The Covid-19 era's anti-Asian racism isn't new. I learned this the hard way.

Back in 2008 I starred opposite Clint Eastwood in "Gran Torino" playing the lead Hmong role in a tale of two people transcending their differences to form an unlikely human bond. It was a historic cinematic moment for Hmong people around the world, despite its copious anti-Asian slurs . At the time, there was a lot of discussion about whether the movie's slurs were insensitive and gratuitous or simply "harmless jokes." I found it unnerving, the laughter that the slurs elicited in theaters with predominantly white audiences. And it was always white people who would say, "Can't you take a…