PAL - Protect Asian Lives

 Hello. This is another one of those 'serious posts' on my blog, and I and many others would appreciate it if you took the time to read this.

Disclaimer: Word Spit Ahead(last joke you'll get from me on this post)

I think it's safe to say that 2020 has not been an easy year for anyone, but especially for Asian Americans. I'll cut to the chase: Hate crimes targeted towards Asian Americans have significantly since the beginning of COVID-19. When former president Donald Trump called COVID the "China Virus", people started to target Asian Americans through violence, which is complete racism.

Some examples, taken from this article on the Washington Post: Anti-Asian violence is surging. But we can’t answer bigotry with bigotry., a woman from Brooklyn was doused with chemicals, causing her to suffer from severe burns, an 84-year-old Thai immigrant died in an assault in San Fransisco, and a 61-year-old Filipino man riding the New York subway this month was required about 100 stitches after being slashed with a box cutter. Understand that these murders have all been racially motivated, and if you refuse to believe this, you are being ignorant.

Some have been accusing BLM supporters of indifference to this issue, but this is truly not the case. Please remember: We cannot fight racism with racism.

Here are some petitions you can sign to help Protect Asian Lives.

https://www.change.org/p/governor-andrew-cuomo-end-hate-crimes-against-asian-americans

https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-stop-violence-abuse-against-chinese-asian-people

If you find any more petitions that might be worth signing in favor of this cause, please leave them in the comments. Thank you for your time.

UPDATE: Due to the recent Atlanta shooting, I will also be talking about that in this post. I am so incredibly sorry that I did not talk about it sooner.

TW: Shooting, Mentions of S*xual Addiction

On Tuesday, a white man went to several Asian-owned spas and shot and killed 8 people, 6 of which were Asian. The suspect denied racial motivation, but it painfully clear that he was targeting Asians, as Asian hate crimes have been on the rise.

According to the New York Times, "The suspect told the police that he had a “sexual addiction” and had carried out the shootings at the massage parlors to eliminate his “temptation,” the authorities said on Wednesday. He also said that he had frequented massage parlors in the past and launched the attacks as a form of vengeance. All but one of the victims were women, the police said."

This is completely and utterly unacceptable and is truly disgusting, but that's not all of it. Captain Jay Baker, on this case, stated that the literal MURDERER was just having a bad day, which is why he did what he did. Take a look(skip to 1:08 to hear the excuse) 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/cherokee-county-sheriffs-spokesman-says-atlanta-shooter-had-really-bad-day/2021/03/17/0c6c63d0-9f81-4598-8835-966080ef2ffb_video.html

I cannot find any petitions specifically for the shooting, so if you find any, please let me know and I will put them in.