To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
May 4, 2021
- The savage spa murders in Cherokee and Fulton Counties, GA
- The wave of anti-Asian attacks
- A new round of demonstrations
by Mark Williams, Detroit Workers' Voice
One racist incident after another has been committed against Asian people. Old and young are terrorized. Even those who just look Asian have been accosted. The AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) organization, Stop AAPI Hate, estimates that 3,800 anti-Asian incidents have taken place in the last year, which saw a surge in Trumpist-inspired attacks. So too has the intensification of the anti-racist movement and opposition to anti-Asian scapegoating.
The anti-Asian attack that brought the issue to the fore was the bloody murder on March 16 of six Asian women, along with one white women and one white man, by a 21-year-old white man named Robert Aaron Long. (1) The fact that that this was done at three spas, two of them separated by 30 miles from the other, made it clear that Long was driving to establishments where normally poorer Asian women would be working. As it turned out, at least one of the women was needy enough to live in the spa itself. And likely these woman, by their nationality as well as occupation, would be seen as submissive in the imaginations of certain men, like Long. It is hard to suppose that these murders were not racist murders.
Officials from the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office tried their best
to shield Long from any accusations of being a racist. They virtually
accepted Long’s claim word for word that he was merely someone trying
to solve some problems he had from his sexual addiction. They dismissed
what was right before its eyes. Sheriff Frank Reynolds announced that
“race did not appear to be the motive” and Long had some issues,
potentially “sexually addiction”, and “may have been lashing out”.
Captain Baker, speaking on Reynold’s behalf, stated: “Yesterday was a
really bad day for him and this is what he did”. Are you kidding me!
Did Johnny spill his milk or did someone slaughter eight people!
The Mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, said that Baker hadn't
really meant to say that Long had just had a bad day, but soon there
was more news exposing Baker. He had shared an April 2020 Facebook post
with racist messages and images, such as a Corona Beer T-shirt altered
to say “Covid-19 IMPORTED VIRUS FROM CHY-NA” (sic), with Baker writing
“love my shirt! Get yours while they last.” As a result,
California Congressman Ted Lieu objected to the Cherokee County
Sheriff’s Office being in charge of the investigation of Long. Baker,
at least, has been removed from the case, and Mayor Bottoms says the
murders look like a hate crime. But as of yet, while Long has
been charged with "malice murder", which is Georgia's term for
premeditated murder and carries a sentence of either life imprisonment
or death, he has not been charged with a hate crime.
This event has shed light on anti-Asian racism, and it has shown the depths to which the police can sink in its efforts to deny the existence of racism. On the other hand, it has given attention to the efforts of Asian and Pacific Islander people to stand up against racist bigotry.
There is a vast history of racist and imperialist persecution of people from Asia. Take, for instance, the Page Act of 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which were racist immigration laws banning for decades Chinese and other East Asians from entering the US. Then during WWII there was the internment of the Japanese-American population in relocation camps scattered across the country, a savage and arbitrary action against innocent citizens and residents on the basis of race.
The racist legacy continues on through the murder of Vincent Chin in
Detroit in 1982 by two unemployed autoworkers who mistakenly thought
that Chin, of Chinese ancestry, was Japanese, all the way to
Trump’s racist rants blaming COVID-19 on “Chy-Na” or the “Wuhan
virus” and his attempt to whip up enthusiasm for his own militarism by
citing the imperialist adventures of China. Even Biden, who’s giving
certain support for Asian rights in words, hasn’t yet demonstrated such
support in his immigration policy.
With its unrelenting anti-Asian bigotry, Trumpism has led to a
grave situation for the Asian people. Here a few of the many assaults.
On January 31, in the Chinatown neighborhood of Oakland, California, a 91-year-old man was brutally attacked. The same day the attacker had hit two other victims in Chinatown in similar fashion, a 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman. Once again it might be convenient to police to see this as simply some random assaults and elder abuse, and that’s what the culprit, Yahya Muslim, is being held on, with $85 thousand bail. But it is part of a pattern of anti-Asian abuse. Carl Chan, president of the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, reports that he has collected in recent weeks over 20 reports and videos of small businesses getting robbed or customers assaulted. Naturally, nowhere is there a full account of all the verbal slurs, pranks, taunts, and scrapes that go on endlessly.
In some cases the injuries inflicted by the racists have resulted in death. Such was the case of Vicha Ratanapaknee, an 84 year-old-man who was sharply shoved to the ground on January 28 while taking his morning walk in San Francisco. Two days later he died. The 19-year-old who assaulted the elderly man has been charged with murder. At the same time some Asian activists are unhappy with how little interest the mainstream media has in the plight of the Asian communities.
