19 Mar UHM American Department Statement on Atlanta Shootings

UHM American Studies Department Statement on Atlanta ShootingsMarch 19, 2021

The faculty, staff, and students of the Department of American Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa condemn the murder of Daoyou Feng, Hyun J. Grant, Suncha Kim, Paul Andre Michels, Soon C. Park, Xiaojie Tan, Delaina Ashley Yaun, and Yong A. Yue. We send sympathy and love to the victims and their loved ones. Asians and Asian Americans have long been targets of racialized, gendered, and sexualized violence which has escalated as the gross mischaracterization of the COVID-19 pandemic as caused by the “China virus” and “kung flu” by the former president and others has aggravated the perception of Asian bodies as carriers of disease and contagion. The Atlanta shootings are only the most recent and horrific manifestation of anti-Asian violence that has risen by 150% in 2020, much of which has targeted women. We share the pain, grief, fear, and anger felt by the Asian American community. 

As an American Studies department located on Kanaka ‘Ōiwi land that is occupied by the U.S. military, we connect the sexualized racist imperial violence of U.S. militarism abroad with the violence of white male supremacy at home. The struggles of Asians in the United States to create homes and communities despite being  excluded, exploited, dehumanized, disenfranchised, criminalized, and made invisible is interconnected with the dispossession and violence of war and occupation abroad which are made easier by thinking about Asians as perpetually alien.

We express solidarity with all those engaged in fighting racism and misogyny and pursuing social justice in the United States and the world at large. We urge our comrades in the struggle for social justice and antiracism to stand firm in their condemnation of white male supremacy and the policing and militarized institutions that prop it up, and to support vulnerable Asian and other migrant workers and the organizations that advocate for them.

Organizations we can support: