Show your love and solidarity with Asian Americans
All of us can play a role in making Houston the kind of place we want it to be.
The heartbreaking news out of Atlanta, where eight people are dead following what police say was a murderous rampage by a young white man across three businesses owned by Asian Americans, is a reminder of many things.
How cruel human beings can be to one another. How hatred of women still flows in the veins of some men in ways that beggar the imagination. How in an instant an event can intensify feelings of insecurity for minorities in America.
The grief of the survivors and of the victims’ family members — and the pain, anger and fear of other Asian Americans — is so tangible that many of us have been left wondering what we can do to help in this moment of crisis.
We believe the answer is clear. All Americans of goodwill should seek to find a way, in their own circumstances, to send a message of inclusion, of love, of embrace and solidarity to the millions of Americans who are of Asian descent. In Houston, this is a special responsibility for all of us because in this city and in suburbs nearby, Asian Americans have been a large, visible part of the fabric of our community for generations.
In 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 331,000 residents of Harris County — about 7 percent of the total — were Asian Americans. What these neighbors are owed is simple: A sense of safety that has been missing for years, but the lack of which has been brought into sharp relief by the killings in Georgia.
While many have latched on to the alleged shooter’s claims to police that he was driven by a “sex addiction” and the fact that the businesses were massage parlors to downplay the racial component of the killings, the fact is the gunman targeted three Asian businesses and killed six women of Asian descent at a time when attacks on Asian Americans have been growing.
Last year, during the crippling pandemic which the former president insisted on calling the “China virus” or “kung flu,” more than 3,700 reports of discrimination were made to the group, Stop the AAPI Hate. Most of these involved verbal discrimination, slurs and other menacing behavior at businesses owned by Asian Americans. But 11 percent of the reports involved physical assault, and others involved being spit at, shunned or harassed online.
In Texas, a Burmese father and his two young sons were attacked in Midland by a man who said he targeted them because he thought they were “Chinese and infecting people with the coronavirus.” A Vietnamese American veteran in Irving coughed while standing in line to vote and was told by a woman that Asians were spreading the coronavirus and she didn’t “want to partake in that mess that y’all started.” In Houston, a woman at a parking lot on Buffalo Speedway screamed at an Asian American couple to “Get out of our country! Get out of the United States!”
These incidents have weighed heavily on Houston residents, just as they have across the country.
“It was just a matter of when,” 29-year-old Melody Tan told Houston Chronicle reporter Anna Bauman. “The community has been speaking up. We knew this was going to happen. This was the end result of all of these subtle or less explicit forms of racism — they were all leading up to this.”
In the wake of the attack, the Houston Police Department has stepped up patrols in areas of the city where Asian American-owned businesses are clustered, and officials have rushed to reassure community members they will be protected and are valued.
“The attacks on the Asian American community are an outrage,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said, “and it’s on all of us to stop it.”
Both forms of action — the talk and the patrols — are necessary and valuable.
But the message of solidarity will only be felt if it is spread by many ordinary voices, too. That’s where all of us can play a role in making our city the kind of place we want it to be: safe, inclusive and full of love.
A vigil was held at Discovery Green on Saturday evening. Attending was be one way to show solidarity with Asian Americans in our part of Texas. But there are other ways, especially in the midst of a still deadly pandemic, to voice our support.
There is no room for hate or for violence in Houston. Our success as a city depends on embracing everyone who lives here and making all who share these streets feel welcome.
Each of us should seek in our own way to send that message, whether it’s through speaking out if someone is being targeted for their race or ethnicity, organizing against sexual and gender-based violence, educating ourselves and examining our own unconscious biases, supporting a business, or simply reaching out to our neighbors and letting them know we are there.
We must each do our part to signal that everyone who calls Houston home is a permanent thread in the weave of this beautifully diverse and ultimately optimistic city.
Our success as a city depends on embracing everyone who lives here and making all who share these streets feel welcome.