Atlanta: We All Have the Opportunity to be Teachers
On Tuesday night, a gunman killed 8 people in three Atlanta area spas, six of whom were of Asian descent. The victims were Soon-Chung Park, Kyun Jung Grant, Sun-Cha Kim, Yong-Ae Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan and Daoyou Feng. The suspect, Robert Aaron Long, claims to have acted to fight his sexual addiction by targeting spas he frequented for sexual services. In this act, he decided the lives of these people (mostly Asian women) were expendable in the process of his own “healing.”
There is no excuse. This was a horrific act of violence that is linked to oppressive systems of race and economics that work (yes, this is how they were intended to work) to separate and exploit the most vulnerable among us.
Anti-Asian hate crimes have jumped 150 percent in the last year, which is largely attributed to the Coronavirus Pandemic. In a need to find reason in this tumultuous year, many have blamed the AAPI community for the outbreak of this awful virus. Covid-19 is a faceless enemy that should have helped us recognize our shared humanity. Instead, the age-old tactic of scapegoating the other has fanned the flames of hatred and emboldened some to act upon those feelings.
Some doubt this was a racially motivated act because of Long’s claims of sexual addiction. He attempted to treat his addiction in rehab, but struggled to reconcile his struggle with his Christian faith. While targeting his temptation may have been his motive, we can’t ignore that this act is tied to the fetishization and exploitation of Asian-American women. This story is also linked to spiritual practices that condemn rather than heal, an obsession with guns and economic systems that so often leave people of color and the working class in the shadows.
Violence against the AAPI community has a long history in our country and these instances were often tied to economic competition. In the 1850’s Chinese immigrants arrived in the U.S. to fill low-wage railroad jobs. With the sentiment that Asians were “stealing white jobs”, Anti-Chinese sentiment surged. People vs. Hall was passed in 1852, which prohibited anyone of Asian descent to testify against a white man in court, ensuring that anti-Asian violence would go unpunished. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed during an economic slump and an anti-Asian surge. There is a pattern of economic competition being used to pit “opposing” groups against each other.. And this divisive year has again emboldened people to use violence as a coping mechanism. At its core, every one of these acts is steeped in a history of dehumanizing others to maintain a sense of survival. Though this manifests in many ways, it is rooted in white supremacy (which was always a lie), and cannot be healed until we face that history head on.
If we are to find any meaning in tragedies like this, it is our collective consciousness. When the pandemic hit and the world shut down our pace slowed and many of us were awakened to a new era of activism and a renewed appreciation for the generations of leaders who came before us. We should be hungry to learn and we should insist upon justice.
Yoga, at its core, is collective consciousness. “Self realization” does not exist if we don’t recognize our connection to others and accept the responsibility to contribute to the freedom of all. We may not see momentous shifts overnight but we can analyze our society, ourselves and our practices and commit to learning, teaching and speaking out when we see injustice in any form.
I recently helped form a committee at my children’s school that focuses on creating equity and decolonizing education. in other worlds: teaching our children the realities of our county and giving them space to analyze the world for themselves. This not only includes our ugly chapters but the endless contributions and sources of joy people of color have given this world. As a woman of color raising brown/black identified children it is a given, but this work is essential for all.
We have to be willing to see truth, feel uncomfortable and find the nuance in this ever-complicated human experience. We all have the opportunity to be teachers, whether this is our children, partners, parents or friends. There is a chance for healing if we will grasp it.