In mid-March two more racist hate crimes came to light. In Seattle, on March 16, 51-year-old Christopher Hamner yelled profanities and threw things at a woman stopped at a red light with her two kids, ages 5 and 10. Hamner charged the car, cursing and yelling “Get out! Get out!” to the woman, who considers herself part Chinese and part Malaysian. Three days later Hamner cut off another car driven by an Asian woman, yelling a profanity and “Asian” at her, hurling a water bottle at her car, and charging at her when she pulled into a parking spot. This anti-Asian racist was soon tracked down thanks to the work of the 10-year-old’s cellphone photo and the second victim’s dashboard camera capturing the license plate of the fleeing car of the anti-Asian bully. Hamner was charged with three counts of malicious harassment and with a hate crime.
Meanwhile on March 13 in San Francisco, there was a vicious assault
on Ron Tuason, a 56-year-old Army veteran of Filipino, Chinese, and
Spanish descent. Tuason was at a bus stop in the city’s Ingleside
neighborhood when he was approached by Victor Humberto Brown yelling
racist slurs like “Get out of my country!” and “It’s because of you
there’s a problem here.” Brown immediately began punching Tuason, who
was knocked to the ground. He had a black eye and a swollen cheek, and
is experiencing memory loss as well. Brown was found shortly after a
911 call by Tuason, and was originally charged with several
misdemeanors. Prosecutors have bumped up charges to a felony, while
Brown is defending himself on the grounds that he has post-traumatic
stress disorder.
An incident that stands out took place on March 14 in New York City, when a woman hurled insults against an Asian couple, telling them to “go back to China”. So who was the racist? Her name was Maura Moynihan, the daughter of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a former Democratic US Senator for New York. He had gained notoriety for a number of racist stands (2) and worked in the Nixon administration for a time. Maura claims she wasn’t really being racist because she had done so many good deeds on behalf of the Asian community, and offered to meet with the couple to explain matters. But the offended couple wasn’t buying it, and refused to meet. Indeed, why should they accept such baloney from this upper class racist who wants to disguise her bigotry?
There is also a case where a racist was sorry he ever tried to mess
with an elderly victim. A small 76-year-old Asian grandmother in San
Francisco was waiting for a bus on March 17 when she was attacked by a
tall, 39-year-old man who began punching her. She was his second
victim, as he had earlier attacked a 83-year-old Asian man. But the
racist failed to notice the woman was equipped with a wooden board.
Further, she knew how to use it! She began beating the attacker into
submission. An ambulance arrived to save the bleeding attacker. While
the Asian women had suffered injuries to her eyes as well, she
continued to curse her attacker as he was carried away, saying “You
bum, why did you hit me.” A GoFundMe drive raised an astounding
$900,000 for her in 48 hours, and she contributed all of it to help
other victims.
Sadly, there was another tragic mass killing, late night on April 15
at the FedEx facility in Indianapolis. Four people of the Sikh
community, who make up much of the workplace there, died, along with
four white people; some of the victims had been Fedex employees, others
were people who just happened to be there. (3) Nevertheless, the fact that four Sikhs were shot spoke volumes to the Sikh community and other anti-racists.
Brandon Hole, 19, was the murderer. He walked into the parking lot,
and then into the facility, and fired away, then shot himself dead. He
was a ticking time-bomb, previously investigated by the local police in
March last year at his mother's request. She feared he had weapons to
commit suicide by cop. The police found that Hole visited white
supremacist websites, took his shotgun, and placed him in temporary
mental health detention at a hospital. In April that year the FBI also
questioned him about the websites, but thought there was insufficient
evidence of any problem. But later that year Hole purchased, with no
trouble at all, the two semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles he would use
in the Fedex massacre.
The Sikh community isn't unanimous on whether Hole intentionally
went after Sikhs, but there is no doubt among them that they face
harassment and discrimination. According to a Sikh American Legal
Defense and Education Fund poll in 2020, 58% of Sikh Americans report
being bullied or harassed because of their Sikh identity, while 63% of
those who wear turbans say they’ve encountered bias because of it.
Moreover, on August 5, 2012, a white supremacist killed six people at a
Sikh temple in Oak Creek, which is a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On
September 15, 2001, an anti-Islam fanatic shot and killed the gas
station owner Babir Singh Sondi in Mesa, Arizona.
The AAPI people have a history of resisting racism and discrimination, and the last year's surge in racist attacks has given rise to stepped-up resistance. The Georgia spa murders in particular have inspired a new round of demonstrations.
On March 26 there was an Asian-American demonstration and march organized under the banner of “Rise up with Asians”. Several hundred people turned out in San Francisco, gathering in Union Square downtown, then marching through the city to the Embarcadero. During the march you could hear the chant “Stop, stop, stop Asian hate”, along with marching drums. Placards read, “Racism is a pandemic, too” and “Protect Asian lives.” Of special note was a large ground-to-shoulder banner with a head-and-shoulder picture of Filipino immigrant Angelo Quinto. He was a Navy veteran who died after a police officer knelt on his neck last December. This was the cop’s response to Quinto’s health crisis. Quinto’s family, wearing hoodies and T-shirts with Angelo’s face on them, spoke at the rally.
