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COMMENTARY: Asian Americans, African Americans Know the Hate in America

You may have missed the statistics, though you may have felt it instinctively last August when the FBI released the news. Hate crimes targeting people of Asian descent rose by 70% in the U.S. The number of hate crimes targeting Blacks jumped 40%. All of it compared to 2019 levels. The trend is up. Double digits. We share the pain of racist hate.

Published

3 years ago

March 25, 2022

Oakland Post

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a talk show on www.amok.com

Emil Guillermo talks about race and politics from an Asian American perspective at www.amok.com See it live at 2pm Pacific on Twitter @emilamok; YouTube; Facebook/emilguillermo/media.

By Emil Guillermo

This week, African Americans and Asian Americans are reminded of our common ground.

It’s Four A (or AAAA) level when it comes to hate in America.

You may have missed the statistics, though you may have felt it instinctively last August when the FBI released the news.

Hate crimes targeting people of Asian descent rose by 70% in the U.S.

The number of hate crimes targeting Blacks jumped 40%.

All of it compared to 2019 levels. The trend is up. Double digits.

We share the pain of racist hate.

For Asian Americans, much of it was due to being scapegoated by the twice-impeached president who used phrases like “Kung Flu” and “China Virus” to describe the pandemic.

The scapegoating by the White House essentially gave the public a signal to go after Asian Americans for way more than just the origins of the pandemic.

We’ve seen the attacks in and around Oakland’s Chinatown.

The group #StopAAPIHate first started logging instances of hate transgressions and found that in two years reports have grown from a modest 700 cases to nearly 11,000, ranging from verbal abuse and spitting to physical violence, including murder.

But the historical marker for this era of Asian American pain will always be Atlanta, Georgia, on March 16, 2021.

It was one year ago this week that six Asian American women of Korean descent were killed in what has become known as the “Atlanta spa killings.”

The homogenized phrase hides the real pain. We should know March 16, 2021 by the lives claimed.

Xaojie “Emily” Tan, 49. Tan owned Young’s Asian Spa in Cherokee County, Georgia, where the first part of the day’s shootings occurred. Tan also owned another spa, Wang’s Feet and Body Massage in Kennesaw, Georgia. She met her husband, Michael Webb, in Asia, and they came to America in 2006. The couple adopted a daughter, then divorced. Tan died a day before her 50th birthday.

Daoyou Feng, 44, worked at Young’s Asian Spa for just a few months.

Hyung Jung Grant, 51, worked at the Gold Spa and was a single mother of two sons. She had been a schoolteacher in South Korea.

Soon Chung Park, 74, made food for the employees at the Gold Spa. She had lived in New York before moving to Atlanta.

Suncha Kim, 69, worked at the Gold Spa and came to America in the 1980s. She was close to her family and worked several jobs to support them. A grandchild described her as a “fighter” and a “rock,” for the family.

Yong Ae Yue, 63, worked at the Aromatherapy Spa. She came to the U.S. in the 1970s from Korea where she met her husband, Mac Peterson, who was in the U.S. military.

Those are the names of the six Asian American women.

The person alleged to have committed all eight murders that occurred that day was convicted last July of the four deaths at Young’s in Cherokee County.

Robert Aaron Long, 21, took a plea deal to the four murders at Young’s and was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus 35 years. (Paul Andre Michels was also killed there that day.)

Long purchased a 9 mm handgun that very day, then went to a liquor store to buy alcohol. He drove to Young’s Spa and parked outside for an hour. He said the shootings weren’t about race, but rather his sex addiction overlaid with Christian guilt over premarital sex. That’s what they all say. Long said he went to the bathroom and came out shooting.

Long is then alleged to have driven to the two other spas, Gold’s Spa and Aromatherapy Spa in Atlanta’s Fulton County where he is alleged to have killed Grant, Park, Kim and Yu.

While the Cherokee County DA did not seek hate crime enhancements, the Fulton County district attorney is seeking the death penalty and hate crime enhancements.

Long has pleaded not guilty. His next court appearance is in April.

And that’s where we are one year later. Still processing the pain, the hate and the evil.

March 16, 2021, was the day a young white man, angered and confused by religion and his sexuality, lashed out at six innocent Asian American women: Xiaojie “Emily” Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyung Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park,Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue.

They were working people doing what immigrants with limited means are allowed to do in this country. But they were surviving, despite living in a society burdened by racism, sexism and white supremacy. They were alive.

Then, in an instant it was all over, gunned down by a 9mm in an act of zealous evil.

Asian Americans know the violent pain of racism. Hate is an experience we share in America.

Emil Guillermo talks about race and politics from an Asian American perspective at www.amok.com See it live at 2pm Pacific on Twitter @emilamok; YouTube; Facebook/emilguillermo/media.

