The Righteous Ghosts

 Illustration for Epidemic Ghost Story: The Righteous Ghosts

We translated this during the COVID pandemic, as part of a series of epidemic-related folktales that we hope would inspire the reader to reflect on how working together to care for other people, including those who are not regarded as members of one's immediate community, was what helped communities survive past epidemics. 

Btw, just because it's 2023 and the pandemic is supposedly over and the media has moved on, it doesn't mean anti-Asian hate in North America has gone out of style:

• In January 2023, an Asian student was stabbed multiple times on a bus in Indiana by an attaacker who expressed racial motivations for their actions. 
• When there was a flurry of news reporting over the Chinese balloon incident in late January/early February, Asian individuals in North America experienced increased public harassment. 
• In May 2023, Stop AAPI hate released a civil rights report on how COVID-related anti-Asian hate affected Asian Americans in workplaces and in places of public accommodation.

Will you be the one to stand up for your neighbors, like the righteous ghosts from tales of yore? Even if you do not feel safe engaging in bystander intervention, there may be opportunities to address the biased framings that trap one's friends and relatives in racist assumptions that ultimately contribute to hate in our communities. They may be willing to listen to you when they are are not willing to listen to people from marginalized groups.