Asian Solidarity Collective is in solidarity with our fellow Asians and Asian Americans who have been harmed by relentless racism, violence, and discrimination. We grieve and mourn for those who were harmed and murdered in the mass shooting in Atlanta, Georgia on March 16, 2021.
Our condolences go out to the families and friends of those who were lost to this racist violence. Only through solidarity can we grieve the multiple levels of violence that have plagued each of our communities for generations. We need each other.
ASC recognizes that all forms of oppression - anti-Asian racism, anti-Black racism, xenophobia, ableism, sexism, classism, LBTQ2IA+ discrimination, only naming a few - are intricately intertwined, and that in order for Asians and Asian Americans to be liberated we must be in community and solidarity with all oppressed communities.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic there has been a large increase in anti-Asian hate
crimes and violence due to racist rhetoric and ideology. The most recent data from Stop AAPI
Hate shows hate incidents targeting Asian Americans rose by nearly 150% in 2020, with Asian American women twice as likely to be targeted. This kind of racism and violence is extremely harmful to our communities, but it is not new to Asians and Asian Americans and has existed far beyond this past year.
In response to the mass shooting against Asian Americans in Atlanta, President Biden and his administration have emphasized American exceptionalism and condemned the attacks saying, “It's wrong, it's un-American and it must stop.” But these words contradict the United States’ long history of racism, violence, and discrimination against Asians and Asian Americans in its actions and policies including the Chinese Exclusion Act, WWII internment of Japanese Americans, post 9/11 targeting of Muslim Americans and Southeast Asian Americans, the US led wars waged on Vietnam and Korea, US imperialism in the Philippines, the policing of Asian sex workers, ICE detaining and deporting Asians, and Hollywood’s participation in further misrepresentation, fetishization, and exoticism of Asians. America’s imperialist approach continues to oppress the most marginalized and perpetuates the carceral state. It shows that the harmful capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal system in the US is still in place providing an environment for racist acts of violence to occur, whether against Asians, Blacks, Indigenous folx, Latinx, or any other marginalized community. We cannot become complacent and must continue to dismantle this imperialist system until we create a fully liberated world.
As our work is influenced by abolition, Asian Solidarity Collective does not seek carceral solutions for these violent, racist, and discriminatory acts. We believe the path to a fully liberated world requires transformative change. We must carefully consider different models of living where we work to dismantle the ways in which hierarchies are reproduced and find alternative modes of building solidarity and systems, which will transform the future for all marginalized people. We embody this with a practice that integrates critical consciousness with the self, and moves intentionally towards a collective and transformational vision. We are committed to the abolition of systems that are barriers to our collective liberation and lead with transformative justice.
Here are links to resources to support the Asian and Asian American community:
Donations for the victims and their families of the Mar 16 mass shooting in Atlanta
We must continue building cross-racial solidarity in service of uprooting and dismantling systems of oppression that harm and suppress all races. We persistently forge on with liberation work that addresses issues that encompass the liberation of all people. ASC recognizes that when Black people get free we all get free.
Only we keep us safe. Only we can save us.
