San Francisco launches campaign against racial discrimination

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Tuesday announced the launch of the Stand Together campaign to denounce and combat racial discrimination in the city.

"San Francisco strives to be a city that celebrates all of its diverse communities, but we know that racism and discrimination persist, and have been heightened due to COVID-19," said Breed in an announcement.

"We need to send a strong signal that San Francisco will not tolerate racial discrimination and that we will stand together to oppose hate," she said.

The campaign, organized by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and community leaders, began Tuesday with a town hall meeting on anti-Asian discrimination.

In the coming months, the city will host a series of public town hall meetings, working collectively with community leaders to address racial bias and discrimination.

The campaign will also include projects aimed at repairing community relationships that have become strained during the COVID-19 pandemic, the announcement said.

Since the onset of the pandemic, xenophobic and racist remarks and actions have resulted in the increase in anti-Asian hate incidents in the United States, including in San Francisco.

There are over 2,700 reported incidents throughout the country since the pandemic, according to non-profit organization Chinese for Affirmative Action, a co-founder of Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate, a national coalition aimed at addressing anti-Asian discrimination.

Of those incidents, California represents 43 percent, or 1,186 of the total counts, and San Francisco has 282 incidents, said the organization.

According to Sheryl Davis, executive director of the city's Human Rights Commission, health and social disparities caused by COVID-19 will expand if the society does not stand together.

"Our liberation is linked. If we are going to address the many pandemics happening at this moment, we have to be united in our fight," she said.