this isn't a video i thought i would
have to do this was supposed to be a fun
channel
but with what's been happening with this
rise in anti-asian hate crimes
i feel like i have a responsibility to
use my platform to say a few things and
share my perspective
if you didn't know in atlanta georgia in
america on march 16th
there was a mass shooting that targeted
three asian-owned spas
eight people were killed six of them
were asian women
the current motive given by the shooter
himself is that he had a sex addiction
and saw these spas as a source of
temptation so
eight people died because of his
inability to control his penis
and how he blamed asian woman for it the
investigators are currently not calling
it a hate crime though because the
shooter himself said that it wasn't
racially motivated
okay so he drove past all the strip
clubs in atlanta
and killed six asian women at three
different asian owned spas but race had
nothing to do with it
they want us to believe that it was one
giant coincidence here's the thing
people don't get to decide whether or
not they're being racist being racist is
not an either you are or you aren't
thing
racism is rooted in action more than
intent when we have all grown up in a
society structured on racial inequality
we all have the capacity to do racist
things even unconsciously
what matters is whether you also have
the capacity to acknowledge this reality
and make an active effort to push back
against the racial biases you feel and
see
i've seen some people say the spas were
only chosen because strip clubs are more
well defended than them
and he's not racist because he also
killed two non-asians
and i'm just can we stop can we stop
gaslighting people of color about
whether racism exists
just because you don't want to
acknowledge how deeply it's entrenched
everywhere
can we stop with the mental gymnastics
to explain why something isn't racist
when the consequences of the actions on
a specific community of color
my community are so clear there is no
competition between racism and misogyny
they are not mutually exclusive motives
this hate crime
happened at their intersection because
of his sex addiction claim there's been
a lot of assumptions floating around
about whether these spas offered sexual
services
but right now as of the day i'm
recording this video there is no
evidence that any of the victims were
actually sex workers
the six asian women killed were ages 44
to 74
and at least two of them were licensed
to massage therapists
even if it turns out that some of them
were sex workers they still wouldn't
have deserved any kind of violence
but the fact that the shooter brought a
sex addiction into this means he assumed
they were sex workers which shows that
he bought into stereotypes about asian
women
and the way people reacted to the
possibility that they were sex workers
making happy ending jokes and saying
these women deserved what happened to
them
it's once again highlighted how
vulnerable sex workers are when their
profession is so stigmatized and
criminalized
especially sex workers of color listen
no matter what a woman is doing no
matter what she is wearing
no matter if she chose to do sex work
while knowing it's a dangerous
profession
she is not consenting to be violently
murdered society
is way too obsessed with putting the
responsibility on women
to police their actions so men can
pretend like they are incapable of
controlling themselves
i don't believe men are mindless
monsters i don't believe men get so
possessed by their rage and
anger that they physically cannot
control themselves i believe that there
is always a point where these violent
offenders
consciously decide that control is no
longer important and the more excuses
society makes for them the lower this
threshold becomes
it's true that we can't predict which
men will become violent and why
and when so it's always better to stay
vigilant but as soon as we start asking
well what was she doing
when these violent crimes happen we
create a societal environment that
implies that as soon as a woman steps
beyond the realm of acceptable female
behavior
she is seen as free game for assault and
murder this mass shooting was
pre-mediated
it was not an act of madness the shooter
chose to buy a gun
shoot up an asian owned spa drive 40
minutes to a second asian owned spa
had across the street to a third asian
owned spa and then he was apparently
about
to drive to florida to shoot up more he
was a frequent customer of some of these
spas because he clearly fetishized asian
women
i don't want to hear any devil's
advocates against this the devil
does not need an advocate asian women
have had a long history of being
fetishized and over sexualized in the
western context
the first chinese women to land in the
us afon moy
was brought over by two white male
merchants to be paraded around as an
exotic spectacle that was eventually
abandoned in poverty by them and ended
up in pt barnum's circus
the first restrictive federal
immigration law in the u.s was the page
act of 1875 and it effectively closed
the open borders for the first time to
prevent oriental women from entering
because they were believed to be nothing
but prostitutes
and then imperialism and the world wars
and us military presence in asia
caused asian women to be seen as war
trophies somehow there's this
perception that asian women are more
docile and submissive even though
have have you met an asian auntie now
i'm actually non-binary but the high fem
way i present makes most people treat me
like an asian woman
so i'm including myself with them when
i'm talking about this
the news of this shooting shook us the
