On March 18th, PSU-AAUP Executive Council voted to endorse the following statement put out by the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, APALA Grieves for the Asian Women Who Were Victims of Targeted Shootings in Georgia, and Condemns Misogyny and White Supremacy that Motivated These Murders.
“Last night, eight people were murdered at three spas in Georgia, many of whom were Asian and immigrant women that were targeted at their workplaces. These killings happened amidst a global pandemic that has revealed the vulnerability most workers face in America and brought to the forefront anti-Asian racism, both of which are critical to maintaining white supremacy. These murders show how both racism and sexism shapes the specific ways that Asian women experience violence; Asian women are fetishized as sex objects and perceived as deserving of violence. Such dehumanization goes back to more than a century ago when the Page Act of 1875 defined all Asian women as sexually deviant and therefore limited their mobility and freedom. These murders were also driven by the demonization of China, where institutions from all sides are blaming a whole nation of people, and thus all people racialized in the same way, for everything from the COVID-19 pandemic to the resulting failing economy…”