Freedom Network USA, today and every day, stands with our AAPI friends, neighbors, colleagues, and family members. In Georgia, Asian women working in Asian-owned massage and spa businesses were targeted in a display of racialized, gendered violence, which has left at least eight people dead. This is a manifestation of the multiple forms of oppression which intertwine, intensify each other, and devastate communities that are deprived of the resources, support, and protection that they deserve. A history of racist immigration policies, weak worker protections for low-wage workers including the service industry, misogyny, abuse and shaming of sex workers, and systemic racism have led to this abhorrent violence. The previous Administration’s drumbeat of hatred, specifically blaming the Asian community for the global pandemic, has fed these flames.
Freedom Network USA works in coalition and partnership with those working to address all forms of oppression, including: racism, misogyny, ableism, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia. We know that human rights cannot be separated or apportioned. A society that tolerates any form of oppression is a society that is an affront to us all. Human rights must be available and accessible by all, or they are not rights but privileges reserved for those in power.
Our way forward must be led by those most impacted, and must include widespread change to address the needs of not only those families who lost a loved one this week, but also the communities that continue to bear this burden.
Freedom Network USA recommits to working to dismantle white supremacy and misogyny; building an economy that protects and respects low-wage workers, especially immigrant women; reforming our immigration system to empower immigrants; and decriminalizing sex work to end the abuse, exploitation and shaming of sex workers and those presumed to be sex workers.