AACC Statement on the Atlanta Massacre and Ongoing Anti-Asian Hate
On March 16, 2021, a 21-year-old white male massacred eight people, six of whom were Asian women. Authorities have now released all of the victim’s names and ages but as of yet, little is known of their stories. We choose to honor them by sharing their names and the little we know at the time of this statement in order to center their humanity: 谭小洁 Xiaojie Tan, 49, an owner of one of the spas, and mother to one daughter; 김현정 Hyun Jung Grant, 51, a single mother of two boys; 冯道友 Daoyou Feng, 44; 박순정 Soon Chung Park, 74; 김순자 Sun Cha Kim, 69; 유영애 Yong Ae Yue, 63; Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, recently married and a mother to a 13-year-old son and an 8-month-old daughter; and Paul Andre Michels, 54, a former Army infantryman who owned a business installing security systems and was doing work for one of the spas. It must be said again: Each life had a story with layers of backgrounds, families and loved ones, and hopes and dreams.
We mourn the loss of these precious people made in God’s image. We are outraged along with the Asian American community as a whole over the violence that has surged during the pandemic yet has roots from long before it.
Asian American Christian Collaborative (AACC) condemns and denounces the violence committed in the Atlanta massacre on March 16, 2021. We call Christians and church leaders to make a clear and urgent response condemning this heinous act of hate, and we invite all Americans to work toward the dignity and respect of Asian and Asian American lives, especially women.
Despite the shooter having been reported to yell, “I’m going to kill all the Asians!” and to place the blame for killing people on his “sex addiction,” Cherokee County Authorities described the shooter as being “pretty much fed up and at the end of his rope,” and that he had a “really bad day and this is what he did." In the end, the shooter’s “bad day” led to the massacre of four people in one location, followed by a 30-mile drive to another two places, where he committed the same tragic act. The suspect’s actions suggest a deliberate, preconceived plan to target Asians, and particularly Asian women.
Further, the shooter was a professing Christian. He was baptized at the age of 8, and after referencing the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, re-baptized in 2018. Among other things, he is reported to love “guns and God,” an alliance often documented to be associated with Christian nationalism. His youth pastor could not “recall any sermons dealing specifically with racism” by the church.
The Atlanta massacre is a link in a long chain of hate and violence experienced by those of Asian descent in the United States. Historically, Asian people have been tagged as the so-called “Yellow Peril,” threatening the West with disease. Asian Americans have also been racialized as perpetual foreigners and outsiders to the nation. Consequently, we have not only been met with interpersonal racist violence, but also with systemic anti-immigrant policies. Asian women in America are particularly targeted through racialization and sexualization, which in turn has led to their mass objectification, exoticization, and fetishization. When the term “massage parlor” is connected to Asians, especially Asian women, the term connotes a sense of hyper-sexualization.
Asians in the U.S. have been scapegoated and blamed for the coronavirus at federal, state, and local levels. In March 2020, hate began to surge in the U.S. against Asian Americans. Many Asian Americans have been told to “go back to where they came from.” Asians have been spit on, coughed at, shoved, and stabbed. Youth have been bullied, being called “Covid” or “Coronavirus,” and the elderly have been killed. An 84-year-old Thai man, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was shoved and killed in San Francisco; a Filipino American and Navy veteran Angelo Quinto died of asphyxiation under the knee of a police officer; a 19-year-old Chinese American Christian Hall was shot seven times and killed by police in Monroe County, Pennsylvania; a 74-year-old Filipino American Juanito Falcon was punched in the face, fell to the ground, and died two days later in Arizona; and a 75-year-old Chinese man, Pak Ho was robbed and killed in Oakland.
AACC now, as it did in March of 2020, utterly condemns all violent acts against Asian Americans and calls for justice. We also cry out against violence perpetrated in the name of Christianity. We condemn the evasion of responsibility by churches and denominations that have historically perpetuated the social conditions for attitudes and perspectives that have led to the unequal, unjust, and ungodly treatment and murders of racialized minorities. AACC further condemns rhetoric that seeks to treat the shooter of the Atlanta massacre as an anomaly when, in fact, churches, denominations, and political ideologies/idolatries have normalized the dangerous ideologies that motivated him.
We call Christians and church leaders to the following:
Confess our own failure to disciple our congregants out of Christian nationalism to stem dehumanizing and objectifying falsehoods about women and racially minoritized groups in our country. Pray that our churches bear unified, faithful, and courageous witness to the lordship of Christ;
Preach and teach against anti-Asian racism, denounce the March 16th massacre from our platforms of influence, and honor the victims by using their names instead of centering on the murderer;
Commit to tearing down the idols of nationalism, misogyny, and xenophobia in the church through race- and gender-conscious discipleship that includes but is not limited to education on Asian American issues, anti-Asian bias, the exotifying of Asian women, and Asian American histories of oppression and resistance;
Invite, empower, and hire Asian American female and male ministry leaders who understand the complexities of U.S. racism to speak into the ways Christian ministries, organizations, and institutions can respond to anti-Asian racism, misogyny, and Christian nationalism in holistic and long-term ways; listen to Asian American stories of discrimination, marginalization, racism, and racialization, in the larger U.S. and in the church; and include Asian Americans in initiatives that impact communities of color;
Demand that all federal agencies review and revise policies that define hate crimes in ways that better account for acts of racism as seen in Atlanta and elsewhere over the past year, and support legislation aimed at protecting those who are being targeted by acts of hate and domestic terror;
Seek to understand the ways that the model minority myth pits the Asian American community against other communities of color in ways that discourage solidarity among them, perpetuates the false notion that racial inequities and barriers can be overcome at the individual rather than systemic level, and discounts the harm that our communities face and minimizes the needs of our community when they emerge. Seek to understand the ways the perpetual foreigner stereotype casts Asian Americans as a racial problem and perilous other in ways that has led to insidious racial microaggressions and brazen forms of anti-Asian violence.
We invite any and all who stand in solidarity with us to sign alongside us and to share this in your own personal and organizational networks. You can also join the Asian American Christian Collaborative on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (all social media handles are @aachristcollab) or go to www.asianamericanchristiancollaborative.com for resources to empower and equip you as individuals, organizations, and churches for faithful action to address anti-Asian racism. It’s time to stand, speak, pray, and act as the body of Christ for the justice and reconciliation of God that brings us together to reflect God’s Kingdom values.
#AACCStatement
Statement Drafters:
Pastor Raymond Chang, President, Asian American Christian Collaborative
Dr. Michelle Ami Reyes, Vice President, Asian American Christian Collaborative
Ms. Hyepin Im, President and Founder, Faith and Community Empowerment
Dr. Gabriel J. Catanus, Pastor, Garden City Covenant Church
Dr. Russell Jeung, Asian-American Studies Professor, San Francisco State University
Ms. Nikki Toyama-Szeto, Executive Director, Christians for Social Action
Ms. Jessica Min Chang, Chief Advancement and Partnerships Officer, The Field School
Ms. Jenny Yang, Vice President for Advocacy and Policy, World Relief
Dr. Yulee Lee, Senior Director of Staff and Partnerships, Fuller Youth Institute
Pastor Juliet Liu, Board Chair, Missio Alliance
Rev. Eugene Cho, CEO/President, Bread for the World
Rev. Dr. Janette Ok, Associate Professor of New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary and Teaching Pastor, Ekko Church
Rev. Sabrina Chan, National Director of Asian American Ministries, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
Join a live panel discussion on recent anti-Asian/Black racism, it’s history in Chicago, and unity through inter-minority solidarity April 5, 2021 at 6 pm CDT.