insidious side effect of hate crimes is
that it makes all the identity related
traumas in your past resurface
asian women were all reminded of the
times we were harassed violated or
assaulted by those who fetishized us
we all have stories we have all been
reminded that there is a significant
portion of society out there that leers
at us as
objects of sexual desire instead of
human beings it's made us all wonder
which one of us is next how many more of
us will die at the hands of some guy
because of his yellow fever
i really hope the news starts calling
him a terrorist because i feel plenty
terrorized
this is why it doesn't matter if the
shooter himself says he wasn't motivated
by racism
his crime has created all the social
impacts of a hate crime
it cannot be ignored that this shooting
happened in a time where anti-asian hate
crimes are spiking in general up 150
since last march and mostly against
women and elders
committed by people who were told to
blame china for covid so they wouldn't
scrutinize how their own government
failed to control this pandemic even the
sheriff who reported on the shooter was
found to have shared facebook posts with
racist anti-china covet shirts
is it a wonder that he tried to get us
to empathize with the shooter
just had a bad day would he have tried
to spread that rhetoric
if the shooter was a black or brown man
we're all having
a bad year should we legalize the purge
i used to feel
safe i used to joke that as a short
young asian girl i'm the least
threatening category of person and that
i always get waved through in one try at
airport security
which actually isn't even true whenever
i come back from china i get scrutinized
to hell and back for potentially
bringing in counterfeit luxury stuff
but there was some part of me that
bought into the model minority myth
that thought well at least we asians
have a good reputation for being
peaceful so people don't fear and hate
us so much that they would guns down in
the streets
we only have to worry about being made
fun of being overlooked being ignored
being sneered at and not being taken
seriously
well clearly i was wrong the hatred for
us has always been simmering under the
surface of society and as soon as things
turn to crap
in a way that's associated with china
all asian diaspora are not being
targeted for violence
because people can't even be bothered to
tell us apart now i'm left wondering how
i could have been
so naive i even know my diaspora history
asians and chinese people specifically
were the original foreign peril in
canada and the us
their immigration laws were created
because white people wanted to shut
chinese people out
even though these two countries could
not have been built without chinese
labor
chinese people built the backbones of
canada and america
for example my province british columbia
joined the canadian federation in 1871
on the condition
that a railway be built to link it to
eastern canada within 10 years
many politicians wanted the labor force
to be recruited from britain
so they can maintain their image of a
white canada but the prime minister john
a macdonald broke it to them
that using exclusive british labor will
cost far too much
so they had to either use chinese labor
or not have the transcontinental
railroad at all
the dilemma was similar in america and
so extensive chinese labor was used to
build railroads there as well
these chinese laborers lived in
atrocious conditions and were only paid
a fraction of what white workers were
being paid for the same work
and they handled the most dangerous and
difficult stretches hundreds maybe
thousands died while blasting through
mountain ranges
avalanches sometimes buried entire camps
they were pushed to finish the railroads
years ahead of schedule
then when it came time to take the big
celebration photos of the railroad's
completions
the white employers cleared the chinese
laborers out of view before making a
show
of driving in the last bike themselves
then they proceeded to talk about the
projects
as if they were pulled off by brave and
innovative white pioneers
instead of by up to a 90 portion of
chinese laborers who weren't even
allowed citizenship
canada and america are only considered
white nations because of the deliberate
exclusion of people of color and the
erasure of their work by white
supremacists
and this notion that only white people
are true canadians and americans
caused those of japanese descent to be
herded into internment camps in world
war
ii even though their families may have
been here for generations
certain white people wonder why the pc
crown nowadays have to bring race into
everything
well this is the answer race matters
because your white ancestor made it
matter
because your white ancestors built a
racial hierarchy and put themselves on
top
and you are still reefing the benefits
of inequalities that were never fully
fixed
this is also why these conversations
single white people out
you have to realize what's been
happening to everyone else because the
world was violently shaped by
colonization to prop you
up some white people treat the term
racist as if it's a slur against them
and are more concerned with arguing why
this or that isn't racist
than doing the introspection to
understand why people of color are
feeling the way they do
don't be one of them yes people of color
also have the capacity to be racist but
it's white people who overwhelmingly
hold the power to turn their racial
biases
into systemic oppression if us singling
out white people makes you uncomfortable
when we're addressing issues of systemic
racism you are part of the problem
you are choosing to turn a blind eye to
