Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

Virus of hate: ‘We are not your fetish’ — Combating Anti-Asian racism and sexism

  • Justice
  • by CASSANDRA BASLER | WSHU.ORG
  • March 28, 2021
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

Victoria Pickering

A rally to stop Asian hate last week in Washington, D.C.

Police have not said whether the killing of eight people in Atlanta, including six Asian women, was a hate crime. Still, the shooting is troubling many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Especially women, who reported nearly 70% of hate incidents against the community since the pandemic, according to researchers at STOP AAPI HATE.

“In a way, I’m grateful that I have a job where I can stay at home most of the time, and not really be at risk of those incidents,” Grace Kao said.

Kao has been working from her home in New Haven  for over a year. She’s a sociology professor at Yale and she studies how the people of Asian descent are shown in the media. She was especially troubled by violent attacks on elderly in San Francisco this year.

Researchers have tracked about 4,000 similar hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the last year, a 150% increase from 2019. Most of the cases were in New York and California, where professor Kao grew up and where her mother still lives.

“We’re basically always reminding her not to go outside by herself,” Kao says.

Kao’s fears heightened when news came of the shootings at three Asian-owned spas in and around Atlanta. The suspect told police he did this because of a self-diagnosed sex addiction and he wanted to eliminate “temptation.” Kao said that ties to a long history of harmful racial stereotypes about Asian women and massage parlors.

Courtesy Grace Kao

Grace Kao and her husband Jeff Rubidge.

“These businesses, which, I don’t think it’s relevant whether or not it was sexual in nature. But it does cater to a desire by some men to have some kind of contact with an exotic Asian worker,” Kao said.

That idea is far from new. The first immigration law that discriminated against an ethnic group was the Page Act in 1875. Kao said it effectively banned Asian women on the basis they might be “immoral.”

“They were seen as prostitutes,” she explained.

Kao said Hollywood also repeats a submissive, sexual object trope: “there is a whole industry, I mean, there’s a fetish for Asian American women.”

She points to websites for people that only want to date women of Asian descent and genres of pornography. It’s part of the reason some people who attended vigils for the Atlanta victims in cities across the country have carried signs that say “I am not your fetish.”

In Atlanta, Lisa Hagen works as a reporter with public radio station WABE. Hagen said the Gold Massage Spa targeted by the self-proclaimed sex-addict was different from clubs nearby.

“There were other businesses in this area that promote sexuality,” Hagen said. “Certainly naked women and strip clubs that he could have hit up if that was the connection in his head.”

Hagen said victims’ families have not spoken out much. For some, there’s a language barrier, or potential immigration concerns. But there may also be shame around a false narrative that women who may have been involved in a business associated with sex, somehow deserved to be targeted.

“Most of them were single mothers,” Hagen said. “And that, in itself, can be a thing that people might want to keep that kind of work private about. By ‘that kind of work,’ I mean sex work.”

Hagan said one of the effects of shame around sex that’s common in Korean communities is there hasn’t been a lot of public protests from the victims’ families in Georgia. At least, not the way people rallied around families of victims during Black Lives Matter protests this summer.

Jessica Reaves works at the Anti-Defamation League. She said there are more reasons the killing of six women of Asian descent has yet to spark a bigger movement.

“We don’t acknowledge hate or violence against women in the same way that we acknowledge racist hate, or racist violence, or bigoted violence,” Reaves said.

Take the Say Her Name campaign, for example. The lack of attention towards Black women killed by police prompted the African American Policy Forum to launch it in 2014.

A few years later, Reaves wrote a report about the ties between white supremacy and misogyny. She said you can’t address one issue without the other.

“When you’re looking at what happened in Atlanta, it’s literally impossible to separate the threads of misogyny and racism that are intertwined there,” Reaves said. “It means that women are afraid, and it means that Asian American Pacific Islanders are afraid. And people who share both of those characteristics are doubly afraid.”

Back in Connecticut,  Kao agrees.

“There are groups of ‘incels’ that are angry at women overall and there are people that are even angrier at Asian American women. So, it is a problem,” Kao said. “It is a problem.”

Kao said education about racism and sexism is important and she support’s Connecticut’s proposal for a school curriculum that would include the history of AAPI, indigenous and LGBTQ residents.

Reaves also encourages men everywhere to talk to each other about these issues, and to believe people of marginalized genders when they say they face harassment.

This story was first published March 26, 2021 by WSHU Public Radio.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CASSANDRA BASLER | WSHU.ORG

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
CT’s prison population shrunk during the pandemic. Will it last?
by Kelan Lyons and Kasturi Pananjady

The historic declines coincide with a demand for equity as racial disparities in the incarcerated populate have widened during COVID-19.

Keep youths out of the justice system, or hold them accountable? Judiciary committee advances bills that do both
by Kelan Lyons

Republicans were concerned about a provision in one bill that would erase certain juvenile records.

DCF commissioner says old juvenile detention center could humanely shelter migrant kids
by Mark Pazniokas and Kelan Lyons

Officials say a closed juvenile detention center's history should not rule out repurposing it as a shelter for migrant children.

Gov. Lamont’s cannabis bill passes out of Judiciary Committee, but not without changes
by Kelan Lyons

Revisions allow medical card-holders to grow their own plants and proposes that 55% of revenue go toward social-equity efforts.

As federal lawsuit progresses, lawyers ask to sue in state court over negligence in prison death of 19-year old
by Kelan Lyons

A federal judge ruled that Karon Nealy Jr. "had an autoimmune disease that cost him his life.”

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion SB 1018: Connecticut’s effort to increase prosecutorial accountability and why it will not work
by Olivia Louthen

Senate Bill 1018 does not solve Connecticut’s largest criminal justice problem: outcomes for crime victims and defendants vary based on zip codes because judicial districts operate independently of one another.

Opinion Debunking the CBIA’s takedown of the public option healthcare bill
by Bill Shortell

I am writing to those struggling to defend the public option healthcare plan, under the burden of a mass of disinformation put out by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA). The latest version of the Public Option (SB 842) will offer a state-run healthcare package to small businesses, individuals, and not-for-profits.

Opinion A crisis and complaint about Anthem mental healthcare coverage
by Rebecca Burton, Rebecca Toner, Jorge Fernandez, Emily Stagg and Carrissa Phipps

We write on behalf of the Mental Health Clinicians Action Network of Connecticut (MHCAN-CT), a multidisciplinary group of mental health professionals aiming to improve access to mental health care by bridging the gaps between clients, clinicians in private practice, legislators, governing bodies, and insurance companies. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been advocating for permanent pay parity for telehealth services as well as more power to hold insurance companies accountable for meeting the standard of care.

Opinion Ensure that undocumented individuals have access to COVID-19 vaccine
by Moe Uddin

Now that the COVID-19 vaccine is available for all Connecticut residents over the age of 16 years, we must ensure equal access to the vaccine for all community members, especially vulnerable populations. In Connecticut, one such population that deserves our attention and support are our migrant farmworkers.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO