Atlanta, New York, but also Washington, The Angels… Thousands of Americans demonstrated Saturday and Sunday in several major cities across the United States against anti-Asian racism, after the deadly shootings at massage parlors in Georgia.
Xing Hua, an Asian American, confides that she is “very angry” that Tuesday’s bloodshed has not yet been described as “racist” by the police. “The fact is that six Asian women have died,” denounces the thirty-something in Washington, the capital of the United States, where several hundred demonstrators gathered on Sunday.
Beautiful march against anti-Asian racism down Market Street in San Francisco, reclaiming space at the site of several attacks this past week ???? pic.twitter.com/s5e41U2fIP
– Jonathan Rosa (@DrJonathanRosa) March 21, 2021
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“I am not a temptation”, criticizes Kat, 31, on her sign, regretting the hyper-sexualization of Asian women. “I have been accosted by men on dating applications who tell me that ‘I have to treat my yellow fever’,” she told AFP.
In New York City, the city’s mayoral candidate and former Democratic presidential primary contender Andrew Yang, son of Taiwanese immigrants, on Sunday urged protesters to raise their hands if they had felt an upsurge in acts racist since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a virus that Donald Trump has repeatedly called the “Chinese plague”. Hundreds of raised hands responded in the affirmative.
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Arrested Tuesday after opening fire in three Asian massage parlors in Atlanta and its suburbs, Robert Aaron Long admitted the facts and was charged with murder. During his interrogation, he denied any racist motive, presenting himself as a “sex addict” eager to suppress “a temptation”.
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Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, thousands of Asian Americans have been the victims of racist verbal and physical attacks, according to a report by the anti-racist organization Stop AAPI Hate. A phenomenon that had also been observed in France since the first confinement.
“We are scapegoats”
Asked by Le Parisien last November, Jacques Hua, pillar of the Chinese community of Ile-de-France, secretary of the association of traders in the Asian district explained: “We are made responsible for containment and the coronavirus. We are scapegoats ”.
The anti-racism protest movement has crossed borders: hundreds of people also marched this Sunday afternoon in Montreal, Canada.
“We are demonstrating against years of anti-Asian racism, fomented by a white supremacist president in the United States who insisted on labeling the virus as the Chinese virus, which has encouraged hatred and attacks against all kinds of oppressed minorities” , said, about Donald Trump, May Chiu, of the Chinese progressive group of Quebec, and organizer of the march.
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