#EndWhiteSupremacy: Violence against our Communities
Dear DVRP Family,
I’m writing to you today with a very heavy heart after last night’s shooting in Atlanta where 8 people lost their lives, including 6 A/PI women. There have been nearly 3,800 reports of hate incidents targeting Asian-Americans nationwide since last March, according to Stop AAPI Hate.
DVRP has seen an increase in incidents of intimate partner violence reported since the onset of the pandemic. We are also acutely aware of the violence that our A/PI community members experience in our everyday lives; from the racial slurs thrown out at us in public spaces, to lack of safety in our work places, to the harmful ways in which we are portrayed in the media. Anti-Asian violence has existed in the U.S since its inception and is the result of white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, capitalism, and the many intersecting systems of oppression that continue to exploit and harm our communities. It manifests in the policies that dehumanize and otherize our communities — bills preventing Asians from obtaining citizenship, the internment of Japanese Americans in WW2, post 9/11 hate crimes against South Asians and Muslim community members, and most recently, the Muslim ban. We must recognize that violence is built into our very structures.
What happened last night also speaks to the particularly gendered nature of violence. The site of violence was the victims’ workplace — massage parlors, which are often sites of sex work and are criminalized. We also recognize the specific ways in which sex workers, survivors, working class A/PI folks, women and femmes, queer folks, undocumented folks, and elders experience harm and erasure. We witnessed last night as well as time and time again how A/PI women’s bodies and labor are considered disposable.
As an A/PI-centered and led organization that works to support survivors of gender and power-based violence, we are here in this moment with our A/PI communities and our siblings beyond. As we hold all the victims and their families in our hearts, we also want to uplift A/PI centered organizations who are committed to building safety for our communities outside of carceral systems:
If you or someone you care about is seeking to be connected to survivor-centered resources, our hotline is: (202) 833-2233.
Please take time out to mourn, grieve and process these events. We are with you and here for you.
In Solidarity,
Krittika Ghosh
TW: Anti-Asian violence, Atlanta shooting, gender based violence
