Discrimination is a critically important matter across the United States. It has been a prominent issue for many years, and it has had many harmful effects on the health and well-being of many different people. Treating an individual unfairly or unequally because of a certain trait or aspect of them produces harmful externalities for individuals sharing the trait. Last year, especially, there have been a lot of inequity acts towards different groups, mainly towards different race groups. For example, one of the major issues that have been going on since the pandemic is the violence against those of Asian descent. With the pandemic originating in China, many individuals start to racially attack people of Asian descent, by calling the virus the Chinese disease or saying it was a purposeful attack. This has brought many people to commit hate crimes towards people of Asian heritage all over the country. The most recent one happened this week and it brought fear and anger to the Asian community.
On Tuesday evening, a 21-years-old white male, Robert Aaron Long, went on a rampage at three spas in the Atlanta area and shot eight women. Six of these were women of Asian descent, which stirred considerable outrage and fear in the Asian-American community. Four of the victims have been identified by Cherokee County officials: Delaina Ashley Yuan, 33; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Tan, 49; and Daoyou Feng, 44. Long was eventually captured and is not charged with counts of murder in connection with the attacks. In a news conference on Wednesday, it was revealed that Long admitted to the shooting spree, but denied that the attack was motivated by race. He added that the reason behind his violent actions was because he had a “sexual addiction” and needed to carry out the shootings at the spas to eliminate his “temptation.” The fetishization of Asian women occurring in the United States has a long history. Asian American women have been fetishized as sex objects by many men. This type of obsession is a form of dehumanization towards Asian women. Like every individual, Asian women don’t wish to be reduced to such a demeaning stereotype. No matter the race, all women are people as people and deserve the treatment that any individual should deserve.
Despite what the culprit stated, investigators said they had not ruled out bias as a motivating factor even as the suspect denied such racial animus once in custody. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta said that even though the culprit stated that his motive was not intentionally a race crime, the facts of the tragedy say otherwise.
According to an article by the New York Times, “Whatever the motivation was for this guy, we know that the majority of the victims were Asian,” Ms. Bottoms said, “We also know that this is an issue that is happening across the country. It is unacceptable, it is hateful and it has to stop.”
Hate crimes against the Asian community are a frequent issue, but it is not talked about enough. Just like any discrimination towards the other minorities, discrimination towards the Asian minority is equally important and needs to be addressed. Though the tragedy that occurred this week has cost the lives of eight women, it was able to clearly display the problem that people were not noticing enough. Hopefully, now, individuals will become more aware of the struggles that the Asian community has to go through, and how not enough has been done to find a solution to this injustice.