On March 16, 2021, eight people at three spas in the Atlanta area were fatally shot. Six of the eight victims were Asian women. The shooter, Robert Aaron Long, 21, is being charged with eight counts of murder. According to CBS News, the attacks started at around 5 p.m., when four people were killed in Cherokee County. Less than an hour later, four women were killed in two shootings in Atlanta in Fulton County. Long attacked the individuals after buying a 9mm handgun just hours before the first shootings.
Long told police, the attacks were motivated by his sex addiction. CNN reported that police said he had an “issue with porn,” and he claimed to see the spas as “a temptation that he wanted to eliminate." According to Cherokee County Sheriff Reynolds, Long “may have frequented some of these places in the past.”
Long is currently not being charged with a hate crime, even though he specifically targeted women and the Asian-run establishments, according to USA Today: Young’s Asian Massage, Gold Massage Spa, and the Aroma Therapy Spa. While authorities currently claim the attack was not racially motivated, “sex” is a category under Georgia’s new Hate Crime Law. If Long was targeting women out of hatred or attacking them for his own problems, it could potentially be a hate crime. Authorities claim that, as of now, there is not enough evidence to charge the attacks as hate crimes.
Asian Americans have long faced discrimination and hate crimes in the United States. USA Today reports this includes discriminatory legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese immigrants from entering the country due to irrational fears and stereotypes characterizing Asian Americans as untrustworthy and poised to take jobs from Euro-Americans. After the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, the federal government imprisoned around 120,000 Asian American citizens of Japanese descent in internment camps around the country, solely because of their race. In addition to federally-sanctioned discrimination, the Asian American community has experienced hate crimes throughout the years that often go unrecognized.
The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) reports Asian women are often characterized as ‘submissive’ and ‘weak’ and are constantly fetishized, leading to staggering rates of violence against Asian American women. This hyper-sexualized narrative leads to sexual objectification and violence. According to the NNEDV, “41%-61% of Asian women report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime." This is significantly higher than any other ethnic group.
In the past year, hate crimes against Asian Americans have risen by about 150%, according to CBS news. Stop AAPI Hate reports that nearly 3,800 incidents were reported during the coronavirus pandemic and that a disproportionate number of the attacks were directed at women. The Atlanta shooting is a devastating loss of life. The mass shooting highlights the importance of spreading awareness of the hate against Asian American women.
The Digital Divide Leaves Low-income, Rural, and People of Color Behind
In metropolitan Johnson County, it may be easy to forget many lack basic access to the internet. But the Federal Communications Commission estimates that more than 21 million people in the United States don’t have any internet connection, according to Pew Research Center, while 42 million others still rely on glacially slow dial-up or easily overloaded satellite connections. In addition, 40% of schools and 60% of health care facilities in rural areas lack broadband, defined as internet access with download speed of at least 25 megabytes per second. A teacher in rural Ohio told Time magazine that if just one video was running on the school’s satellite internet connection, she was unable to view a picture online at the same time.
Persons who are low-income are very likely to lack broadband. Pew reported that 44% of those with annual incomes below $30,000 do not have a broadband connection. This creates what researchers call the “homework gap”—the difference between children who have access and those who do not. The Pew Center also found 35% of school-age children in low-income households lack a broadband connection at home. In a time when some textbooks are not even published in hard copy and many assignments are directly linked to online resources, children without home access are left behind. Many children attempt to use smartphones as their internet connection, Time reported, but reach data limits quickly and spend weeks of each month without access, not to mention the limitations of smartphone access.
Of the 42 million people who do not have access to broadband, 75% identify as people of color. According to Pew, a third of those who identify as Black or African American, nearly 40% of Hispanic or Latinxs, and 32% of residents on Tribal lands have no access. This problem is persistent.
