GLSEN stands in solidarity with the AAPI Community

On Tuesday, March 16th and the days that have followed - many of us watched in horror as we absorbed the news of the massacre of 8 people, 6 of them being of Asian descent at the hands of a white man in Atlanta Georgia.

We denounce any and all assertions that this travesty was merely the result of an individual ‘having a bad day’ and assert that this particular moment is the result of a long and vicious cycle of systemic racism, and gender-based violence that has been present in this country for decades.

The only possible path forward is one in which we collectively commit and move together in multiracial solidarity while dismantling the systems of oppression that seek to maintain and uphold gender based and racialized hierarchies.

GLSEN is committed to advancing racial, gender and disability justice in K-12 education and doing the deep work necessary to create and sustain cross movement solidarity. We understand that in this work towards liberation we are truly better together and acknowledge all of the ways in which our people have worked collectively to bring us closer towards freedom and equity.

This is what we at GLSEN know to be true – white supremacy in all its forms and iterations is untenable and must be combated and dismantled everywhere it exists. Sadly, anti-Asian racism and exclusion is nothing new – it’s part of a long and often invisiblized story. Since 2019, this most recent wave of increased attacks, a particular kind of racialized and gendered violence has emerged and we have to see it for what it is: violence that disproportionately targets women and is committed by white men. The murders in Atlanta are a terrifying escalation in harm and scale, in a pattern of larger escalating harms and violence toward our Asian and Asian American kinfolk. In this moment as a national multi-racial, and intergenerational organization, we stand in solidarity not because this violence is happening to a theoretical other, but because it is happening to us, our people.

As a part of that commitment we would like to uplift the work of the following organizations: