‘All Races’ Lives Are Precious,’ the United States Cries Desperately

A movement to stand against racial discrimination and hate crimes and to mourn the lives of the eight victims of the Atlanta shootings, four of whom were Korean women, is spreading across the United States. In order to pay respect to the victims, President Joe Biden ordered that all American flags at federal buildings both in the United States and abroad, as well as those with the military, be flown at half staff. On March 19, Biden visited Atlanta to meet with local Asian American leaders together with Vice President Kamala Harris. It is hopeful that this tragedy will be an opportunity for American society to stop discrimination based on skin color and finally come to the consensus that “all races’ lives are precious.”

On March 18, Atlanta police said that “nothing is off the table” when asked if the suspect could be charged with a hate crime. After saying that “it is too early to determine whether the shooting was a hate crime” the day before citing the suspect’s “sex addiction,” it seems as if they changed their attitude after widespread public criticism that the police were covering up a racial hate crime. The New York Times reported that in the United States, where racially motivated hate crimes and discrimination have become a serious social problem, Asian Americans in particular are experiencing difficulty legally proving discrimination against them. Although standards for proving hate crimes against Black, Jewish and LGBTQIA+ Americans have been established to a certain degree, the Times reported that systemic legal standards have not been as well established for Asians in comparison.

Asian Americans and other minorities living in the United States are under severe threat, to the extent that the very reasonable observation that “all lives are precious” becomes a desperate cry. The lives of Asian Americans have become especially endangered after Donald Trump’s hateful rhetoric, which included references to a “China virus,” and which instigated flagrantly hateful politics amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is a sign of hope that after this incident, protests are taking place across the United States with signs and chants to “Stop Asian Hate” and cries that “Asian lives matter, Black lives matter and white lives matter, too.” American society must heighten the consciousness that appeared with the Black Lives Matter movement after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed last year by a white police officer who knelt on his neck, and make change happen by standing against discrimination and hate crimes against all minorities. The Biden administration, which emphasizes the values of democracy and human rights in international relations, can no longer neglect the domestic reality in which people are killed over their skin color.