A white man walked into three different massage spas and shot six Asian women. And the police explained he had a ‘bad day.’

The recent hate crime against six Asian women in Atlanta shed light on the longstanding discrimination against the Asian community. President Trump only added momentum to the hatred when he called COVID-19 the “Chinese virus,” blaming Southeast Asians for the outbreak. His words had tremendous effects, fueling other Americans to blame America’s economic recession and their discomfort of wearing masks all on Asians. Countless people in the Asian community were murdered, assaulted, and spat on after the Atlanta incident, and the hate crime does not seem to cease.

The sheriff spokesman’s claim that the shooting suspect was having a “bad day,” only highlighted how Asian communities were silenced and ignored despite the persistent discrimination against them. The model minority myth, a belief that Asians have higher levels of success due to their innate talent and hard work ethic, is used to explain why the Asian communities’ struggles are often overlooked. Those seemingly trivial stereotypes that even you might hold? Asians are good at math, Asians work hard, Asians are the most white among other people of color? mounted up and created a powerful force to silence Asian’s struggles and justify the violence against them.

COVID-19 was simply a way for racists to actively reveal their hate against Asians. The hate was there from the beginning. Asians have been assaulted, sexualized, stigmatized in countless ways, and when they stood up, society hushed them by calling them ‘the whitest POV.’ The overall higher level of success of the Asian immigrants because of their extremely hard work to ‘survive’ was simply used as an excuse to disregard the violence they had to withstand for their entire life. It was only after six innocent Asian women were brutally murdered people began to look into what had been happening.

So please, call it a hate crime.

임유진 강남포스트 학생기자  webmaster@ignnews.kr

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