Following the murders of six Asian Americans in Atlanta, and in the wake of a rise of racist attacks across the world, here’s some ways to educate, donate, and take action
On Tuesday (March 16), eight people were killed in a mass shooting in Atlanta – the first of two tragic mass shootings in the US in the space of just one week. Six of those killed in the Atlanta attack were women of Asian descent, who were targeted at their workplaces: three spas across the city.
Those killed were 74-year-old Soon Chung Park, 51-year-old Hyun Jung Grant, 69-year-old Suncha Kim, 63-year-old Yong Yue, 49-year-old Xiaojie Tan, 44-year-old Daoyou Feng, 33-year-old Delania Ashley Yuan, and 54-year-old Paul Andre Michels.
21-year-old Robert Long has since been charged with murder. In interviews with the police, Long admitted responsibility for the killings, but denied that they were racially motivated – something law enforcement appears to have blindly believed. “He apparently has an issue,” officer Jay Baker said in a press conference last week, “what he considers a sex addiction, and he sees these locations as a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.”
It gets worse. “He was fed up and at the end of his rope,” continued Baker, “and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.”
The murders – and the police response to them – have sparked mass protests and outrage across the world, with many speaking out against anti-Asian hate, which has spiked in the wake of the pandemic. A recent report outlined the rise of abuse suffered by Asian Americans, 3,800 of whom reported hate-related incidents between March 2020 and February this year – though the actual figures are assumed to be much higher.
Many have blamed this insidious rise on former president Donald Trump, who repeatedly referred to COVID-19, which originated in Wuhan, China, as the “Chinese virus”. Speaking to The New York Times, Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: “The use of this term is not only corrosive vis-à-vis a global audience, including here at home (in the US), it is also fuelling a narrative in China about a broader American hatred and fear of China and Chinese people in general.”
It isn’t just Asian Americans suffering an increasing amount of racist abuse. A recent article by VICE outlined the deplorable experiences of British Asian people, who have faced a 300 per cent increase in COVID-related hate crimes since the start of the pandemic. Speaking to Dazed in February last year – before the UK went into lockdown – eight people detailed their incidents of abuse, including comments on social media, racist ‘jokes’, and people moving away from them on the tube.
In light of the recent attacks and the disturbing rise in anti-Asian hate, here’s a list of resources to use and organisations to support to educate yourself and take action against racism.
TO EDUCATE
Follow educational platforms and support networks on social media, including Dear Asian Youth (the UK chapter is here), AAPI Women Lead, Asian Leadership Collective, Stop AAPI Hate, Hate Is A Virus, Racism Unmasked Edinburgh, Stop DiscriminAsian, End The Virus of Racism, and Asian American Advocacy Fund.
PBS has made its Asian Americans documentary series available to watch for free – it chronicles 150 years of US history through the lens of its AAPI residents.
Read VICE’s feature on anti-Asian hate in the UK here. Watch BBC News’ short film about what it’s like being an Asian woman in the US right now. Read this article on The Conversation about the history of racism against Asian Americans. Read the stories of racism experienced by Asian people in the US via Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) here. Support BESEAN – which works to tackle negative stereotypes of East and South East Asian (ESEA) women in the UK – and use its list of resources to educate yourself about ESEA culture and communities.
TW: For the past month, I've been working on this @VICEUK report about the rise of anti-Asian hate crime in the UK. This one cuts real deep and I put my heart and soul into this https://t.co/nkAZ19oEyE
— Angela Hui 許紫恩 (@Angela_Hui) March 19, 2021
TO DONATE
You can donate to the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) community fund here, with money going towards organisations working to rectify the racial inequalities in the US. Other organisations accepting donations are Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), Red Canary Song, the grassroots collective of Asian and migrant sex workers, Hate Is A Virus, Asian Mental Health Collective, and Asian American Feminist Collective. In the UK, you can donate to End the Virus of Racism’s crowdfunder here.
You can also donate to the families of those murdered in the Atlanta attacks. Yong Yue’s memorial fund is here, to support Xiaojie Tan’s daughter, you can donate here, Suncha Kim’s family is fundraising here, and Hyun Jung Grant’s children have set up a memorial fund here.
TO TAKE ACTION
As writer Yuan Ren said in an article on Glamour: “Don’t be a silent witness.” Be vocal against anti-Asian hate, report incidents if you witness them, and help anyone you see suffering abuse – grassroots initiative Hollaback! offers free bystander intervention training, which you can access here.