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In 1974, Then-Gov. Jimmy Carter Visited the Home of Oakland Black Black Political Activist Virtual Murrell While Running for President

civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.

Published

1 day ago

January 3, 2025

Oakland Post

Virtual Murrell chats with Jimmy Carter two years before Carter was elected president in 1976. Courtesy photo.

By Virtual T. Murrell
Special to The Post

On his way to seeking the presidency, then-Gov. Jimmy Carter visited the Bay Area in his capacity as campaign chairman of the Democratic National Committee in March of 1974.

A friend of mine, Bill Lynch, a Democrat from San Francisco, had been asked to host Carter, who was then relatively unknown. Seeking my advice on the matter, I immediately called my friend, civil rights icon Georgia State Representative Julian Bond, for his opinion.

Bond said that Carter, along with governors Reuben Askew of Florida, Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, and Terry Sanford of North Carolina, were all a part of what was being dubbed the “New South” and so supported civil rights and voting rights for African Americans.

Based on Julian’s comments, I agreed to host the governor. We picked him up at the San Francisco Airport. With his toothy smile, I could tell almost right away that he was like no other politician I had ever met. On his arrival, there was a message telling him to go to the VIP room, where he met then-Secretary of State Jerry Brown.

After leaving the airport, we went to a reception in his honor at the home of Paul “Red” Fay, who had served as the acting secretary of the Navy under President John Kennedy. (Carter, it turned out, had been himself a 1946 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a submariner in the 1950s.)

The following afternoon, the Niagara Movement Democratic Club hosted a reception for Carter, which was a major success. Carter indicated that he would be considering running for president and hoped for our support if he did so.

As the event was winding down, I witnessed the most amazing moment: Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, was in the kitchen with my former wife, Irene, wearing an apron and busting suds! You would have to have been there to see it: The first and last time a white woman cleaned up my kitchen.

A few months later, President Richard Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal. He was succeeded by his vice president, Gerald Ford.

On the heels of that scandal, Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976 represented integrity and honesty at a point in America’s history when he was just what the nation needed to lead as president of the United States.

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Oakland Post: Week of January 1 – 7, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of January 1 – 7, 2025

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3 days ago

January 2, 2025

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Racially Motivated Violence Against Black Teen Prompts $10 Million Claim Against LAUSD 

In December, a second altercation, on a video shared with news media, showed 4 to 6 boys attacking a Black student and using racial slurs. The video also shows a person in a safety vest trying to stop the fight and telling them to “handle it after school.” Then, the video ends. 

Published

6 days ago

December 30, 2024

Oakland Post

(Left to right) Civil Rights Attorney Caree Harper comforts the victim’s mother as she becomes emotional when describing the attacks on her son while her attorney Bradley C. Gage listens. Verdugo Hills High School on Thursday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Tujunga, CA. (Solomon O. Smith /for California Black Media)

By Solomon O. Smith, California Black Media

A distraught mother and her legal team announced a $10 million lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on Dec. 16, alleging that her son was the target of bullying because of his race.

“CS DOE is a 14-year-old African American student at Verdugo High School. He is a Ninth Grader,” reads a statement the plaintiff’s attorneys shared with California Black Media (CBM).

“Almost from the first day of class (in August 2024), CS DOE was targeted by Latino students who called him racial slurs, physically attacked him and threatened to stab him.”

The family’s identity has not yet been released to the public due to safety concerns, according to their attorneys Bradley C. Gage and Caree Harper. The student’s mother is identified only as A.O. in the complaint.

The first video, filmed in August, showed several non-Black students punching and kicking a Black student in a bathroom on campus while yelling racial slurs. The mother claims that the students who attacked her son were not punished, and the administration asked her to move her son to another school for his safety.

“They wanted him to leave the school without giving any disciplinary action towards those students,” said the student’s mother. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s going to finish. I wanted him to at least stay until the December winter break, and then I was going to transfer schools for him.”

Before she could enroll her son in a different school the attacks escalated.

CS DOE, a 14-year-old freshman, left the school but was followed by a car, according to Gage. Several individuals exited the vehicle, one with a “large butcher knife.” A fight ensued and two people were stabbed. The Black student was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon but was later released into his mother’s custody.

The high school freshmen is scheduled to appear in juvenile court on Feb. 1, but Harper says she will reach out to the District Attorney and make the case against charging the young man.

“His mama had to go find him because he was hiding and fleeing for his very life,” said Harper.

According to the boy’s mother, the young student is still traumatized and has not been able to return to the area because it remains unsafe. Racial slurs have also been spray painted on their home.

“I’m sad. I’m devastated, you know,” said the mother. “I still feel like they’re after him. I still feel like they can kill him, possibly.”

The LAUSD and principal of Verdugo High School did not respond to CBM’s requests for comment.

If you are – or someone you know is – has experienced a hate crime or hate incident, please visit CAvsHate.org for more information and to find out what you can do about it.