Karen Fukuhara, who stars in Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys, was assaulted by a stranger outside of a café in what she described as an anti-Asian hate crime and called for more support for women and Asians.
The actor, an American of Japanese heritage, shared details of the alleged incident on Instagram.
“This sh*t needs to stop,” Fukuhara wrote. “Us women, Asians, and the elderly need your help.”
“I rarely share about my private life but something happened today that I thought was important,” Fukuhara wrote. “I was walking to a café for some coffee and a man struck me in the back of my head. It came out of nowhere.”
“We made no eye contact before, I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. It came to my surprise and my hat flew off,” she continued. “By the time I looked back, he was a few feet away from me (he must have kept walking after hitting me).”
“This is the first time I’ve been harmed physically, although racial slurs and hurtful actions have been directed to me in the past,” the actor said. “I write this, because I’ve had conversations with multi-racial friends of mine that had no idea these hate crimes happen to everyday, regular people – people they share meals with.”
Fukuhara, who also starred in the 2016 Suicide Squad, said she wanted to speak openly about her attack to raise awareness about anti-Asian hate crimes that have risen significantly in the past two years.
Using the hashtag “Stop Asian Hate” in her post, she asked, “What satisfaction are these perpetrators getting from hitting women, Asians, the ELDERLY? They need to be held accountable. What can we do as a community to prevent these horrible crimes?”
According to FBI data, anti-Asian hate crimes increased more than 73% in 2020.
A report issued by the United Nations in 2020 detailed “an alarming level” of racially motivated violence and other hate incidents against Asian Americans.
Fellow actors have written messages, including co-stars from The Boys, supporting Karen.
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