NEW YORK – It is a 21-year-old man, Robert Aaron Long, the killer who killed Asian women workers in three spas in the Acworth and Woodstock neighborhoods of Atlanta on the American night. Killing eight people, six of them women, of Asian origin. The motive, for now, is not clear but the investigators take the racial trail very seriously. Although Long denies it, speaking if anything of a “sex addiction” after admitting that he has already been to one of those places.
Use: shooting in Atlanta, 8 dead. They are all women of Asian descent
by our correspondent Federico Rampini
Certainly, the murders of these hours have severely shaken the Asian American community: object, in recent months of repeated hate crimes, tragically increased since the beginning of the pandemic, also inflamed by the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump who has spoken several times of “Chinese virus”. The situation is so bad that the police presence is increasing in Chinatowns across America. And in the Asian-majority neighborhoods of large cities like New York and San Francisco, citizens are already organizing themselves: with neighborhood patrols and even group evening walks, to allow everyone – and especially women, the most affected – to leave the house without fear.
In fact, in 2020 there were at least 3,795 episodes reported by American Asians: between physical assaults, insults and discriminatory acts. This was reported by Stop AAPI Hate (where the acronym stands for Asian American Pacific Islander): a coalition born a year ago to monitor the harassment suffered by the community in coincidence with the arrival of Covid in America, founded by Russell Jeung, professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University.
In 2021, things seem to be even worse. According to the latest report published by the association only yesterday, between 1 January and 28 February, 503 episodes of violence and discrimination are already reported. But Stop AAPI Hate points out that those that have emerged are only a part of the daily attacks suffered. now almost daily. Sure, most incidents – around 68 percent – are “limited” to verbal harassment. But the number of physical attacks should not be ignored: it represents 11 percent of accidents. Still, more than a third of these accidents (35.4) occur in workplaces, 25.3 on the street and 9.8 in public parks. Another 11 percent of threats arrive, often anonymously, online. The Chinese are mainly targeted: 42.2 percent of the victims. Followed by 14.8 percent of people of Korean descent (such as at least four victims of the Atlanta massacre). But often the attackers look only at the cut of the eyes: Vietnamese and Filipinos represent respectively 8.5 and 7.9 per cent of the attacked.
The situation is so serious that a week ago President Joe Biden also spoke about it during his first address to the nation, one year after the virus arrived in the United States. In one passage he condemned the episodes of violence against the Asian-Americans: «Too often under attack, despite many of them are on the front line in hospitals to fight the pandemic, trying to save lives. These people today fear for their lives, they are afraid even just to walk the streets of America. It’s wrong. It is un-American. It must end ». Just a few hours before that speech, Democratic Congresswoman Grace Meng of New York had asked for those related to the pandemic to be added to the hate crime legislation.
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