Abstract
Through the examination of the Atlanta spa shootings from an intersectional and transnational feminist perspective, this chapter argues that antiracism work solely based on shared racial identity cannot end or prevent violent incidents like the Atlanta mass shootings. The call to combat racism becomes inadequate when it is understood and carried out primarily based on common racial identity without addressing real material conditions and other intersecting structures of oppression and exploitation that produce differences. Discussing some of the challenges posed by the antiracism work engaged in by Korean Christian pastors and leaders in response to the Atlanta mass shooting, this chapter shows that minority nationalism is the underlying logic of their antiracism work. Such minority nationalism is frequently conjoined with the notion of “national belonging” or “inclusion,” which is concomitant with the binary of deserving and undeserving persons. This binary is also a constitutive part of the “theology of decency.” This chapter proposes that rejecting this theology of decency is a needed step for a Christian praxis of solidarity across differences.
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Notes
- 1.
I thank Christine Hong for asking such thought-provoking questions during our webinar held on June 16, 2021. “Building Solidarities: A Conversation with Korean Feminist Theologians.” Iliff School of Theology. Denver, CO, June 16, 2021.
- 2.
Regarding the use of the signifier slash “/” between “Asian” and “American,” see David Palumbo-Liu, Asian/American: Historical Crossings (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 1.
- 3.
Cathy J. Cohen, “Deviance as Resistance: A New Research Agenda for the Study of Black Politics.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 1, no. 1 (March 2004): 33.
- 4.
I use the terms “Korean ethnic church” and “Korean immigrant community” based on how its Korean translations (“Han-in kyohoe” and “Han-in imin sahoe,” respectively) are used in the larger Korean diaspora in the United States. As Korean American scholars have noted, however, there are marginalized diasporas within the larger Korean diaspora, such as the diaspora of Korean adoptees and what Grace M. Cho calls a “diaspora of camptown.” See Grace M. Cho, “Diaspora of Camptown: The Forgotten War’s Monstrous Family,” Women’s Studies Quarterly 34, nos. 1-2 (2006): 309-331. See also Jodi Kim, “‘The Ending Is Not an Ending at All’: On the Militarized and Gendered Diasporas of Korean Transnational Adoption and the Korean War,” Positions: Asia Critique 23, no. 4 (Fall 2015): 807-835.
- 5.
Linda E. Carty and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Introduction: An Archive of Feminist Activism- Conversations with Margo Okazawa-Rey, Angela Y. Davis, Himani Bannerji, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Amina Mama, Aida Hernandez-Castillo, and Zillah Eisenstein,” in Feminist Freedom Warriors: Genealogies, Justice Politics and Hope, eds. Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Linda E. Carty (Chicago, IL: Heymarket Books, 2018), 10.
- 6.
Byeong-Ho Choi, “Urgent Message Regarding the Recent Hate Crimes Against People of Asian Descent,” Columbus Korean Presbyterian Church, March 21, 2021, https://www.kpccoh.org/nanum/17988.
- 7.
Eungsun Kim, “Asian American United Methodists Issue a Statement Condemning Hate Crimes against Asians in the United States.” UMC News, March 18, 2021, https://www.umnews.org/ko/news/asians-united-methodists-condemn-the-rise-of-anti-asian-violence-in-us.
- 8.
Anderson Kim, “After the Atlanta Shootings, Korean Ethnic Churches Say It is Now Our Work to Combat Racial Discrimination,” Christian Today, March 22, 2021, https://www.christiantoday.co.kr/news/338895.
- 9.
In May 2021, the Biden administration signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law.
- 10.
As history teaches us, some Korean churches have not been silent through their solidarity work with African American Churches, for example, after the LA Uprising or the 4.29 (Sa-I-Gu). It cannot be presumed that any antiracism work has only started in 2021 by evangelical pastors who had a moment of “awakening.” See Jane Hong, “The L.A. Uprisings Sparked an Evangelical Racial Reckoning,” The Washington Post, April 29, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/04/29/la-uprisings-sparked-an-evangelical-racial-reckoning.
- 11.
Stop AAPI Hate has insistently condemned and documented the cases of anti-Asian violence, harassment, and discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic. See https://stopaapihate.org.
