Chloe Kim Details Experiences With Anti-Asian Hate: 'I Don't Look at My Messages Much Anymore'

Chloe Kim told ESPN that, "Just because I am a professional athlete or won the Olympics doesn't exempt me from racism."

2018 Olympic gold medalist Chloe Kim, a first-generation Korean American, said the recent attacks on Asian Americans in the United States and the continuous hateful messages on social media have taken a toll on her mental health.

In an interview with ESPN's Alyssa Roenigk, Kim said, "Just because I am a professional athlete or won the Olympics doesn't exempt me from racism. I get hundreds of those kinds of messages monthly. I see maybe 30 a day."

Kim told ESPN that upon winning her first medal at the 2014 X Games at age 13, she faced social media abuse upon sharing a mere photo of her accomplishment. 

"People belittled my accomplishment because I was Asian," Kim said. "There were messages in my DMs telling me to go back to China and to stop taking medals away from the white American girls on the team. I was so proud of my accomplishment, but instead I was sobbing in bed next to my mom, asking her, 'Why are people being so mean because I'm Asian?'"

Kim's comments to ESPN come amid a rise in hate incidents in the Asian American community. 

Reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in America’s 16 largest cities increased nearly 150% in 2020, according to police data pulled by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. Among other incidents, in early March a mass shooting occurred in the Atlanta area in which eight people died at spas, six of them Asian women. 

On Tuesday, President Biden laid out plans to address rising racism against Asian Americans and the U.S. Justice Department is also set to review how it can better combat violent acts against people of Asian descent. 

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Kim said she's been spit on in public, but noted she didn't share those experiences with her friends or peers and hid most of it from her family. 

She told ESPN that she had previously stopped speaking Korean to her parents in public because she was "so ashamed and hated that I was Asian." She added, though, that, "I've learned to get over that feeling, and now I am so proud."

Kim, the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding gold medal, said that in the past year she turned off social media notifications from her phone.

"I used to love responding to my fans, but I don't look at my messages much anymore," she told ESPN. "Even if you get thousands of supportive messages, the hateful one will hit you the most."