The Southwest Women’s Law Center Statement Regarding the Shooting in the Metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia Area on Tuesday, March 16th

The Southwest Women’s Law Center (“SWLC”) denounces and decries in the strongest terms possible the shootings at Atlanta metro area massage/spa facilities on Tuesday, March 16^th, whereas of this writing, eight individuals were killed. Six of the victims were Asian American/Pacific Islander (“AAPI”) women.
 
This is nothing new. The AAPI community has historically been the target of racism. Former President Trump and those in his administration engaged in a racist verbal assault against the AAPI community, which has inflamed a year-long eruption of racist attacks across the country. This ongoing violence, coupled with yesterday’s mass shooting event, has caused our AAPI friends, neighbors, and community in New Mexico to live in fear for their safety and for that of their families and loved ones.
 
It is being reported that Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, has confessed to the murders, claiming that he has a “sexual addiction” and that the businesses where the shootings occurred were a “temptation” and needed to be “eliminated”. He was said to be on his way to Florida to continue his work when he was fortunately intercepted by police and arrested. It is reported that the gun used in the murders was purchased earlier in the same day.
 
Whatever the stated reason for the deadly attacks, the motivation for these murders cannot be separated from the meteoric rise in hate crimes nationally against the AAPI community, precipitated by the Trump administration over the last four years and continued by his supporters. In fact, Trump referred to Covid-19 as the “China virus” as recently as the evening of these murders. While the previous administration’s actions have much to do with the precipitous upswing in racially motivated attacks against the AAPI community, this cancer did not start with the Trump administration. The AAPI community has been the target of racial discrimination and violence for hundreds of years.
 
From the targeting of Chinese-run businesses in 1886 San Francisco, to the internment of Japanese American immigrants and citizens during World War II, discrimination and violence against the AAPI community is nothing new. And so, it continues today. Identifying the motive for these murders as perceived sexual deviancy or a “sex addiction” in an attempt to divert the conversation away from the racial violence being perpetrated against the AAPI community simply will not work. Not this time. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.
 
This attack reflects the deadly intersections of racism, white supremacy, and misogyny, which harm women and people of color daily through systemic oppression. The violence perpetrated on Tuesday was not an anomaly, but rather a reflection of a society that has been structured to maintain white male privilege and excuse violence perpetrated by them against women and communities of color.  As we continue our work to fight systems of oppression and strive toward equity and justice, we at the SWLC ask that you hold your AAPI friends and neighbors close and that we wrap the community in love and healing.
 
 
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