“We are enraged and saddened by the news of a white man opening fire and killing 8 people, including six Asian women, in Atlanta, Georgia. These acts are immeasurably violent, but we know that the rhetoric and deep histories of white supremacy, imperialism, patriarchy, and racial capitalism are the poisonous soil in which these violent ideologies and acts grow.

Within our neighborhoods, working class, immigrant, women, trans/queer, and precarious workers face violence from a capitalist system set up to use us for profit. We must keep working in risky jobs and living in unsafe conditions despite deadly health risks during a global pandemic, a lack of language access, and even under threats of violence. Often this violence even extends into our homes with threats, precarity, or abuse from a landlord, partner, or family members.

Rarely do public institutions and government care about what happens to us. They think of our well-being as an afterthought. They speak pretty words but fail to give us what we need. In many cases, these institutions contribute to our harm. We know that Asian, Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities face the same threats, and that these forces against us grow more powerful when we fight against each other. We know the murdered women will be scrutinized by those unfamiliar with their situation for their profession and judged as sex workers. Nobody should be put at risk of death – from white supremacist violence or a global pandemic – simply for surviving in racial capitalism.

These conditions are why we must fight and organize for resources to make our lives safer. We respond to anti-Asian violence by organizing with our neighbors to fight for true safety for the working class every single day – safe housing, dignified work and the right to live without fear.

In Solidarity,
CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities”