ROCHESTER RACIAL JUSTICE TOOLKIT

The RRJT mourns the eight victims killed in the deadly shooting spree in Atlanta, GA : Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun,  Paul Andre Michels,  Xiaojie  Tan, and Daoyou Feng. Let us commit these names to memory. Say them. Urge clumsy recalcitrant tongues to bend toward their rightful pronunciation, their proper honoring. It is the very least we can do. It is a start. (The Asian American Journalists Association has released a pronunciation guide for shooting victims with Korean/Chinese names.) 

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Six of the eight victims killed were Asian women. This matters deeply and we must work to confront the tangle of intersecting realities of racism, misogyny, class, and gun violence that make this an all too American tragedy... an all too familiar crime. While details emerge from the Atlanta investigation and critics mince words debating what constitutes a hate crime, the Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community nationwide is in mourning and anguish. How this is impacting AAPI individuals, families, and communities matters.

 

There are critical intersections here and any work toward justice, equity, and healing in our community must account for this. If we think none of this is connected, that there is ostensibly “nothing to see here” in the wake of the Atlanta shootings, then we have not been listening, we have refused to hear what this moment is calling us to face and dismantle. We must continue to show up, stand up, and speak up. 

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