Of course, having access but no computer to tap into it makes access a meaningless question. Again, communities of color are hardest hit. A 2019 Pew study found that 82% of whites owned a personal computer, compared with 58% of Blacks and 57% of Latinx, according to The Crisis Magazine. And of those who have a computer, 79% of white people report having an internet connection, while 66% of Black people and 61% of Latinx people said they could connect from home. Learn more about this issue at the Network for Public Health Law's website.
Ramadan: It’s Much More Than Fasting
That Muslim people fast during Ramadan is often the only thing non-Muslim people know about the month. Ramadan, however, is much more. As Selima Jumarali reports in Medium, the true purpose of Ramadan is “spiritual connection and engaging more deeply with faith and spirituality through personal reflection, additional prayer, fasting from food and drink between sunrise and sunset, reading of the Qur’an, and increased charity, to name a few.” She notes there are 1.6 billion Muslim people in the world, and what may seem unusual in a largely Christian and secular country is routine for almost one fifth of the world’s population.
First, don’t assume the person speaks for all Muslims, and don’t impose the burden of explaining this religious holiday to you. It’s best to do your own research if you’re curious about Ramadan, but if you have an existing relationship with a Muslim person, show you care by asking how they are personally doing.
Second, don’t express shock that a Muslim person can’t ingest anything during the hours between sunrise and sunset. This is a normal religious practice, not something to be exclaimed at. If it’s not shocking that a Catholic is not eating meat on a Friday, or a Jewish person does not eat pork, it is equally not shocking that a Muslim person is fasting during Ramadan.
Conversely, if a Muslim person is not fasting, do not ask why. As in other religions, people are excused from fasting for a variety of reasons. Most of these reasons are very personal. For Muslims, they include things like pregnancy and menstruation. How embarrassing would it be for both you and your co-worker if you asked why they weren’t fasting and learned it was for one of these reasons?
Do, however, ask questions showing concern for the person you know. Asking whether it is ok for you to eat or drink in front of them is appreciated. Some people appreciate not being around food, but for her personally, seeing others eat somehow makes fasting easier.
Because Ramadan is a religious holiday, it is not appropriate to wish someone a “happy Ramadan,” as you wouldn’t wish someone a happy Lent or Yom Kippur. The greeting is “Ramadan Mubarek,” or “Blessed Ramadan.” If you don’t know the person well, however, this can feel like cultural appropriation to some. Jumarali says she appreciates non-Muslim people saying something that acknowledges the religious aspect of the holy month; a professor once wished her a “peaceful Ramadan,” for instance, which she found “authentic and heartfelt.”
Because Ramadan is also a time of prayer and reflection, designating a conference room or empty office where people may have privacy also shows support. For more tips, read Jumarali’s full article here.
"Halfway Home" by Jonathan Miller
"Halfway Home," by Jonathan Miller is a book about the after-effects of mass incarceration on individuals, and how their freedom is taken long after their sentences through unfair systems. Published by Little, Brown and Company, Miller's book shows that the American justice system was not created to rehabilitate- but is structured to keep American people impoverished, unstable, and disenfranchised long after they’ve been incarcerated.
Miller has spent 15 years interviewing nearly 250 people caught in the prison industrial complex. According to NPR, his work included a research project where he spent three years engaging and interviewing 60 men and 30 women after their release from incarceration in Michigan. "Halfway Home" captures the stories of the men, women, and communities fighting against a system designed to make them fail. The Logan Nonfiction Program wrote that the book reveals how laws, rules, and regulations negatively impact not only those working to rebuild their lives, but also our democracy itself.
You can find "Halfway Home" at your local libraries. Iowa City Public Library and Coralville Public Library carry physical copies, as well as ebooks and audio recordings. North Liberty Public Library has ebook and audio copies as well.
The Evolution of Earth Day
In 1969, the Cuyahoga River burst into flames—for the thirteenth time. “[A] river lighting on fire was almost biblical,” Jack Doyle reported Sierra Club President Adam Werbach later saying. “And it energized American action because people understood that that should not be happening.” Following a catastrophic oil spill off the California coast only months before, the river fire focused attention on the lack of environmental protection and influenced passage of the National Environmental Protection Act.