See also Janelle Wong and Karthick Ramakrishinan, “Anti-Asian Hate Incidents and the Broader Landscape of Racial Bias,” AAPI Data, March 30, 2021, https://aapidata.com/blog/cross-racial-march2021-survey/?fbclid=IwAR0mEtADeTLNWjVblNObrVmvEoxmoFLOpJovWmLPU9wLTEWmD9q843j8YrY.
According to their survey, similar rates of reported experience with hate incidents were shown among different communities of color in 2021.
- 12.
This information was shared by a member of the said Korean megachurch, who attended in the meeting that decided not to attend the vigil service for the stated reason.
- 13.
Judith Butler, Frames of War (New York: Verso Books, 2016), Introduction, Kindle.
- 14.
Butler, Frames of War, Introduction, Kindle.
- 15.
Hye-Kyung Kang, “Racist, Colonialist and Misogynist Narrative Abets Violence Against Asian Women,” The Seattle Times, March 18, 2021, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/racist-colonialist-and-misogynist-narrative-abets-violence-against-asian-women.
- 16.
Butler, Frames of War, Introduction, Kindle.
- 17.
Daewoong Lee, “Deep Condolences to the Victims of Atlanta Shootings and to Korean Americans,” Christian Today, March 19, 2021, https://www.christiantoday.co.kr/news/338864.
- 18.
Grace Kyungwon Hong and Roderick A. Ferguson, “Introduction,” in Strange Affinities: The Gender and Sexual Politics of Comparative Racialization, eds. Grace Kyungwon Hong and Roderick A. Ferguson (Durha, NC; London: Duke University Press, 2011), 6.
- 19.
Hong and Ferguson, “Introduction,” 7.
- 20.
Hong and Ferguson, “Introduction,” 8.
- 21.
Hong and Ferguson, “Introduction,” 3.
- 22.
Gayatri Gopinath’s discussion of minority nationalism in the Indian diasporic community in New York City also shows the continuation of this dynamic well. See Gayatri Gopinath, “Nostalgia, Desire, and Diaspora,” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 5, no. 2 (Fall 1997): 467-489.
- 23.
Hong and Ferguson, “Introduction,” 8.
- 24.
Janet Hoskins and Viet Thanh Nguyen discuss such a “domestic focus” in claiming America and its implications in the context of Asian American Studies and its relation to American Studies. See Janet Hoskins and Viet Thanh Nguyen, Transpacific Studies: Framing an Emerging Field (Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies) (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014), Introduction, Kindle.
- 25.
Jodi Melamed, Represent and Destroy: Rationalizing Violence in the New Racial Capitalism (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), Introduction, Kindle.
- 26.
Iyko Day, Alien Capital (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), chap. 4, Kindle.
- 27.
Melamed, Represent and Destroy, Epilogue, Kindle.
- 28.
Deepa Iyer, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future (New York: The New Press, 2015), 104. Nadia Kim also discusses the process of Americanization for Asian/Americans, including Korean/Americans, taking place even before their arrival in the U.S. during the cold war era due to U.S. imperialism’s role in “immigrants’ transnational understandings of ‘race’ and their related identities.” See Nadia Y. Kim, Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to LA (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).
- 29.
Viet Thanh Nguyen, “From Colonialism to Covid: Viet Thanh Nguyen on the Rise of Anti-Asian Violence,” The Guardian, April 3, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/03/from-colonialism-to-covid-viet-thanh-nguyen-on-the-rise-of-anti-asian-violence.
- 30.
Quynh Nhu Le, Unsettled Solidarities: Asian and Indigenous Cross-Representations in the Americas (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2019), 9.
- 31.
Candace Fujikane, “Introduction: Asian Settler Colonialism in the US Colony of Hawai‘i,” in Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai‘i, eds. Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), 7.
- 32.
Fujikane, “Introduction,” 20.
- 33.
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, and Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 1.
- 34.
Tuck and Yang, “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” 17.
- 35.
Tuck and Yang, “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” 18.
- 36.
Tuck and Yang, “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” 18.
- 37.
