A BRIEF STATEMENT
In the matter of the heinous attack in Atlanta this week in which a man I will not name targeted workers at Asian-themed spa businesses, there is much we don’t know. We’ve seen reporting and headlines over the past year about the rise of anti-Asian and Pacific Islander hate in this country, and we’ve even heard cautions that not every case is racially motivated. I will admit that sometimes we don’t know.
But there’s a lot we do know.
We know that just over a year ago, the President of the United States used ethnic slurs and childish rhetoric to scapegoat a specific racial group and blame them for the coronavirus pandemic. Predictably, many Americans saw this as permission to bully, harass, and assault members of this community.
We know that generations ago the US government formally excluded Chinese immigration and in a different time put Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, stole their land, and worse.
We know that in between these periods of time, we’ve lived in a culture which fetishizes Asian women while also treating them as less than human, which emasculates Asian men, which presumes that “Asian” is even definable as one group, ignoring the actual histories, religions, skin tones, and lives of many peoples.
We know that our culture elevates whiteness above all others at the expense of all.
And without knowing all the facts of the ugliness that happened in Atlanta, we know eight people are dead, and six of them were Asian. They all worked in Asian-themed businesses. And the killer is white.
Most important to me, we know that in a press conference yesterday, Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jay Baker described the motivations of the shooter as follows: “He was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope. Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.”
Whether the shooter ever acknowledges his actions had a racial motivation, this grossly negligent and hurtful statement/action by law enforcement is built on a foundation of white supremacy. Baker prioritized the experience, perspective, and feelings of a multiple-murderer. He centered the criminal and erased the victims. The statement is hateful, and as a member of a community which has been erased often, abused often, murdered often even by people sworn to protect and serve, the statement sickens me.
I extend my love, my solidarity, my energy, and my heart to my fellow humans of Asian descent who are hurting right now. This pain is too familiar to too many of us. You are not alone in this.
