Look at These Powerful Images of the Stop Asian Hate Rallies

Over the weekend, protesters gathered across the U.S. to condemn violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders after a shooting in Atlanta left eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, dead.The killings followed a year of surges in anti-Asian American violence that many see as related to the coronavirus pandemic. According to Pew Research Center, 30 percent of Asian adults say they have been subject to racist, verbal abuse since the outbreak began. Meanwhile, new data from the non-profit, Stop AAPI Hate, reveals members of the AAPI community have been the targets of 3,800 “hate incidents” in the past year. Women make up nearly 70 percent of the reported instances.Sice Tuesday’s horrific mass shooting, citizens and politicians have asked investigators to consider the shootings a hate crime, be it on the basis of sex or race. Georgia’s new law considers both to be legitimate forms of hate crimes. Last week, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms threw her support behind the growing demand, saying, “The acknowledgment that this was a crime built upon hatred for a particular community matters and I think that it's important that prosecutors and police consider that in making those charges.”So far, the shooter Robert Long has been charged with eight counts of murder. According to reporting from the Associated Press, it’s up to the Cherokee and Fulton County District Attorneys to decide whether or not to pursue the “hate crime enhancement.” Alternatively, the Department of Justice could decide to bring federal hate crime charges, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen.For many of the protestors, the attacks felt deeply personal and recall the racism they have experienced at increased levels in the past year. Speaking to a crowd of gatherers in Manhattan, New York State Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou said, “The women who died, they looked just like me, they look like my mom, they look like my aunties. They look like us.”