Sunera Thobani, “Navigating Colonial Pitfalls: Race, Citizenship, and the Politics of ‘South Asian Canadian’ Feminism,” in Asian American Feminisms and Women of Color Politics, eds. Lynn Fujiwara and Shireen Roshanravan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018), 159.
- 38.
Day, Alien Capital, Introduction, Kindle.
- 39.
Day, Alien Capital, Introduction, Kindle.
- 40.
Day, Alien Capital, Introduction, Kindle.
- 41.
Day, Alien Capital, Introduction, Kindle.
- 42.
Day, Alien Capital, chap. 4, Kindle. See also John Park, “Emergent Divides: Class and Position among Asian Americans.” CR: The New Centennial Review 6, no. 2 (2006): 57–72. Cited in Day, Alien Capital, Kindle.
- 43.
Day, Alien Capital, Epilogue, Kindle.
- 44.
Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, 228. Quoted in Sunaina Maira, Magid Shihade, “Meeting Asian/Arab American Studies: Thinking Race, Empire, and Zionism in the U.S.,” Journal of Asian American Studies 9, no. 2 (June 2006): 134.
- 45.
Sunaina Maira and Magid Shihade, “Meeting Asian/Arab American Studies: Thinking Race, Empire, and Zionism in the U.S.” Journal of Asian American Studies 9, no. 2 (June 2006): 135.
- 46.
Maira and Shihade, “Meeting Asian/Arab American Studies,” 135.
- 47.
Jin-Kyung Lee, Service Economies: Militarism, Sex Work, and Migrant Labor in South Korea (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 7.
- 48.
See Christine Ahn, Terry K. Park, and Kathleen Richards, “Anti-Asian Violence is Rooted in US Empire,” The Nation, March 19, 2021, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/anti-asian-violence-empire/.
- 49.
Audre Lorde, “Learning from the ‘60s,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (New York: Ten Speed Press, 1984), 138.
- 50.
In relation to this question, Grace Cho is also asking, “why so many immigrant women and women of color have jobs that put them at greater risk of sexual violence,” jobs that include not only the “overtly sexualized, like massage-parlor work, but also domestic work and food industry work.” See “WORDS UNSPOKEN: Grace M. Cho on anti-Asian violence, mental health, and the livingness of trauma,” Artforum, May 25, 2021, https://www.artforum.com/interviews/grace-m-cho-on-anti-asian-violence-mental-illness-and-the-livingness-of-trauma-85778.
- 51.
Lee, Service Economies, 6.
- 52.
Lee, Service Economies, 7.
- 53.
See Kang, “Racist, colonialist and misogynist narrative abets violence against Asian women.”
- 54.
Marie Solis, “‘A specific kind of racism’: Atlanta shootings fuel fears over anti-sex-work ideology,” The Guardian, March 18, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/18/atlanta-spa-shootings-anti-sex-worker-racism-sexism.
- 55.
Angelina Chapin, “Every Day, Massage-Parlor Workers Face Violence,” The Cut, March 19, 2021, https://www.thecut.com/2021/03/every-day-massage-parlor-workers-face-violence.html.
- 56.
“Words Unspoken: Grace M. Cho on anti-Asian violence, mental health, and the livingness of trauma,” Artforum, May 25, 2021, https://www.artforum.com/interviews/grace-m-cho-on-anti-asian-violence-mental-illness-and-the-livingness-of-trauma-85778.
- 57.
See “Words Unspoken.”
- 58.
Marcella Althaus-Reid, “On Wearing Skirts Without Underwear: ‘Indecent Theology Challenging the Liberation Theology of the Pueblo’. Poor Women Contesting Christ,” Feminist Theology 20 (1999): 42.
- 59.
M. Jacqui Alexander, Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 23.
- 60.
George Yancy, “Judith Butler: Mourning Is a Political Act Amid the Pandemic and Its Disparities,” Truthout, April 30, 2020, https://truthout.org/articles/judith-butler-mourning-is-a-political-act-amid-the-pandemic-and-its-disparities/.
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Kim, N. (2023). The Confines of “Antiracism” Work in the Intersectional Realities of “Anti-Asian” Violence. In: Pae, Kj.C., Lee, B. (eds) Embodying Antiracist Christianity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37264-3_8
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