Thread by @danielmkim

I have very rarely allowed racist attacks on my community to affect me. Long’s massacre was bad enough, but to hear the @CherokeeSO explain it away as if the victims’ lives didn’t matter has been nothing less than infuriating. #Atlanta #StopAAPIHate #StopAsianHate

When do Asian Americans’ lives matter, @CherokeeSO Sheriff Reynolds? Like, do we have to wait our turn, in case another white man with far too easy access to a pistol has a “bad day?” Or should we just accept racially motivated violence as our lot in life? I’ll wait.

The last time I was chilled by law enforcement blaming the victim like this, was when the NYPD accused Abner Louima of instigating the brutality that 4 officers visited upon him.

When anyone dies, it’s a tragedy. But to personally feel othered by @CherokeeSO’s spokesman during his presser earlier today, amplified the pain. As if Long weren’t a grown ass man in full control of his own actions yesterday. GTFOH with that horseshit.

I will wait patiently for Long’s trial. I will try to temper my wish that his execution be televised, “pour encourager les autres.” I will probably read more about how he was a quiet kid who didn’t have a mean bone in his body, while trying not to puke.

I will also be more adamant that my 12 & 9 year old children know how to defend themselves, because that’s the kind of fucked up world my shitty generation is making them inherit. And because I’ll be damned if they passively allow racist shit to go unanswered.

All it takes is 1. 1 white man having a bad day & who was purportedly driven into a murderous rage because he was horny, to make an entire ethnic community feel vulnerable. 1 shitty spokesman to further erode that community’s trust in officers sworn to protect & defend them.

I can hear my old man asking me, “where do we go from here,” like he did at the end of any serious conversation. I don’t know. Human shit stains who believe in their racial supremacy will always prey on those who don’t look or love or worship like them.

I’ve spent a good chunk of my 48 years fighting back. Whether bureaucratically, figuratively, verbally, or as I often did in my misspent youth, physically. It’s exhausting. It shouldn’t have to be.

And now, in the immortal words of SGT Gump, that’s all I have to say about that.

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