 So by now it's been a couple of days since the absolutely horrific Atlanta spa massacre and There's not really any words that I could offer you that will make you feel any better or make the situation any less heartbreaking and When I think about this story, I can't shake the comments from the Cherokee County police captain Basically defended the actions of this mass murderer investigators they interviewed him this morning and I they got that impression that yes He he understood the gravity of it and he was pretty much fed up at it Then kind of at the end of his rope and and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did I'm not gonna go to I don't know if he's remorseful or not Imagine being deranged enough to downplay the actions of a mass murderer by saying he was just having a bad day Would we be saying this if the perpetrator wasn't white? I Don't think so and I love how there's this fake debate going on about whether or not this was a hate crime Well, he says it's not a hate crime. So we're a little bit perplexed here We don't know if this was a hate crime or not Of course, it was are we really having this conversation? Are they really this clueless? You know how racist people oftentimes will say I'm not racist But and then they proceed to make a really racist comment This is the mass murder version of that where he literally deliberately targeted Asians and then says look, I'm not racist Unbelievable I don't want to take the time here to complain because I think that You're feeling the same way that I'm feeling but what really matters now more than ever is to elevate the voices of Members of the Asian community because there has absolutely been an uptick in anti-Asian violence and hatred and harassment ever since Donald Trump has used words like China virus and kung flu to describe COVID-19 and it's not like there is This new phenomenon of anti-Asian bigotry and violence because of Trump, but did he make matters worse? Absolutely, but with regard to this particular story I do think it's important that we be nuanced and we look at all the issues. This isn't just an issue of anti-Asian Racism, it's also an issue that relates to sexism as well These issues are interrelated and this is what an MSNBC news reporter very eloquently pointed out I know that the Suspect mentioned he he claimed that there was no racial motivation involved The issue here is that experts and activists all stress that given the way in which Asian women have been seen in this country Historically fetishized hyper sexualized. It's made them particularly Susceptible to sexual and physical violence and so therefore it's impossible to divorce race from this conversation And she is exactly right in the United States. There's this history of hypersexualizing and fetishizing and dehumanizing Asian women So when we see this uptick in violence against Asians in America, it doesn't apply to all Asians equally and certainly women have Disproportionately bared the brunt of that and I want to read an op-ed from NBC News where author Nancy Wang Yuan Shares her experience and she talks about how violence against Asian women in particular Has been an issue and not enough people are talking about it Presumably because they're ignorant to these experiences. So she writes the only time I was ever in Atlanta where six Asian women were shot dead on Tuesday A young white man shouted me so horny to me at the airport and as the only Asian woman in the space I knew he was talking to me I locked eyes with him for a second and then rushed off to catch my flight back to Los Angeles I was in Atlanta to attend the annual meeting of the Association of Asian American Studies Presenting a paper there for the first time. It was a big deal for me professionally But what I remember most about that trip were a white man's racist sexist words Tuesday's killings occurred at three spas in the Atlanta area two other victims a white man and a white woman Were also killed Investigators said the white male suspect told them that he has a sex addiction and targeted the spas to take out that Temptation he was fed up at the end of his rope Cherokee County Sheriff Captain Jay Baker said he had a bad day And this is what he did Based on the reported statement Investigators have so far concluded that the attacks did not appear to have been motivated by race as an Asian American woman Who has endured sexualized racism all of my life such ignorance enrages me Asian women along with black and indigenous women and other women of color endure racism and sexism in Intersectional ways constantly and they have throughout history as lawyer Jiman Kim argued in 2009 Prosecutors and police may be even less likely to add hate crime charges in cases of rapes and sexual assaults targeting Asian women in 1875 Chinese women were targeted by a federal immigration law called the Page Act This law effectively banned the immigration of Chinese women to the United States based on a morals clause that considered all of them Prostitutes at the time there were apparently specific racist and sexist concerns that Chinese prostitutes would bring in especially very lint strains of Venereal diseases and entice young white boys to a life of sin sound familiar furthermore the multiple wars with and various occupations of Asian countries have long contributed to the exploitation and Fetishization of Asian women in World War two the unknown numbers of so-called Asian comfort women Kidnapped by Japanese soldiers from China Korea and the Philippines were transferred not to freedom But to the US military to this day sex work in camp towns around US military bases throughout Asia Gives US GI's the illusion of access and perennial permission to Asian women's bodies Jane Hong an associate professor of history at Occidental College told me many Asian American women have endured strangers Yelling me so horny and love you long time at them. Thanks to American pop culture Perhaps the worst offender is the 1987 film full metal jacket Which imagines a vietnamese prostitute approaching two white American soldiers and saying me so horny me love you long time Me sucky sucky the casual racism of this scene has haunted Asian American women for decades as writer and musician Christine LeWang Dixon noted in response to the Atlanta shootings the Hypersexualization of Asian women plays a huge part in the violence we face I've been cornered on the street as men say me love you long time. I've been offered money for a happy ending massage I've been hit on because I'm Asian and told it's a compliment indeed contrary to the insinuations and assumptions Made by Georgia law enforcement officials I can't remember ever having experienced racism separate from sexism when I turn into a lane too slowly on the streets of Los Angeles I am not surprised if someone rolls down the window to call me a C slur B When I reject or ignore sexual propositions from white men some come back at me with racial slurs and even threats Even the perception that I will not fight back if I am attacked Racially is a form of racism intersecting with sexism This is the lived reality for too many Asian American women since the pandemic began Asian American women are 2.3 times more likely to report hate incidents than men according to data compiled by the reporting forum stop a API hate in total the organization received nearly 3800 reports of anti-Asian hate incidents from March 19th of 2020 to February 28th The mass shootings in Georgia seem to be part of a nationwide pattern of Asian women being disproportionately targeted and hate incidents We are more vulnerable to attack precisely because of the intersection of racism and sexism And to immediately remove racism from the equation neglects how racism has always intersected with sexism For Asian American women in this country So this is really important to hear these experiences. It really is important because I'm sure that there will be people who revisit full metal jacket for example and That scene and you know Conservatives will just chalk this up to cancel culture and you know, they'll denounce the woke mob Who's coming for you know our our beloved films, but it's not just jokes To everyone these jokes lead to real-world Consequences that actually affect people till this day that old movie still affects the lives of Asian women So we have to look at racism and Sexism and how it uniquely impacts Asians here in this instance But I mean, of course, it's not just Asian women who have dealt with anti-Asian hatred and violence It's also Asian men, of course, there's the viral video of the Asian man being assaulted This is basically a call for all Americans this article here to understand be mindful of The things that other people are going through and experiencing even if you can't necessarily relate to them We all have these subjective experiences as human beings and we have to talk to each other We have to listen to marginalized communities and women Because we don't know what they're going through and it is important that we learn from them by listening Listen to their experiences and don't be so quick to judge and dismiss it as cancel culture or huh They're just complaining. This is the oppression Olympics. This is people's lives and as a humanist I want to make sure that people's lives are as Good as they possibly can be and that means we have to look at look out for more disadvantaged people And that's where we will leave this. I think this was a great op-ed and I really really feel terrible for the families of the victims and We'll leave that there because there's nothing else that you can really say about this It's just tragical all around But what we all need to do is inform ourselves about the experiences of the Asian American community