power dynamics because it makes you feel
bad
we were not asking you to sob in white
guilt every day
actually it's very annoying when you do
that in front of people of color because
it forces them to do the emotional labor
of comforting you and it's pretty
transparent that what you really want is
to get patted on the back and be assured
that you're a good person
so no sobbing what we're asking you to
do is to educate yourself and become
more aware of the things people of color
have to face but you don't
understand that white privilege doesn't
mean that you're all born with a golden
ticket to life but that your ticket
doesn't automatically mark you for
systemic discrimination and violence
an example of white privilege how this
armed shooter was taken in alive even
after killing eight people i will leave
some links in the description below to
resources you can read and ways you can
help
but what it comes down to is making
yourself aware of the anti-asian
violence that's going on
donating if you can speaking up against
any anti-asian racism you see and
amplifying asian voices
a huge reason that these hate crimes are
happening that asians who aren't even
chinese are being targeted because of
anti-china rhetoric
is because so many people see us as an
indistinguishable monolith
and that can't be fixed unless you hear
our own stories and realize how
different we are
you can't go out and meet asian people
in a pandemic i know but you can read
books written by us
watch movies made by us watch
documentaries watch ted talks read
articles just go out and learn and
broaden your
view i do my best on this channel in my
books to share my perspective as a first
generation chinese immigrant to canada
but i'm not enough
you should seek out other asian creators
too i've been thinking a lot about the
role media plays in egging these hate
crimes on
not just trump and his china blaming
nonsense but also the daily legitimate
reports about the terrible things the
chinese government is doing
like arbitrarily detaining two canadians
to bully canada into releasing monzo
committing genocide against the uyghurs
and other ethnic minorities
cracking down on hong kong's democracy
pulling shady neo-colonious moves in
southeast asia and africa
and much much worse and we should
criticize the chinese government
international pressure is the only thing
that can get them to back off but i'm
wondering what this non-stop positioning
of china
as that ominous foreign boogeyman does
to the perception of chinese people as a
whole
and other asians and pacific islanders
by extension i used to not flinch when
people would say
china without information about kovid or
china
is playing the long game to world
domination because i instinctively know
that they're talking about the chinese
government
not ordinary citizens because i as
someone who was born and raised in
mainland china
i'm well aware that the chinese
government does not represent me but now
i'm wondering if the average person who
grew up in the west can conceptualize
this
if they're aware that the average
chinese citizen has no political power
or influence over whether these
atrocities are happening
you hear a lot about what the chinese
government is doing but do you
ever hear about what's happening in
china for ordinary people
do you have any idea what they're
thinking whenever i speak up against
white supremacy and the lingering impact
of western colonialism
there's always some guy in my comments
who is like well
china has a han supremacist problem and
is colonizing africa right now
yes and i criticize both the chinese and
western governments
but somehow just because of my name and
face some people equate me to this
ominous evil in their minds that it's
china
we can talk all day about how i don't
even have chinese citizenship anymore
i'm legally a canadian but i don't want
to make it seem like it'd be okay to see
all citizens
of the people's republic of china as the
enemy either if you want to know what
it's like for an average chinese citizen
imagine if trump and his goons appointed
themselves your government leaders
because of their connections
and you had absolutely no option of
voting them out imagine not even being
able to criticize
trump without worrying that the police
might pay you a visit
my family sees the stuff american
comedians say about trump
they see a selfie i took with justin
trudeau and they are stunned
in china politicians don't go on
campaigns to win support
they don't take selfies with random
people they do what their higher ups
tell them to do
it's like ordinary citizens are base
level employees at a massive company and
civil servants are the managers we
occasionally hear stuff about the top
bosses like xi jinping but ultimately we
have no influence on the direction they
decide to take the company
and in everything we see in public we
have to maintain the position of oh yeah
our company is the best
however most mainland chinese people
that i know are not blindly loyal to the
ccp
they've just been conditioned to not
voice dissent out of fear of punishment
but the grievances have their own way of
slipping out there are
endless sensitive terms that get
automatically blocked on chinese social
media but discussions still happen
using all sorts of slang to bypass the
filters the chinese people are always
one step ahead of the censors
we make jokes about getting invited to
tea whenever we say something out of
line
we laugh at government propaganda we use
vpns to go on youtube and twitter and
facebook
we mock the socialist values cj king
loves to talk about
because we're well aware that china has
an attempted socialism in decades and it
