This is a statement from the APIDA (Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi) + Christianity Life Together group of New City Church in response to the mass shooting in Atlanta this week.
New City Church is based out of Minneapolis, MN. Details for Sunday morning worship, Life Together groups (all of which you can participate in virtually) and more are on their website.
Website: http://grownewcity.church/
Facebook: facebook.com/GrowNewCity
Instagram: @grownewcity
Watch the statement here.
Statement:
New City Church is horrified by the mass shooting in Georgia. We grieve with the families of the victims and all who mourn their loss. Park Soon Chung, Hyun Jung Grant, Kim Suncha, Yue Yong Ae, Xiaojie Tan (谭小杰）, Daoyou Feng, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels.
Six of the eight people killed were Asian. Seven were women.
This attack is part of a long pattern of anti-Asian racism, xenophobia, racialized misogyny, toxic masculinity, exotification, and fetishization. Before the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, Chinese women were specifically targeted with the Page Act, which barred them from entering the country on the grounds that these “immoral Chinese women” would become sex workers.
Abroad, U.S. imperialism in Asia has created and perpetuated a racialized, misogynist narrative of Asian women as objects of military conquest.
In the past year there has been a marked rise in anti-Asian violence that disproportionately targets women and the elderly. The shooting in Georgia is the most egregious example of a larger and longer history of violence.
Likewise, the continued cultural stigma and hatred against sex workers, particularly female and trans sex workers, continues to drive violence against all women, whether they are sex workers or not. We also recognize the systemic violence that is done to migrant workers, including sex workers, by criminalization and deportation.
At New City Church, we denounce in no uncertain terms the white supremacy, purity culture, racialized misogyny, toxic masculinity, and gun culture that converged in this murderous event. We believe that all of these are examples of Empire, which is what Jesus came to dismantle. We remember that throughout the Bible, God chose marginalized people to move through the world.
God chose women (like Anna), and outsiders (like Ruth), and sex workers (like Rahab) to show the world that we must center marginalized voices if we are to love God--and indeed, if we are to survive at all.
And so, we are committed to ongoing and prayerful work to dismantle these logics of harm in our systems, our church, and ourselves. With God’s help, we will continue to practice collective liberation on earth as it is in heaven.
Permission to re-upload granted by Rev Tyler H Sit.
