Covid 19 is not the only virus infecting our culture. The murders at the Atlanta spas earlier this week reveal another face of the dysfunction and danger of the culture we are committed to dismantling.
There is so much that needs saying.
The alleged killer “gave no indicators” that the murders were racially motivated. The County Sheriff suggested that the killer was “having a bad day” and then, with a straight face reported: “We asked him that specifically and the answer was no.” Vladimir Putin also denied that Russia had influenced the 2016 election.
Asian American leaders are clear that these were hate crimes, another vector of domestic terrorism. They also are clear that the FBI and local police forces continue to underreport hate crimes against Asian Americans, even more dramatically than other hate crimes are underreported..
“It has taken six Asian American women dying in one day to get people to pay attention to this,” Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum said to The Guardian. “Record keeping of hate crimes against Asian Americans is so low because they are not even willing to accept that we are discriminated against and harassed because of our race.”
Racism is clearly at work and the cultural stereotypes are nuanced. The spas provide massage, the touching of mostly male bodies by mostly Asian women. Esther K, co-director of Red Canary Song, a grassroots Chinese massage parlor worker coalition: “The women are de facto being seen as sex workers.” [This is about] the fetishization of Asian women’s bodies, the objectification of their bodies and the assumption that Asian women are obviously going to be providing sexual services…”
The Culture of White Supremacy manifests through a constellation of race and sexuality and power that is deadly. The three factors are gathered against particular populations in particular ways.
We sometimes allow ourselves to think that Trump’s persistent rhetoric of the “Asian” virus created this particular form of racist violence.
Racist violence against Asian Americans has risen dramatically during the pandemic, with 3800 reported incidents. Trump bears responsibility for much of that increase, in my judgment. But he was simply trumpeting existing racist tropes and exploiting existing racist energy against Asian and Asian American folks that goes back to the Chinese Exclusion Laws…if you want an Oregon specific reference point.
Rigorous analysis is necessary to go below the surface reporting here. Analysis is a strength for liberal religious folks like us.
But deep and simple compassion must be our first religious response. Prayers for the families and the communities of the victims come first. But also concern for all those who claim Asian and South Asian and Pacific Islander identities. All of us may be shocked by these particular murders. But the shock may land very differently for those who see themselves in the victims’ faces. That includes congregants of First Unitarian and staff members as well.
The Covid virus seems to be receding, thanks to vaccines and public health measures and the fact-based focus on the new Administration.
It is time…we are overdue to organize the same focused effort to work against these other variants of racism so that we can begin to see them receding as well.
In the struggle,
Bill