Asian American Teen Punched on Video at Basketball Tournament, Allegedly Called Slur

An Asian American teenager was punched and allegedly called racial slurs during an AAU game in Oakland, California, according to Maria Medina of KPIX.

KPIX shared a video of the incident. A student named Evan is shoved to the ground and punched by an opposing player. His mother, Lennie, said members of the opposing team, the San Francisco Generals, also called Evan and some of his teammates "c---k."

Olivia, an eyewitness, corroborated the account.

"Several of the boys said they were using a lot of profanity using the ‘B’ word using the ‘C’ word," she said.

Grassroots 365, which hosted the tournament, announced on Instagram the Generals have been suspended. The organizers added they "condemn anti-Asian racism and any and all forms of discrimination against any ethnicities in all of our programs and events."

Lennie said her son suffered a concussion from the punch. Evan's parents said that the players who attacked their son were only reprimanded after pressure from parents. Per Medina, "after several frustrated parents confronted the tournament director, they agreed the player who threw the punch would be banned" for the next game. However, another player who pushed Evan was not suspended.

They told Medina they plan to file a police report.

The altercation comes as anti-Asian discrimination is becoming more frequent, a trend fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic. The FBI warned of what was to come in March 2020 when the pandemic was beginning to take hold in the United States.

Former President Donald Trump helped inflame the antipathy toward Asian Americans by labeling COVID-19 the "China Virus."

Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit that tracks hate, violence, bullying, discrimination and harassment against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., said in March it received 3,795 reports of anti-Asian "hate incidents" across all 50 states and the District of Columbia from March 19, 2020, through February 28, 2021.