The next day, March 27, there were rallies in 60 cities across the
US, large and small, from Sequim, Washington (population 7,000) to
Flushing, New York City, and Los Angeles. The main organizer was
the ANSWER Coalition. (4)
In Flushing, there were hundreds of demonstrators. In Los Angeles, the
demonstration included over 1,000 protesters marching and gathering
participants along the way. Speakers from various organizations talked
about the history of Asian migrants who worked as slaves to build the
US railroads and about the racist violence that took homes and lives in
the area. Other speakers called for unity of all immigrant communities,
and solidarity to achieve full rights. The largest demonstration was in
San Francisco, where some 3,000 people participated. Of course, not
everybody was Asian or Pacific Islander, but this is a positive
feature.
On April 4, groups from the Asian community organized the “Stop Asian Hate” demonstration in Foley Square in Manhattan. This was a large mass action which led to the temporary closure of all Brooklyn-bound lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge. Slogans rang out: “Hate is a virus!” “Stop Asian hate!”. A speaker preached the names of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, linking the black and Asian struggles together. As well Vincent Chin was referred to, which was another case where black and Asian solidarity against white racism had come to the fore.
Other types of actions were held on the weekend of April 10-11 in the Boston Common by Asian-American organizations. The Saturday action was led by a collective of youth called the Asian Coalition Massachusetts. Its goal was to highlight the plight of low-income Asians and the problems of gentrification and deportation. It wound up highlighting transgender people and breaking binary gender standards. There was also a crowd of about 75 people who sandwiched themselves between signs reading “Fuck your bad day”, referring to Officer Baker’s infamous statement about the Georgia spa murderer.
Then on Sunday, there was a crowd of about 200 singing "We are proud to be Asian", a song led by the 14-year-old author, Phoebe Tian. This action was organized by the New England Chinese-American Alliance, New Moon International Media, and over 60 Asian American civic groups statewide. They are pushing for schools to have Asian-American history and culture in the K-12 curricula.
Thus, spurred on by the horrific murders on poor Asian spa workers
in Georgia, protests spread around the country this last month and a
half. Large and small ones were organized. The slogans mainly seem to
be against racism or to “Stop Asian Hate". There are also
particular issues raised in different areas, such as increasing
Asian studies in schools, improving immigration rights, and supporting
victims of police killing. This builds on the ongoing movement to
protect the AAPI communities, such as community patrols and
door-to-door food supplies to needy people in certain poor communities.
Asian-Americans will not take bullying lying down!
(1) Xiaojie Tan, Yong Ae Yue, Delaina Ashley, Suncha Kim, Hyun Jung Grung, Soon Chung Park, Dayou Feng, and Paul Andre Michels.
(2) Senator Moynihan was notorious for blaming black poverty on the culture of black males and on there being too many single black mothers.
(3) Matthew R. Alexander, 32: Samaria Blackwell, 19; Amarjeet Johal, 66; Jaswinder Kaur, 64; Jaswinder Singh, 68: Amarjit Sekhon, 48; Karli Smith, 19; and John Weisert, 74.
(4) We are glad that people take part in demonstrations against racism even if they are called by trends or organizations that we disagree with. At the same time we feel it is important to explain our differences with some groups. In the case of the ANSWER Coalition, it should be noted that they pose as opponents of imperialism, but are only opposed to one imperialism, US imperialism, and turn a blind eye to the crimes of Chinese imperialism, Russian imperialism, the Syria dictatorship, and various reactionary regimes. They do not support the struggles of the working masses in these countries against these regimes, neither their democratic struggles nor their struggles for true socialism. This is why we call the leaders of ANSWER phony anti-imperialists.
Just look how ANSWER agitates on the issue at hand. Among the Asian community including Chinese Americans, you can be against the policy of the Chinese government and various reactionary regimes, and still oppose the anti-Asian onslaught. You can be against the suppression of democratic rights by the Chinese government and fight against anti-Asian racism here. But it's not so for ANSWER.
ANSWER doesn't express any sympathy for the thousands of workplace struggles in China, for the people struggling for democratic rights in Hong Kong or mainland China, or for the Uighurs suffering from reeducation camps and forced labor. Instead, speaking at the San Francisco rally on March 27, 2021, ANSWER's Gloria La Riva praised the Chinese regime to the sky and claimed that only "the media and the right-wing politicians and those in the Pentagon" would criticize it.
We say
yes, don't back US imperialism, don't make China the scape-goat
for COVID-19, don't pretend that Chinese imperialism differs from other
imperialism. But don't trick people into thinking that to oppose
anti-Asian racism in the US, one has to accept anti-Uighur racism in
China or the suppression of the democratic rights in China. Don't trick
people into thinking that the only choice is which imperialism to
support. Let's back the people in all their struggles against racism
and oppression. <>
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