is in fact one of the most capitalist
countries on earth
if it were true that all mainland
chinese people are brainwashed the
government wouldn't need to crack down
so hard on free speech
i am chinese but i do not feel proud
that the chinese government is getting
so powerful
it even makes me feel hopeless sometimes
when i think about how other countries
are too tangled up in their own messes
and too economically dependent on china
to seriously stand up to the ccp
and chinese citizens themselves have too
much to lose to rise up in a mass
revolution
it is so infuriating to see that a few
hundred people
up high in the ccp have their grip on
that much power
and there's currently no reliable force
out there that we can depend on to take
them down
this is not what i want the future to
look like i do not want the world to end
up in a second world war that
god forbid escalates beyond cold but at
the same time that we're rightfully
calling the ccp out for its atrocities
western media has to be careful to not
do it in a way that leads to the
demonization of chinese people and other
asians
my friend anshii wrote a great article
on how so many publications claim
they're only talking about the chinese
government
when they're saying china but the
language and imagery they use still play
into xenophobic tropes and stereotypes
and so they end up feeding into this
image of chinese people
as this vague evil looming over the
world it's yellow peril yet again
there needs to be nuance when we talk
about china there needs to be a healthy
balance of good and bad
we shouldn't overly demonize and we
shouldn't overly glamorize
and we especially need to make the
distinction that the chinese government
the ccp does not represent the will of
the chinese people
we need to amplify more individual asian
voices so we're not all grouped under
the vague threat of china the balance is
not easy to find i know
i try my best to give a balanced view to
demystify chinese culture
and i've been accused of being both a
chinese nationalist propaganda spreader
and a sellout who lies to white people
for clout
okay ultimately i'm just one chinese
person sharing my perspective because
i'm
tired of people knowing nothing about
china and chinese culture
but making assumptions anyway i have no
reason to lie
i'm not pushing an agenda for any
country's government not china's not
canada's and definitely not america's
i only care about promoting the respect
of human rights i am one person making
content in quarantine i do all the
writing and editing myself
if something seems off about the things
i share it's probably because the
chinese experience varies
hugely contradictions inevitably exist
even the word chinese itself is really
this cumbersome umbrella term that
encompasses way too much
so i am again urging you to consume more
media by creators of asian descent
not just chinese ones but those of all
asian ethnicities
only when you hear our unique stories
can you see how different we are
i have book recommendations on my
instagram and website and in the future
i will make videos recommending more
content
but that's still gonna be stuff i like
and reflect my tastes so you should
definitely seek out asian created
content beyond that
part of being a good ally is proactively
doing the work to seek out resources
and learn instead of asking people of
color to spoon feed you
finally i want to talk about the victims
of the shooting xiao jiatan who went by
emily was 49
she was a licensed massage therapist and
owned young's asian massage in another
spa in atlanta
she had a daughter who recently
graduated from the university of georgia
it would have been her 50th birthday on
thursday the 18th delana ashley young
was 33 and was out for a spa day with
her husband who was uninjured
she worked at a waffle house near
emily's spa and had a 14 year old son
and 9 month old daughter
paul andre michels was 54 and he was an
army veteran who owned a business
installing security systems
he was doing maintenance work for emily
spa and might have also been there to
speak to her
because he was thinking about opening
his own spa dalio phone was 44
she was only recently hired by emily spa
unfortunately as of the making of this
video we don't know anything else about
her
hyuncheon grant whose family prefers her
maiden name hyuncheon kim
was 51. she was a single mother who
dedicated her life to supporting her two
sons
her eldest son randy couldn't even
retrieve her body because her legal
family name is different from his
and he couldn't find the paperwork to
prove he was her next of kin
sunchak kim was 69 she was a spa worker
and a grandmother who was married for
over 50 years
and immigrated from korea to the u.s to
give her family a better life
she liked to line dance in her spare
time sunshine park was 74
she was also a spa worker got along with
her family very well and lived in new
york before
moving to atlanta yon ayu was 63.
she was born in korea and married a u.s
soldier stationed there before moving to
the u.s in the 70s
they divorced in the 80s but they had
two sons together and their families
remain close
you can donate to support the families
of these eight people in a fundraiser by
the atlanta chapter of the nonprofit
organization
asian americans advancing justice which
i will leave a link to in the
description below
along with a community fund that will go
to other trusted asian american and
pacific islander organizations
even if you can't help financially you
can still create change by spreading
awareness
i urge you to please share this video
and to take the initiative to broaden
your world view
so stereotypes and demonization aren't
all you see