Violent racism remains a potent force in the United States of America, no matter what revisionist Republicans might like to insist. This week, the plague reared its head on a New York subway train where on Tuesday, 40-year-old Anna Lushchinskaya launched into an angry, racist assault on an Asian passenger who has wished to remain anonymous in the aftermath of the incident.
Lushchinskaya has been arrested and charged with felony assault over striking the victim with an umbrella handle and keys while shouting racist profanities.
Watch video of the incident below.
To give context to everything, I know a lot of y’all have questions about what happened on the train yesterday, so here is the video of the racists lady going crazy on this little girl smh ??♂️
Posted by Juan Platano Man Ayala on Wednesday, December 12, 2018
For now, she’s escaping legal scrutiny over the racism — but that doesn’t mean the case has less of an impact. As the victim noted, if the attacker had some more acutely potent weapon on her at the time of the scuffle, things could easily be imagined to have gone a lot worse.
Ultimately, she suffered reported wounds on her face and a “Good Samaritan” was also cut during the woman’s rambling attack.
As she explained the situation:
‘I’m lucky that she didn’t have anything like weapons on her — like a knife or gun — because it could have got a lot worse. I’m lucky that people were on the train who were helping me, especially the first Asian guy who stood in front of me right away… he just stood in front of me to help me… I know other people were recording, but their recording didn’t do anything until later on when it escalated.’
Lushchinskaya has reportedly actually been involved in a scuffle that warranted police attention on the subway in the past. In June, she pepper sprayed a man and faced a criminal complaint. This time around, she was taken into custody very soon after the initial incident unfolded.
Throughout all of those intervening months, two things have kept up — a stream of similar incidents where racists turn themselves on unsuspecting members of minority communities, and the green lighting for such behavior from the White House.
When the president of the United States paints immigrants as inherently threatening enough to warrant thousands of active duty troops getting dispatched to the border, what exactly do you expect his supporters are going to do? The viral videos pop up like clockwork of someone going after someone who’s black, Asian, or a member of another minority community, with the perpetrators including plenty of police officers.
These incidents turn deadly, too, like in the case of Chicago security guard Jemel Roberson, who was shot dead by a police officer responding to reports of a shooting at the bar where he worked. The cop saw a black guy with a gun and fired.
Racism’s tide has begun to be turned via Democrats taking control of the U.S. House in the midterms — since apparently respecting all people including minority community members as a rule has become a partisan issue — but there’s a still a significant way to go. The victim from that attack this week on a New York subway can attest to that.
Featured Image via Screenshot from the Video
