymnasts Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, Nastia Liukin, and Carly Patterson won the title in previous games.
