Asian Hates’ roots in White Supremacy

America has a long and complicated history with the Asian community and the violence against them needs to be examined from an intersectional lens.

Today the headlines are focused on the violent attack on a series of Atlanta area massage parlors in which 6 Asian women, and 8 people all together, where shot and killed by a young white man. As of this writing the Atlanta Police Department does not suspect the shootings to be classified as a hate crime, through they have not officially ruled out that option as the investigation continues. One should note that Georgia is one of the slowest states in the nation to classify any crime as a hate crime. One might say they go to great lengths to avoid such classification.

But this incident is not without context. Since March 19, 2020 the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate reports to have received 3,795 incidents of hate against Asian Americans. A number that in on the rise since the outbreak of the CORONA Virus and former President Trumps repeated use of “China Virus” to describe the outbreak.

Hate directed toward Asian Americans reaches far beyond Trumps Xenophobic Tweets. From the Federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the quarantine of China Town in San Francisco in the 1900s - blaming them for a bubonic plague out break, to the disgraceful establishment of Japanese American interment camps during WWII. Despite being referred to as a “model minority” - indicating their capacity to perform to standards of whiteness, the fact is that Asian Americans continue to suffer at the hands of unchecked biases prejudice and white conditioning. Whenever an epidemic from Asia or economic crises reaches our shores, Asian Americans suffer the brunt of white Americas unconscious fear. In the last year we’ve faced both.

Meanwhile the violent attack in Atlanta highlights another intersection that requires our attention.; sex addiction and the exploitation of women, Asian women in particular.

The 21 year old white male who went on a shooting rampage did so, he confessed, because of his “sexual addiction” and his desire to “eliminate the temptation.” The Atlanta Police had also previously reported that the shooter had frequented the targeted establishments on several occasions.

Somehow this young man conflates the idea that his sexual impulses could or should be addressed by the Asian women working at massage spas. It is a direct manifestation of misogynistic violence and the fetishization of Asian women.

"That the Asian women murdered yesterday were working highly vulnerable and low-wage jobs during an ongoing pandemic speaks directly to the compounding impacts of misogyny, structural violence, and white supremacy," Phi Nguyen, litigation director at Asian American Advancing Justice - Atlanta, said in a statement.

All of which have their roots in the lie of whiteness. These ideas have long been perpetuated by the white male mindset in western culture that all things “exotic” exist for the sole purpose of his pleasure and conquest, and ultimately as the target of his rage and destruction if they fail in meeting his expectations

In the coming days and weeks the inevitable mainstream conversation will turn from the classically white “hate crime” vs “mental health” debate. But let us be clear - the unmitigated gall to enact violence upon a particular group in order to quell one’s unmet (and unhealthy) expectations is, historically speaking, a uniquely white thing to do.

This young man may very well be mentally unhealthy, but that does not let the rest of us off the hook. Pretending that it does is nothing less than abdicating our social and personal responsibility in creating a world that works for all.

This young man may very well be racist, but that does not let the rest of us off the hook. Pretending that it does avoids the difficult task of examining our own socially reinforced prejudices that have embedded themselves into our capitalist and social cast structures of inequity.

Nothing short of doing the hard work of claiming responsibility for our collective society will serve us in this hour of need. We can manifest a better world for our children, but not until we examine the one we inherited from our ancestors. Let us come together to dismantle the lie of whiteness. Click here to learn more.