oregon rises above hate
On Thursday, July 14th at 3 pm, Oregon Rises Above Hate is hosting a press conference for the AANHPI community to highlight these recent attacks and the growing presence of hate against all communities of color and marginalized communities. It is our hope that, by continuing to highlight these issues, more members of our community will join together to fight racism and bigotry in all its forms. Our community should be one of compassion and acceptance, and it's up to each of us to work toward that every day.
Initial Statement in Response to the
Racist Attack on a Japanese Family on July 2nd
We are horrified but not surprised at the senseless attack on July 2nd. Since the beginning of the pandemic, anti-Asian hate has continued to grow unabated. As long as large segments of the country do not know this, crimes like this will continue to happen here and elsewhere. Too often, Portlanders try to pretend "it can't happen here," but it can and does. Oregon Rises Above Hate was started in 2020 to draw attention to this horrible trend.
That it was a family with a young child makes this attack particularly gut-wrenching. We hope that the family's physical wounds heal quickly, but we know that the mental and emotional trauma of racist violence casts a long shadow. We expect the police and DA's office to treat this crime with the seriousness its severity demands. Too often, bias crimes against AANHPI are treated as minor or not worthy of harsher charges against the perpetrators.
We use the acronym AANHPI (Asian American Native Hawai’ian Pacific Islander) because racism doesn't differentiate between ethnicity. Their ignorant anger at one gets directed at all. So, we all must stand together, support one another, and name hate when we see it. We need stronger bias laws, which will lead to greater enforcement. We need in-depth tracking and analysis of bias crimes, so we can better understand how to stop them.
We need allies in the community to see us and hear us, and we need them to raise our voices to others. The oppression of one of us cannot be undone without the freeing of others, and no one deserves to be afraid to walk around this city because of their ethnicity. Racism and white supremacy thrive in silence and tribalism, and we hope to crush it with the strength of our community, our voices, and our unwillingness to be bowed before ignorance and hate.
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