Austin American-Statesman: Austin leaders condemn Georgia shootings as racist, targeted attacks against Asian Americans

Austin community leaders and elected officials said Wednesday they are disgusted with the killing of eight people in Georgia the night before — most of whom were of Asian descent — and are calling on others to condemn violence and hate crimes against Asian Americans.

Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old man from Woodstock, Georgia, has been arrested as the suspect in the fatal shootings, which targeted mostly women at three Atlanta-area spas.

Police said Long told authorities he frequented the establishments and that the shootings were not racially motivated. They have not said whether they will investigate the killings as hate crimes.

As upsetting as the news of the killings was for Amy Mok, executive director of the Asian American Cultural Center, she said the denial of the actions as racially motivated is shocking.

"I am so upset, so upset. You have no idea," Mok said. "People still question whether this is a hate crime or not. How is it not a hate crime? Asian women were targeted by this killer. I'm so upset that there is even a question."

Mok said the reluctance to describe the killings in Georgia as racially motivated only serves to perpetuate the Asian community's fear of speaking up about hate crimes they have suffered.

She said the recent killings not only bring light to the racism that exists behind the exotification and sexualization of women who are of Asian descent, but also shows that crimes against the Asian community are often brushed off as isolated incidents.

Mok said people in the Asian community locally and across the country have felt more threatened recently, adding that those fears were also fueled by former President Donald Trump's use of phrases like "China virus" and "kung flu" to refer to the coronavirus. She said Tuesday's shootings shows that hostility toward people who are of Asian descent still persists.

"I don't know if the killings in Georgia were directly related to (Trump's) messaging, but how much was it affected by the constant messaging about Asians being the problem?" Mok said.

Immigration attorney Pooja Sethi, who is serving her second term on the city of Austin's Asian American Quality of Life Advisory Commission, said she strongly disagrees with the idea that the killings were not racially motivated.

"When you are coming after Asian-owned businesses and when there's so much rhetoric already happening, when so many Asian people got killed, people can say what they want to try to minimize it but facts are facts," Sethi said. "If this was solely a woman and not a woman of color issue, then why go into Asian businesses?"

According to Sethi, Austin leaders have discussed different ways to respond to Asian-American hate crimes, including inviting Austin Police Department representatives to head up conversations with the Advisory Commission on tracking such incidents. However, she said more is needed and called for a tally of racially-motivated acts of aggression.

Although Travis County District Attorney's office staff is working on moving forward with a compilation, Sethi said the city needs to get the data from Austin police as well as the Office of Police Oversight even when a potentially racially motivated incident doesn't rise to a criminal level.

Sethi said local Asian-American businesses have been threatened or have been the focus of aggressions, but many owners are hesitant to go to law enforcement for fear the reporting "will spur more hate."

"The numbers are going up," Sethi said. "The hatred is real."

Hate crimes against Asian Americans have been on the rise around the country, according to watchdog organizations like Stop AAPI Hate, which in March 2020 began tracking the number of reports of racist physical and verbal attacks against people of Asian descent.

To date, the organization has gotten more than 3,700 reports of racially-motivated attacks on Asian Americans, though a relatively low number of those reports originated from Texas.

A year ago, three people of Burmese descent, including 2- and 6-year-old children, were attacked in the West Texas city of Midland by a man with a knife.

The American-Statesman last year reported that multiple Asian Americans had experienced coronavirus-inspired racism locally.

Last year in April, the Austin City Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning racism and hate speech against Asian Americans.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler on Wednesday condemned the killings in Georgia, and recognized that racism against Asian Americans is a troubling trend nationwide and locally.

"We support, protect and celebrate our city's Asian American Pacific Islander families, their businesses and cultural contributions to the Austin community," Adler said in a written statement.

In a tweet Wednesday morning, Austin City Council Member Alison Alter also shared her thoughts on the shootings in Georgia.

State Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, on Monday filed a resolution he authored to condemn hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. State Rep. Hubert Vo, D-Houston, and two Republican state representatives, Angie Chen Button and Jacey Jetton, have signed on as co-authors of the resolution.

In addition to expressing support across the state for efforts to stop racist attacks against Asian Americans, the resolution also calls for law enforcement to investigate and prosecute credible reports of hate crimes and incidents against people who are of Asian descent.

"It's not enough for public leaders to not be racist. It's not enough that you don't do things that are not racist, you have to be anti-racist," Wu said. "You have to take affirmative steps to combat this. This is not a problem that will go away simply because you don't like it."

Wu said the refusal to recognize the killings as racially motivated dehumanizes the victims of the crimes, and is an effort to minimize the pain and suffering experienced by communities of color.

"This is part of the gaslighting of all of our communities, and it's sort of the pat on the head for the white supremacists," Wu said. "These are the types of comments that are made. There is always some excuse when we know that the driving factor is bigotry, racism and hate."

Saatvik Ahluwalia, president of a local organization called the Asian Democrats Central Texas, said his group helped Wu's office with the wording of the resolution, adding that the state representative's work is a major step in the right direction.

"I hope that whoever reads this resolution urges their legislators to sign on to co-author because it was important before, it's even more important today," Ahluwalia said.

Ahluwalia, however, said the killings in Georgia and the hesitation to label the crimes as racially motivated shows the continuing need for other elected officials to stand firmly against racism toward people in the Asian community.

Ahluwalia said his group is working with other local Asian community organizations to hold a rally in the city on April 17 to condemn anti-Asian hate and racism.

"What we just saw in Georgia underlines how important it is for our leaders to condemn this type of violence unequivocally," Ahluwalia said.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, who also condemned the Georgia shootings, urged people in the area to join the April 17 rally.

"Rising anti-Asian violence and hate speech — fueled by Trump — must be vigorously countered through prosecuting wrongdoers, speaking out against racism, supporting our local businesses, joining our rally for Stop Asian Hate on Saturday, April 17, and standing with our Asian American neighbors at every turn," Doggett said in a written statement.