We finally have the names of all the victims who were slain in the Atlanta shootings.
Ever since the coverage of the shootings began, I’ve been obsessively checking the news for updates on the victims. The name and the image of the shooter were plastered EVERYWHERE, but nothing about the victims. It took THREE DAYS for us to learn all of the victims’ names.
Something like a dam burst inside me once the final names were released and I couldn’t stop crying. 6 of the women were Asian immigrants. They were somebody’s mother, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, grandma. They could have been MY mother, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, grandma. I see their names and I think of how much they must have given up to come to America and how much xenophobia and racism they endured, just like my own parents. My parents didn’t immigrate just for fun, they were escaping communism and they desperately wanted better opportunities for themselves and their families. These victims suffered so much to earn a place in American society and now it’s been cruelly taken away.
Unfortunately, their families will continue to feel pain and suffering despite the victims’ best attempts to provide them better lives.
I don’t want to put qualifications as to why anyone should care about the pain the AAPI community is in right now. (ex. If you like kpop or anime or Asian cultures, you should support AAPIs!) Honestly, if you are a human being capable of basic sympathy and/or empathy, you should care. But the fact of the matter is, I see very, very little being shared about the shootings and I’m greatly disappointed in the kpop fandom. I know tumblr is not the place to be getting news, everyone is dealing with pandemic exhaustion, maybe people are trying to give grace to AAPIs and not talk over them, etc.
But like….just 2 days before the shootings, everyone was chatting about how racist the Grammys were by using BTS fans to get their ratings up, but refusing to give BTS an award (which is also a valid discussion). Where did everybody go?? You don’t have the ability to reblog a few support links here and there? You were ready to fight over the Grammys, but not for racial equality?
I’m truly astounded by the stifling silence and genuinely hurt by the kpop fandom. You guys know BTS is Asian, right? Or do you only view Asians as a source of entertainment and not actual people in your community??
To be honest, I’ve been struggling with processing my feelings with these recent events. Growing up, I was taught to suffer in silence. My parents would give advice like if you ignore the problem, it will eventually go away. Keep your head down, work hard, and you’ll get by just fine. Someone else always has it worse than you so don’t complain.
But at what point do we allow ourselves to acknowledge our pain and suffering? I’ve been called slurs and hit on by gross men with Asian fetishes and all I could really do was keep my distance so that they wouldn’t hurt me. In the back of my mind, I always knew something worse could happen to me than these seemingly minor incidents, but I never felt I had a “right” to be upset – you know, since I was still alive – until now. Until members of our community started dying. It’s unfortunate that the conversation about anti-Asian racism is only starting now, when we’ve been dealing with aggressions for the past 150+ years.
To my fellow AAPIs, I want you to know I am here for you and I acknowledge your pain. Thank you for reading this.
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