#StopAsianHate: Examining the Atlanta Shootings and Confronting Anti-Asian Rhetoric
Disclaimer: This is an Opinion piece and represents only the views of the author, not the Pixel Journal as a publication.
TW: Mentions of sensitive content including violence, hate speech, and death.
On Tuesday, March 16, 2021, a twenty-one-year-old white male took the lives of eight innocent people at three different spas in Atlanta, Georgia. Six of the victims were Asian women, and four were of Korean heritage. The victims are Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Delaina Ashley Yuan, Xiaojie Tan, Paul Andre Michels, and Dayou Feng. The only survivor of the shooting is Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz. Later, a police officer told the media that the shooter was simply “fed up and at the end of his rope” and having a “really bad day.” The shooter claimed that the crime was not racially motivated because he had a “sexual addiction” and that he wanted to eliminate a “temptation.”
But I ask two questions: how dare the shooter decide the implications of his massacre? How dare law enforcement sympathize with him and make excuses for him because he is a white man?
As Congressman Ted Liu tweeted on March 17, 2021, “All of us have experienced bad days. But we don’t go to three Asian businesses and shoot up Asian employees.” How dare society make the claim that the shooter’s response was natural and acceptable? Rather than rising up against white supremacy and gun violence, we have instead been reminded that people of color must continue to fight for their lives; we are reminded that Asian women and women of color everywhere are just one “bad day” away from being viciously murdered.
I recently saw someone joking on social media that the shooting could not have been racially motivated because if anything, it seemed that the shooter “liked [Asians] too much.” I cannot even express the disappointment and disgust I felt as I saw people taking the situation lightly, denying the hate Asian Americans have always faced in American society, and most of all, spreading their ignorance as to the situation at hand. I would like to shed light on a few topics, including some background on Anti-Asian sentiment, Covid-19 hate crimes, Asian fetishism, and what you can do to truly be an ally in this time of need. As a note, on March 24, 2021, my fellow classmate Ilana Nguyen ’22 and I held a presentation and discussion for Stanford OHS students titled “#StopAsianHate” with the description, “Anti-Asian Sentiment is Not New: The Deep Rooted History of Yellow Peril, Xenophobia, and the Model Minority Myth.” The information below is based on the sources from our presentation.
A Brief Timeline of Anti-Asian Racism in America
Recently, Stop AAPI Hate released a report that stated there were close to 3,800 hate crimes that were reported from the beginning of the pandemic—March 2020—to exactly one year later. However, anti-Asian sentiments are not new. Here’s a timeline to show you why:
1875-1876: The sentiment of “Yellow Peril” comes to surface, a racist view that East Asian people pose an existential threat to westerners, perpetuating the stereotype that Asians are an alien and inhumane race of “yellow people.” Chinese Americans were used as a scapegoat for a smallpox outbreak that occurred in San Francisco. All across the West Coast, people eagerly claimed that Chinese Americans had supposedly failed to comply with sanitary programs and that their living conditions were to be blamed for the outbreak. Beginning in the 1860s, the Chinese were depicted as being an inferior race and were viewed with disgust.
1882: Native born Americans cried that Chinese workers were stealing their jobs and wages, and were the cause for unemployment on the west coast. Consequently, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was created, preventing Chinese immigration for a decade and disallowing citizenship. It was the first act used to restrict immigration into the United States.
1899: In a plague outbreak, officials in Honolulu quarantined the area and burned down the city's Chinatown. In areas where victims had died of the plague, buildings were burned. One controlled fire became unquenchable on January 20, 1900, and resulted in the destruction of the homes of over 5,000 people.
1924: The Immigration Act of 1924 completely banned Asian immigrants from entering the United States and becoming citizens on the basis of “eugenic reasons.” This act limited the number of immigrants allowed into the States based on a national quota and only granted visas to two percent of each nationality’s population.
1942: In the wake of WWII, white Americans suspected that all Japanese Americans were spies and enemies, forcing them to relocate to concentration camps where they were incarcerated. This uprooted the lives of around 120,000 Japanese American citizens who had their property and homes taken from them or destroyed. Japanese Americans were forced to live in these camps for almost the entirety of the war.
1982: As a decline in the auto industry began, Asian automobile manufacturers were blamed and Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American man, was brutally beaten to death by two white men: Ronald Ebens and Ebens’s stepson, Michael Nitz. The two believed Chin was of Japanese descent and blamed him for the loss/decline of their jobs. Chin was celebrating his upcoming wedding that night and was only twenty seven years old. At the trial, the murderers each received a $3000 fine but no jail time.
2001: In the aftermath of 9/11, white Americans harassed, discriminated against, and attacked Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Americans. Asians would once again become the scapegoat for the New York tragedy, called ‘radicals’ and ‘terrorists.’
Covid-19: Anti-Asian Responses in 2020-Present
Now, more than ever, racism against Asian Americans is present. With Donald Trump’s use of the phrases “Chinese Virus” and “Kung-Flu” to describe the Coronavirus, Asian Americans are targeted and anti-East Asian rhetoric is promoted. This is evident in the targeting of locations where Asian Americans live such as Chinatowns in San Francisco and New York; in the destruction and defacement of Asian-owned property; and the discrimination against Asian-owned businesses. I have heard people say that by using the phrase “Chinese Virus,” they are “just trying to be factually correct.” It is absolutely not correct to use this term––it has been given a scientific name: Covid-19 and Coronavirus.
The deep rooted racism that Asian Americans have faced is evident in the words “Kung-Flu,” which is explicitly used in order to dehumanize those of East Asian descent, and to blame someone else for the US government’s failure to prevent the virus’s spread. However, this is more than scapegoating: by targeting those of Asian heritage, we are promoting ignorance and xenophobic responses. Following the quarantine, many took to insulting Asian Americans and calling us “bat and dog eaters,” which is not only factually incorrect, but is an intensely offensive stereotype that most Asians have heard growing up in America. So the next time you see that meme or joke that targets a person of color, think before you share it or laugh at it. For you, a comment might be a joke or simply something you heard in the media, but for others, it is heartbreaking and degrading.
Asian Fetishism
Fetishizing a person based on race is an excessive sexual and/or romantic preference for someone of a different heritage by another individual who is not of that same heritage. Asian fetishism has several names, such as ‘yellow-fever,’ ‘Asian-persuasion,’ ‘rice-picking,’ ‘China dolls,’ and ‘Geisha syndrome.’ What all of these views have in common is that they objectify Asian women and fit them into a stereotype. This stereotype paints all Asian women as being submissive, feminine, quiet, exotic, tame, dutiful, delicate, and even as having light, pale skin so that they look like ‘China dolls.’ Fetishizing a person based on their skin color diminishes them as being one dimensional, it reduces the struggles that the individual has faced, and the struggles their ethnic group has had to overcome.
You might think, “Well, isn’t a fetish just a preference?” I’ve heard comments such as, “I can’t help it if I just prefer [insert race]” or “[insert race] women/men are so hot.” Guess what: your fetish is absolutely not the same as a preference. There is an undeniable difference in favoring someone who is more extroverted or someone who is brunette versus favoring someone based on their race. To reiterate my points, when you fetishize race, you are projecting unwanted views and stigmas onto people of color.
Others might argue that fetishizing a race is not a negative thing, but actually a compliment, which it is absolutely not. Instead, you are objectifying people of color and making us feel as if we are accessories rather than real people with actual feelings and beliefs. That said, racism does not have one face: racism does not have to be blatant hatred towards a specific race: it can be subtle microaggressions such as “why are your eyes shaped like that” and “you’re so exotic” (which is not a compliment) or it can be the outright preference of a certain race. When you fetishize people of color, you are seeing nothing but their skin color. How could this be anything but racism? This is why it deeply hurts me to see commentary that the Atlanta shootings were in no way racially motivated. If anything, it shows that women of color are targets now more than ever. How many women will die because of a twisted man? Is murder excused because we have normalized racial fetishizations? The very reason behind the shooter’s sexual addiction was his inability to control his views and hypersexualization of Asian women. His use of violence, aggression, and racism as a weapon ended in the murder of eight innocents.
So don’t tell me he was just having a “bad day.”
What You Can Do
Check on your POC friends and family. Let them know that they have your support and that you are there for them. Hearing nothing but silence is incredibly harmful because trust me, a lack of response is noticed.
Reflect on your views, prejudices, and biases. Everyone has flaws but it’s your duty to confront these views in order to grow and change.
Work on actively educating yourself, but please don’t rely on your POC friends to do so. They are not textbooks and it is simply not their job to do so. Instead, look for new information wherever you can: read articles and books, watch videos and raise discussions, become an active listener.
Get involved in your government. Call your legislators and ask what they are doing to protect POC and prevent racist rhetoric. As a member of your community, you deserve to know what is happening and should demand change.
Report and call out racist rhetoric and violence. If no one speaks up, most of the time these incidents will go unnoticed. Call out this behavior as unacceptable, even if it is from friends, family, etc.
Sign and share petitions. If you’re active on social media, there are petitions constantly being circulated through different platforms. Sign up for emails from platforms like Change.org where you can fight for causes and share information.
If you have the means, consider donating to Go-fund me campaigns. These are constantly being shared on social media platforms and a quick Google search will show thousands of campaigns. However, do not donate to Change.org: after signing a petition, they will ask you to “chip in” but this money is not used towards the cause of the petition and goes into the platform’s own pockets. Instead, donate money to charities, individual Go-fund me pages, and to underfunded programs that need financial support.
Share and follow resources not only to educate yourself, but also to show your support for POC and to keep aware of what is happening in your community.
Additional Resources to Diversify Your Feed
Below are live links to organizations that are all amazing resources for learning about being an ally to Asian-Americans and keeping updated on current events: Dear Asian Youth: Youth Nonprofit; ZENERATIONS – Generation Z. The voice of the future.; #HATEISAVIRUS; NextShark - Asian American News; Stop API Hate: Home; Asian Mental Health Collective; @advancingjustice_aajc; @DiversifyOurNarrative. There are so many other resources, but the above platforms are a great way to connect with other youth activists and to provide a safe space.