This week the world lost George Floyd. He had a lifetime ahead of him. Four Minneapolis police officers stole it when they murdered him.
We, the members of the Indiana Chapter of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, grieve with Mr. Floyd’s family, friends, community members and all of our Black brothers and sisters.
We recognize Mr. Floyd’s death as one more horrific outcome of the United States’ deeply entrenched ideas and practices designed by white people to police, incarcerate and kill Black people. We denounce the violence of white supremacy for its unconscionable destruction of Black Lives.
Mr. Floyd’s death, like the recent deaths of Dreasjon Reed and McHale Rose in Indianapolis, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ahmaud Arbery in south Georgia, and countless other Black individuals, was entirely preventable. We demand an end to the systemic, willful killing of Black people. We call for the abolition of discriminatory practices that justify pre-judging and executing Black people.
As Asian American women, we are distraught to learn that one of the murderers is Asian American. His role in the killing is a painful reminder that Asian Americans reproduce anti-Black racism in multiple ways: intentional and unintentional, active and passive. Our community must refuse to be complicit participants in the deadly machinery of white supremacy.
We call on our fellow Asian Americans in Indiana to do the solidarity work necessary to protect, preserve and nurture the lives of Black people.
Three concrete steps we can take right now to fight anti-black racism and inequality:
Giving money, time and talent to organizations that actively address state violence against Black and Brown people
Pushing for overhauls in policing at local, state and federal levels
Encouraging Asian Americans to educate ourselves about our own complicity in sustaining anti-black racism
Ellen Wu, Melissa Borja, Nidhi Krishnan, Shruti Rana, Melanie Castillo-Cullather, Abby Ang, and the Indiana Chapter of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF)
