At least eight people, most of them Asian women, were murdered in a series of attacks on a massage parlor and two spas in the Atlanta area on Tuesday night. A suspect, a 21-year-old white man, is in custody.

We don't know everything about what happened yet, but we do know certain inescapable facts about this country at this moment. We know that anti-Asian violence has been sharply on the rise in this country in the past year, especially against women. We know that conservatives, from Donald Trump on down, have happily stoked anti-Asian racism in an attempt to deflect blame for their failings around COVID. We know that anti-Asian racism is as deeply rooted in the United States as any other form of hatred.

And we know that, while very few places in the world are exempt from racism, violence, and misogyny, America is exceptional because it gives racists, misogynists, and violent people the easiest possible access to deadly weapons that help them act on their pathologies.

Today, like every day, is a day to be in solidarity with Asian-Americans battling the forces of hatred. It's a day to be in solidarity with all people working to end racism, patriarchy, and every kind of violence and exploitation that stalks this planet. It's a day to reject the inevitable calls for more police, more prisons, more of the forces that helped create the kind of society that produced the horrors of Tuesday night. It's a day to mourn the victims.

If you would like to give your money to places that need it and will do good things with it, here's a vital and useful thread. Click through, scroll all the way down, donate, and keep working until this country is purged of the sicknesses that plague it. It's everyone's job.

lisa lowe @driftinghouse

policing & carceral approaches are not solution to anti-asian violence - support asian immigrant women, healthcare, & reproductive justice in atlanta napawf.org/donate?snw=2&r…

March 17th 2021

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