The recent spike of anti-Asian violence in the USA has been disturbing to humanity, especially the attacks on Korean women in a massage parlor in Atlanta. The shooter was a young, ultra-religious Southern Baptist man, with “pizza, guns, drums, music, and God” as a summation of his “good life”. He objectified and vilified these women as if they were not humans; clear evidence of racism-fueled misogyny.
Other incidents were equally gut-wrenching, like the attacks on elderly Asian people in which one case resulted in death, and gross injury in others.
We in HAPI condemn these attacks against humanity. We condemn attacks on all Asian people – and any human being for that matter – due to their race.
This hatred was emboldened by the previous president who called the pandemic, “China virus”, or “Kung Flu”, and made false, derogatory claims about Covid-19.
It is oppressive to call the pandemic as such because there is no definite evidence that the virus arose in China; similarly, even with all of today’s cutting-edge technology, it has never been substantiated that Covid-19 is an artificial virus.
Nonetheless, it is a sad scenario that Asians are being targeted, assaulted, and killed needlessly in the USA.
Erika Lee, a professor of history and Asian-American studies at the University of Minnesota, noted that it is vital to understand that these events are not random acts perpetrated by deranged individuals. They are, as she put it, an expression of the USA’s long history of systemic racism targeting Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI).
“Stop AAPI Hate”, a nonprofit organization, has documented almost 3,800 incidents of physical assault, verbal and online harassment, and civil rights violations against the AAPI community in the States ever since COVID-19 cases began to surge in March 2020.
It is true that Trump is gone, yet the hatred he seeded among the people remains. We have been affected by it, and it will linger for a while.
Again and again, we see different versions of an insidious relationship between racism and perversions of Christian faith, or any faith. The ultra-religious are the most pious, yet the most dangerous. They think that they can hurt anyone and still will be forgiven by their Church or at the gates of Heaven.
We, the Humanist Alliance Philippines International (HAPI), join the outrage over the recent anti-Asian violence in the USA and around the world.
Marissa Torres Langseth
HAPI Founder
NYC, USA (March 19, 2021)
