This week kicked my butt.
Do you ever have those days or weeks where you just feel like you’re constantly behind, just running to keep up with your own tail? And it’s not simply that I’ve felt late on things I have to do, my heart also feels like it’s trailing behind.
On Tuesday March 16th, 21 year-old Robert Aaron Long went on a shooting spree in Atlanta, Georgia, specifically targeting three spas. He killed a total of eight people, six of whom were Asian women. These are their names:
Daoyou Feng (44)
Delaina Ashley Yaun (33)
Hyun Jung Grant (51)
Soon Chung Park (74)
Suncha Kim (69)
Yong Ae Yue (63)
Paul Andre Michels (54)
Xiaojie Tan (49)
Their deaths have shaken the nation once more as a conversation that has been bubbling just below the surface suddenly burst into all capitals onto every screen and platform #STOPAAPIHATE #RACISMISAVIRUS !!!
For those in the Asian community, this is not a new topic. They have been living these experiences of marginalization from the moment they first stepped foot on these shores. In the last year however, there has been increasing concern for the safety of the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Stop AAPI Hate recently released their latest national report which tracks incidents of hate throughout the 50 states from March 2020 - February 2021. During that time they received 3,795 reports of anti-Asian hate, and 35.4% of these cases took place within a business setting. In contrast to the previous year, this is an increase of about 150% of reported anti-Asian hate crimes.
On March 16th, 2020, President Trump first tweeted the phrase “Chinese virus”. This sparked a massive increase in anti-Asian sentiment as suddenly it became ‘ok’ to blame one ethnic group for a global pandemic, because our President said so. Three months later he added “kung flu” to his vocabulary, this time using it during a rally speech. In doing so, Trump placed a target on the back of anyone who could be identified as Asian.
Exactly a year to the day later of Trump’s tweet, 8 innocent people are murdered by a young white male who is simply described by Capt. Jay Baker as, “having a bad day.” None of this is unrelated.
As the week has gone on and more details have been revealed, I have taken the time to read the names of those who were so brutally murdered, to hear about their lives, and to honor their memories by holding space for their stories. A statement made by one of Suncha Kim’s grandchildren, Regina Song, on a GoFundMe page stood out to me with its poignant humanity:
"My grandmother was an angel, to have her taken away in such a horrific manner is unbearable to think about. As an immigrant, all my grandmother ever wanted in life was to grow old with my grandfather, and watch her children and grandchildren live the life she never got to live.”
We are doing something deeply, bitterly wrong when a culture of hate is allowed room to breathe, grow and take out the lives of elders in our communities and country. It is painfully problematic when we hand the nation’s loudest microphone to a man who carelessly throws his words away, and then refuses to be held accountable to their devastating impact. We are merely paying lip service to the grieving if all we do is shake our heads at the news reports, and then carry on our merry way of building our machines and businesses without taking stock and holding space for those who need a moment to be heard and to heal.
This isn’t a new conversation. It’s been happening since the moment the first colonizer stepped foot on this land, and declared their skin and life as superior to the inhabitants that they encountered. The difference is, are we going to allow it to continue?
* The image used for this blog was created by @by.hojeong - an aspiring children’s book author and illustrator.
