the shooting in Atlanta of 8 massage parlour workers by a white man was a white supremacist hate crime and the latest in a series of attacks on Asians in the US. however, it’s also extremely important to note that the group he targeted are a community that is already more vulnerable to state violence than many, in form of police raids, deportations, and systematised stigmatisation. this is an industry that’s often conflated with and overlapping with sex work, and the industry has faced decades of criminalisation and dehumanisation, with a long history of being targeted by cops and systemic injustice along with racialised misogyny and fetishisation. they are also often excluded from conversations about the latest rise of anti-asian racism in the US, since many do not fulfill the “american” part of asian-american.
if can donate, also consider donating to red canary song, butterfly, and swan, grassroots organisations and activists that fight for migrant and labour justice for migrant workers and sex workers.
As a white person and as a person who has trouble putting her thoughts into words I’ll keep it brief. Apologies for any clumsiness
What the US is doing to its people right now is atrocious, what its been doing to its black people is worse. I strongly support the protests going on right now and have donated what I can where I can to help. I strongly encourage my followers to do the same if able, and to explore the resources provided in my previous reblog.
If you are against the current movement, or if you are against “being political” then I would further encourage you to please educate yourself on the issues at hand. Mainstream media is not enough, listen to black voices and view anti-racist resources. Failing that, I ask you to remove yourself from my blog.
If you’re not following the Swann Street siege story this morning, it’s incredible.
Yesterday evening, D.C. police forced a large group of peaceful protesters and demonstrators into a residential neighborhood in a tactic known as “kettling.”
Kettling is a military technique to encircle people, to box them in on all sides, into a smaller and smaller and smaller space where they can’t retreat or escape from. In American protests, it’s often accompanied by police forces taking advantage of the fact that protesters can’t retreat to inflict maximum harm with teargas, batons, and other weapons for an extended period before doing mass arrests.
It’s not a dispersement technique, it’s the complete opposite – it’s a technique of intense aggression, and it’s controversial because it’s seldom used in good faith and often results in intense prolonged violence, with the intention of also cutting everyone caught in the kettle off from medics, aid, food, water, the ability to leave, etc.
Last night, D.C. police pushed demonstrators into a residential neighborhood in an attempt to kettle them. But residents of the neighborhood had been watching, and threw open their front doors to protesters, including a first-generation Indian-American man named Rahul Dubey.
Rahul and his neighbors sheltered a hundred people or more, between them, for eight hours last night, including having teargas fired at their homes and having the police try to enter their private property several times through various methods. They were rebuked and dispelled every time.
Rahul and his neighbors orchestrated food, medical aid, and lawyers during the siege, including ensuring protesters had safe escorts this morning.
You can read the first-person accounts from the people who were trapped there:
I drew Hieronymus Bosch’s certified Very Good Boy, brought to my attention by @routezeros on twitter. Gave him a sucker fish mouth because it seemed appropriate.
My dashboard is so sad and empty now. Not because tumblr actually deleted or blocked or flagged or whatever any people I was watching, but because they all just jumped ship. : / Boo.
