Thread by @originalspin

When people talk about Asian sex work in tones that suggest that the victims of Robert Aaron along were somehow “asking for it” because they were engaged in an illicit activity, they speak volumes about their own ignorance on why America has an Asian sex work trade to begin with.

Think centuries of exotic sexualization of “the Orient,” reinforced by white supremacism, military conquest, colonial occupation, and a long history of media amplification of racist stereotypical images

Think of the Chinese Exclusion Act and how it banned Chinese men from bringing their wives to the US to prevent them from wanting to settle here, creating a situation where the only Chinese women in the US were undocumented sex workers—with clients who weren’t just Chinese

Think of the “R&R” zones around US military bases throughout Asia, and the subsequent commodification/dehumanization of Asian sex workers that has led to exploitation, rape, and murder...not just of sex workers, but Asian women in all contexts in those communities

Think of the “mail order bride” phenomenon and how it targeted and reinforced lonely white men with preconceptions of Asian women as available, docile, consumable, disposable

Think of the “oriental porn” industry and how it indulges and amplifies specifically racist associations for those with Asian fetishes—often overlaying pedophilia, rape fantasy, and the use of slurs on the sexualization of Asians

Think of how American modern-day Nazis and white supremacists have embraced Asian women as spouses and partners while rationalizing this with sick and grotesque racial hierarchy frameworks

Think of how fused and interwoven gender, race and sexuality are in society and culture, and the fundamental truth that killings like this are made possible because the perpetrators think of their victims as objects, less than human, as temptations or obstacles or vermin

Think of the boxes that get checked off before a blow is thrown or a trigger is pulled:

Not white: less human
Not male: less human
Not US born: less human
Not English speaking: less human
Not documented: less human
Employed in sex work: the least human

Think of the fact that this horrific and devastating isn’t an EXCEPTION. It is a part of America’s long and deep history of racist misogyny and colonial exploitation and that history is alive and well today.

But eight people, six of them Asian women, are not.