The Society of Jewish Ethics Opposes Violence against Asian-Americans and Stands with the AAPI Community.
Release date: March 28, 2021
On Wednesday, March 16, 2021, eight people were murdered in a racist and tragic attack by a white man in Atlanta.
They include: Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; Yong Ae Yue, 63; Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; and Paul Andre Michels, 54. Six of those individuals were of Asian descent, two were white, and seven of them were women. This shooting highlighted the rise in anti-Asian violence, harassment, and assault that we have seen throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Over the last year, longstanding tropes and stereotypes have gathered momentum from the prominent use of racist rhetoric that wrongly associates Asians with the virus.
As this horrific event reminds us, Asian-American women sit at the intersection of multiple marginalized and oppressed identities in the United States. We condemn the racism, misogyny, classism, sexism, white supremacy, and xenophobia that led to this violence, and we mourn the loss of these individuals with their families and communities. Additionally, we wish Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz a speedy recovery.
As the Society of Jewish Ethics (SJE) we stand in solidarity with all those who are marginalized and oppressed. We reaffirm our commitment to racial justice and to taking concrete steps toward transforming our scholarship, our teaching, and our gatherings. We will increase the representation of marginalized groups on our conference program, diversify and decolonize our syllabi, and continue to solicit programming that interrogates white supremacy. We also commit ourselves to rooting out racism, misogyny, and xenophobia in Jewish communities, noting at this moment the ways in which many Jewish communal spaces have failed to welcome Jews of Asian descent. We are committed to creating a more just, equitable, and safe space for all in our communities, our professional spaces, and our academic guilds.
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