In the wake of the horrific murder of eight people in Atlanta on Tuesday, March 16, GRID Alternatives Mid-Atlantic wants to express its solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities that are feeling threatened by rising anti-Asian sentiments in our country.
Six of the eight victims were Asian American women, a fact that cannot be ignored considering the drastic increases in anti-Asian American hate crimes and violence against women since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This wave of racism and domestic violence is being driven by pervasive systems of white supremacy and misogyny, including the explicit use of anti-Asian language by the former President and others in reference to the pandemic.
Sadly, this is not the first time that Asian American communities have been scapegoated in the United States. There is a long history of anti-Asian racism, reaching back to the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese internment camps, which we as a country must reckon with.
GRID Mid-Atlantic remains firmly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion and we will continue to strive to better ourselves as an anti-racist organization. We ask our supporters and partners to make the same commitments, because racism cannot be fought alone. We need to stand together and say with one voice, “anti-Asian hate has no place here.”