Expressing grief, support for attacked ethnicities

All of us at the Marin Community Foundation join with millions of people across the country in expressing deep sadness and grave concerns regarding the latest surge in hate crimes directed at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Our hearts ache with sorrow for the victims, families and friends whose lives are cut down or forever changed following unprovoked violence, such as in the recent tragedies in Georgia, Oakland and the many other locales of cruelty over this past year and more. Words pale in trying to express the compassion and grief we feel for all of them, and for the members of the AAPI communities now dealing with the consequent crests of fear that such horrific acts always engender.

The moment also highlights the profoundly dismaying and angering reality that a relatively small minority in our system of governance continues to deny the overwhelming plea of the majority of Americans to enact comprehensive gun safety laws and to invest in enhanced mental health services commensurate with the painfully obvious needs. The current admixture of widely available guns and deep-seated psychopathology is a poisonous and dangerous brew, leaving lives lost, families broken and communities terrified.

For today, our focus is on Asian American and Pacific Islander friends and neighbors. We hope they hear our voices of condolence and that they know we hear their voices of pain.

The wave of assaults on the AAPI community, some out in the open, many others hidden or denied, are a long-standing scourge that must be addressed.

It is this acknowledgment, of the pain that has been suffered and the resolve it must advance, that can begin the transformation from a period of isolated mourning to a time of communal action.

— Thomas Peters, Marin Community Foundation president and CEO