We honor and stand in solidarity with the Asian and Pacific Islander communities grieving the tragic killings of Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Julie Park, Park Heyon Jeong, and two others whose names we do not yet know.
On Tuesday, March 16, Robert Long brutally targeted and killed eight people – including six Asian-American women – at three different spas in North Georgia. This hate crime and the increase in hateful attacks against Asian communities across the country is appalling. We are heartbroken by these murders, which are fueled by the United States’ long history of white supremacy, systemic racism, and gendered violence.
While the number of hate crimes against AAPI communities has rapidly escalated and reached over 3,800 this past year, we know that anti-Asian violence is not new. It has been happening for centuries, and too often ignored. Tuesday’s attack is no exception. This is a direct legacy of the continued devaluation, fetishization, and commodification of Asian women for centuries.
Anti-Asian and gender-based violence is embedded into the fabric of our country. It lives in our infrastructure, our budgets, our policies, and our media – from the Page Act of 1875, to a year of scape-goating of Asian communities amidst a global pandemic, to the deportation of 33 Vietnamese refugees just this past week despite the Biden administration’s promised 100-day moratorium. We must stand against this hate.
At PBP, we know that dismantling and rebuilding our current systems is the only way to realize a liberated future. Increased policing will not get us there. The path forward requires us all to address, confront, and end racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, imperialism, and sex worker discrimination head on, at every turn, always.
We stand in solidarity with Asian communities in mourning the murdered and grieve for the victims and their surviving loved ones. We stand in solidarity with Asian communities fighting for community care. We stand in collective solidarity against the systems of violence which make this hate crime possible.
- Asian Americans Advancing Justice -Atlanta Statement
- Donation Page to support victims and their families through this difficult time
- Red Canary Song is a “grassroots collective of Asian & migrant sex workers, organizging transnationally”
- Please read and share their statement
- Follow and amplify their work, including a vigil, tonight, Thursday March 18
- 18 Million Rising
- Call On Me, Not the Cops: A Community Resource by 18 Million Rising in Bengali/Bangla, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Sinhala, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Urdu, and Vietnamese
- Barnard Center for Research on Women has compiled an extensive list of resources, events, and organizations to support
