Asian MMA Stars Unite in the Face of Racism Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic
With the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global situation bringing the world to its knees, we’ve seen both the best and the worst of humankind.
On one end, people have gone to great lengths to lend a helping hand to one another. We’ve donated money, Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) such as face masks, gowns, and other materials to our medical frontliners, and shared our blessings with the less fortunate who have limited access to basic necessities such as food, clean water, and shelter. We’ve left no one behind in this worldwide fight against this terrible virus.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, we’ve also seen things like racism emerge even in these difficult times — particularly against Asian-Americans, who have recently had to face an intense wave of racism.
ONE Championship athletes, many of whom are of mixed nationalities, have taken a united stand in the face of racism amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in the “#WeAreONE Against Racism” campaign. It’s a show of solidarity among some of the world’s greatest martial arts world champions.
The world’s largest martial arts organization recently uploaded a video to inspire people to band together in this cause.
Some athletes featured include Cameroonian-Hong Konger Alain “The Panther” Ngalani, Vietnamese-Australian Martin “The Situ-Asian” Nguyen, Surinamese-Dutch Regian “The Immortal” Eersel, Indian-Canadian Gurdarshan “Saint Lion” Mangat, Armenian-Italian Giorgio Petrosyan, Japanese-American Janet Todd, Singaporean-American Christian Lee, and Vietnamese-American Bi Nguyen, among others.
With people having largely been advised to stay at home and stay indoors to mitigate the spread of the virus, and with life on Earth having basically come to a pause, we are traversing through extraordinary and unfamiliar roads. While we continue to fight to flatten the curve, it’s time to put racism and hate behind us.
The video is a message for citizens of the world to unite as one, to end racism and discrimination, now more than ever during these times of hardship and adversity.
ONE Championship ends the video with the words “No country has a face. No virus has a race. End the hate. End racism,” to remind people that no matter where we come from, we are all in this fight together.
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