We were crushed to hear that a young white man by the name of Robert Aaron Long shot and killed 8 Asian people in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday 16th March.
He attacked three different Asian owned massage parlours.
The Georgia Sheriff in charge of the investigation, Captain Jay Baker held a press conference stating that Robert “had a really bad day”.
There isn’t a justification in the world to excuse what Robert did. In order for attitudes to change, authorities and the press must call what Robert did – what it was – a hate crime.
As of writing this article, Sheriff Captain Jay Baker has gone viral for the wrong reasons.
In a now-deleted post, the Sheriff was seen advertising a racist t-shirt blaming China for the pandemic.
Increase of hate crimes against the Asian community
The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate said it received more than 2,800 reports of hate incidents directed at Asian Americans nationwide last year.
As reported from the BBC an 84-year-old Thai immigrant in San Francisco, California, died last month after being violently shoved to the ground during his morning walk.
An 89-year-old Chinese woman was slapped and set on fire by two people in Brooklyn, New York.
Zing Tsjeng writes in Harpers Baazar that hate crimes against East and South-East Asian (ESEA) people have increased in the UK, too.
According to the advocacy group End the Virus of Racism, there has been a 300 per cent increase in hate crimes towards people of East and Southeast Asian heritage since the start of the pandemic.
It’s not enough for us to see hate and dismiss it in our minds, we need to foster an anti-racist mindset.
If we see racism directed towards any community, we need to step up and support one another.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.
