Racists target the humanity of those they attack. In the Atlanta spa deaths, two Chinese women and four Korean women were six of the eight people targeted for murder by a racist white man. We wonder, who are the women who were murdered? If, as the evidence below suggests, some Asian massage parlors or “spas” like those in Atlanta also operate as brothels, then we also wonder: what forces channel Asian women into massage brothels? We know that 89% of women in the sex trade including massage prostitution urgently want to escape. What were their plans for the next week or the next year of their lives? How could we have left them so vulnerable? And now, how can we do justice to their lives and their deaths?
Two of us are Asian, we immediately understood the implied threat of the murders: every Asian woman is vulnerable. That is the reality for every Asian woman because we cannot choose when we are viewed as Asian or as women. Fueled by white supremacy, anti-Asian racism has increased during the coronavirus pandemic, with bigots
— source scheerpost.com | Alice Lee, Suzanne Jay, Melissa Farley | Mar 25, 2021