Violence Against Asian Americans
Yesterday we awoke to the news of a mass murder in metro Atlanta: eight dead at three massage parlors, six “women of Asian descent” among the victims. As of Wednesday afternoon, we still don’t know exactly how racism figured into these killings: the shooter, a young White male, says he has a sexual addiction and committed the crime in order to remove temptation. That may be his entire motive, so far as he knows. And it may not. In any case, racism works at deep layers of our individual and social consciousness. There’s every reason to wonder why he targeted, and perhaps frequented, massage parlors staffed by Asian or Asian-American women.
More importantly, there’s every reason to grieve the current escalation of violence against Asian American persons in the United States.
As people of faith, we are responsible for resisting this trend, offering concrete expressions of solidarity to our Asian American neighbors and performing the cultural work necessary to put a stop to the violence, intimidation, and hate.
As a White person, I write not as a target of this hate and certainly not as an expert, but simply as a concerned citizen and Christian.
A first step involves appreciating the fear and suffering now pervasive in the Asian American community. Interviewed for the NBC News documentary “The Racism Virus,” Texas state legislator Gene Wu put it directly: “I have never seen the Asian-American community this scared.” And with good reason. Violence against Asian Americans, along with other expressions of racist animus, are deeply woven into our cultural history, but racist incidents have escalated since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Activists recorded nearly 3800 hate incidents ranging from harassment to vandalism to physical violence between March 19, 2020 and February 28, 2021. Manjusha Kulkarni, the executive director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, voices this fear:
So many of us have experienced it, sometimes for the first time in our lives. It makes it much harder to go to the grocery store, to take a walk, to be outside our homes.
I see the same concern, and the same rage, from friends on social media. Victims of violence include the elderly just going about their business, children at school, and everyone in-between. Some attacks have seemed random, such as the murder of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee, who was just walking in his San Francisco neighborhood when a young man rushed at him and drove him to the pavement. Women are more likely to suffer attacks than men, and many of the violent incidents occur in public places, according to Stop AAPI Hate. Our appreciation of the suffering these incidents inflict upon Asian Americans requires that we educate ourselves concerning these events and that we pay attention when Asian Americans voice their hurt, anger, and fear.
A second step will feel uncomfortable for many Christians, especially pastors. We must speak up against this wave of violence, and we must be willing to name the political reality behind it.
Words matter, and they sometimes incite violence. Some politicians, almost all of them Republican, have insisted upon referring to the pandemic as “the China virus.” Incidents of hateful behavior began to emerge as early as a year ago in response to such rhetoric.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen time and again how this kind of speech, especially when it has come from Donald Trump, has fueled violence. His “Liberate Michigan” tweet was soon followed by armed demonstrations in the Michigan state capitol and a conspiracy to kidnap the governor. His call for followers to march to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was, we all remember, soon followed by a violent insurrection. Whenever we encounter anti-Asian animus, we must name it for what it is, no exceptions and no excuses.
Third, it won’t do simply to respond to hateful speech when it happens. We must be working proactively in our families, institutions, neighborhoods, and churches to build solidarity with Asian American neighbors. That means doing the work of education in intentional ways, and it means building upon relationships we may, or may not, already enjoy.
It would be lovely to tie up this reflection with a pretty scriptural bow. Options abound, including simply, “Love your neighbor.” Truly, however, a Christian response to hateful behavior does not require that we find nifty Bible verses. It simply demands that we do the right thing by intervening in a dangerous and despicable cycle.
