He Killed Them Because They Were Asian Women
Not because they were Asian. Not because they were women. But because they were Asian women, undivided and intersectional.
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I hadn’t done anything to him.
All I did was step off the curb.
“Get out of the street you Black bitch!,” as he raised his White middle finger.
My face flushed and I looked around to see who noticed this moment of public humiliation. No other Black women were around, but the Black men and White women in the vicinity averted my eyes. I found neither protection nor belonging with them. This was something that I faced alone: not White, not male. Black and woman. Undivided.
On Tuesday, March 16th, the country endured something that was seemingly commonplace pre-COVID: a mass shooting. A White man, using guns he purchased the day before, massacred eight people in the Atlanta area. He walked into two massage parlors, one named “Young’s Asian Massage,” and started shooting. In the end, he killed six Asian women working in the establishments and a White woman and White man who were receiving services. He also injured others.
Anti-Asian Rhetoric and Violence
While White supremacy often says, to Asian faces, that they are the ever-loved “model minority,” behind their backs White supremacy derides the group as a racial and national threat.
Early reports of the victims’ race provided a reminder, and perhaps an ultimate example, of the increasing number of seemingly random violent attacks against Asian people, especially women. While the unique identities of the victims may have been random, the fact that they were targeted is not random at all. Over a year of anti-Asian rhetoric and the long-lasting devastation of the mishandled pandemic called for a scapegoat for the country’s woes. While White supremacy often says, to Asian faces, that they are the ever-loved “model minority,” behind their backs White supremacy derides the group as a racial and national threat.
