Asian American, Black, Latinx, Indigenous Activists to Hold Emergency Rally Against Racism

February 17, 2021

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include Indigenous rally organizers, according to Rohan Zhou-Lee.

Activists from the Black, Latinx, Indigenous and Asian American community will hold an emergency rally in New York City on Saturday in response to the string of violent racist attacks against Asians.

The details: Asian American activists and their allies will organize a rally on Feb. 20 at 2 p.m. in Washington Square Park to decry “the recent wave of racist attacks on Asian Americans.”

“The current justice system is pitting Black and Asian communities against one another, just like how news sources did during the L.A. Riots,” Rohan Zhou-Lee, one of the organizers of the rally who is of Black and Asian descent, said. “We can fight Anti-Asian and Anti-Black hate at the same time.”
“All this extrajudicial violence has killed people of color indiscriminately,” Zhou-Lee, who is also part of the LGBTQ+ community, added. “We have to imagine a new world of justice rooted in compassion, not a system built on the slavery of Africans, the genocide of the Indigenous, the exploited labor of Asians, and the lynching of all the above.”
The gathering on Saturday is free and open to the public, but wearing a mask and practicing social distancing is required.
Invites of the rally feature artwork made by Los Angeles-based artist Jonathan Chang.

Call for justice: Organizers of the event are calling for justice following the death of three Asian Americans, a transgender Filipina and the attack on a Filipino American in New York.

Ee Lee, a 36-year-old Hmong American from Wisconsin, was sexually assaulted and beaten to death in a park on Sept. 16, 2020. Two teenagers were arrested and charged in connection to her death.

Pennsylvania police shot Christian Hall, a 19-year-old teen who was experiencing a mental health crisis, on the bridge at the Route 33 southbound overpass over I-80 in Hamilton Township on Dec. 30, 2020. A recently surfaced video shows Hall with his hands up during the confrontation.

Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old Thai American man, died from his injuries on Jan. 30 after being pushed by a teen in an unprovoked attack in California.

Noel Quintana, a 61-year-old Filipino-American man, was slashed across his face after a dispute with another man on a New York subway on Feb. 3.

The rally will also seek justice for Jennifer Laude, a transgender Filipina killed by a U.S. Marine in 2014. Her killer, Joseph Scott Pemberton, was given an absolute pardon by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in September 2020.

Feature Images via Eric Lawson (left), Jonathan D. Chang (right)

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