According to Weather.com, the river fire also led to the first Earth Day in 1970. The bill to sponsor the holiday was led by by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, who had been working since the early 1960s to bring attention to the harmful effects of pollution. That first Earth Day engaged 20 million people of all cultures, races, and creeds.
That fact relieved Senator Nelson, who stated, “our goal is not just an environment of clean air, water, and scenic beauty while forgetting about the worst environments in America. Our goal is for an environment of decency, quality, and mutual respect for all human beings, and all other living creatures.”
Many surveys confirm that black and brown communities, then and now, suffer differentially high exposure to toxins, air pollution, degraded lands, and polluted waters. Gary Nabhan at Resilience.org reports that social justice was an expressed aspiration of the first Earth Day’s organizers. It was not until 1991, Nabhan says, that activists Dana Alson and Benjamin Chavis, Jr. brought 300 African, Asian, Latino, and Native American leaders together for the first National People of Color Environmental Leadership Conference. Nabhan says Senator Nelson’s daughter Tia recently recalled, “My father’s original vision was of an inclusive, bipartisan environmental movement rooted in social justice.” She then conceded, “We still have work to do."
April 23: National Day of Silence
In 1996, University of Virginia student Maria Pulzetti created the first Day of Silence to protest the silencing effect of anti-LGBTQ+ bullying and harassment. According to The Nation, she explained she wanted to do something “that would be very visible...I knew that if we held panel discussions and events like that, the only people who would come would be the people who already were fairly aware." In 2000, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) became the official sponsor of the event. By 2008 over 8,000 high schools, colleges, and universities were involved. GLSEN reports over 10,000 students now participate yearly.
Even as the LGBTQ+ community has gained more acceptance in recent years, nearly nine out of 10 LGBTQ+ students still report verbal, sexual, or physical harassment at school. More than 30% report missing at least a day of school in the past month out of fear for their personal safety. To observe the day, students go through the school day without speaking, ending the day with Breaking the Silence rallies and events to share their experiences. This year, GLSEN is holding the event virtually. Visit GLSEN's website to register and read all about participating.
Iowa City’s Ad Hoc Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Last September, the Iowa City City Council resolved to create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That resolution is now a reality. Truth and reconciliation commissions, according to the International Center for Transitional Justice, “are non-judicial inquiries established to determine the facts, root causes, and societal consequences of past human rights violations.” The Council’s resolution notes, “the Iowa City community must look comprehensively into its past and bear witness to the truth of racial injustice in order to provide the best possible foundation for moving forward.” To that end, Iowa City’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission will “stimulate difficult conversations, and reach out and engage a full cross-section of the community, including those in the community not inclined to engage.” The City actively encourages broad participation.
The Commission will initially engage in a process of truth-telling in several ways. It will collect evidence of discrimination and injustice and compile a record of racial injustices that will inform and support policy reforms necessary to address systemic racism. It will ask persons impacted and traumatized by racial injustice to share their stories. To accomplish this goal, the Commission will explore ways to provide opportunities for expression through art, music, multimedia, and other ways of revealing truth that cannot be fully expressed through traditional means. Finally, it will create a repository of community stories intended to educate and inform members of the community.
Following the truth-telling process, the Commission will move to reconciliation, providing opportunities for direct conversation between and among community members and representatives of various sectors in which persons of color have traditionally faced injustice. For example, conversations may involve law enforcement, health care providers, educators, and others. Finally, the Commission will make available opportunities for learning about discrimination and racial injustice in our community.
Members of the Commission are: Amel Ali, Chastity Dillard, Wangui Gathua, Eric Harris, Clifton Johnson, Layana Navarre-Jackson, Kevin Rivera, Mohamed Traore, and Sikowis (Christine Nobiss.)
Visit the Commission’s page on the City website here.
Stay Connected to Equity and Human Rights news
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