Spa Shootings

By: Bobin Park

To the surprise of absolutely no one, being Asian in America is different from being Asian in Asia. As someone with the experience of being Asian for a span of fifteen years, I can attest to that. And, as someone who is a fifteen-year-old girl with Asian heritages, it stirred up strong emotions inside me when I got a post from my school counselor about the spa shootings in Atlanta. The post was meant to be supporting and offering help, and I thought to myself, how long it would take for there to be no school posts, no text messages from your friends asking if they can help. Because, as sad as it is, this is not the first gun shooting, motivated by some sort of racial bias in America. As an attentive listener to every news channel, I have found a pattern in the events of the shootings. We mourn. We reach out. We move on. 

The coronavirus was something none of us had expected. Like on the election night of 2016, or the riot on the sixth, it had caught all of us by total shock and surprise. And it was simply amazing, to see how fast people were pointing fingers. It had been first found in Wuhan, China, and the revelation of this piece of information led many, including the former President of the U.S., to encourage racial hate towards Asians. Scapegoating and ostracizing has basically become American culture. But, we need to ask ourselves, do we want this to be American culture. Do we want a country, for all its success and victories, to brand its name with bias, hatred, and division? Because 2020 has been a year of great divide. Politically, and racially, America has been hurt. The election, the police brutality, the BLM protests. 

There are many things to talk about. Race. Gender. Gun violence. But, can we acknowledge that there is a problem? Most people simply do not see the problem because they were lucky enough to not have been the victim. But we need to see and to speak about the things happening in the community, not just to us as individuals. Especially in times like these, we need to care and help and fight. 

Now, I know people can think of stupid things when they’re scared. They’re scared of the virus. They’re scared of people. But how can anything justify killing a life, motivated by misogyny and prejudice? Again and again, the world has turned its back onto a group of people from the same place and time as a worldwide catastrophe. During the Ebola crisis, the discrimination and racism against Africans. During the ISIS attacks, the hate on Muslim communities or anyone looking susceptibly Middle eastern. This is not new. This will happen again. Why does it have to happen? Why do we have to treat racism as a math problem, where there is a solution but we can’t find it? Because hate crime is a serious problem, and we have to talk about it. I know actions are a whole lot more important than just talking about it, but people aren’t even talking about it, so I guess we’ll have to start from there.