Read on Twitter
1/ There was an attack against a 61 year old Asian man, currently hospitalized. He was in East Harlem collecting cans in a shopping cart. The news coverage has been local and all NYPD-focused. These attacks are heartbreaking, but carceral approaches to violence is not the answer.
2/ Policing is not the solution to anti-Asian attacks. It does not address root causes. We need and deserve so much more than what criminalization and prosecution offers us. https://truthout.org/articles/more-policing-is-not-the-solution-to-anti-asian-violence/
3/ I grew up in NYC. I live in East Harlem and work in the community. I see immigrant elders collecting cans. Growing up, they could be my family. As a legal services attorney, some of them are my clients. I am so heartbroken to hear about this violence and I take it seriously.
4/ Violence isn’t intellectual or detached for me. Like many abolitionists, we come from communities experiencing violence and harm. We want safety, resources, accountability. AND we know, from experience, that police/prisons won't keep us safe. https://twitter.com/criticalrace/status/1365756245236400131
5/ The police do not prevent harm or violence. They did not protect the victims of the Atlanta shooting, and they do not protect the people in my community. Cops show up afterwards, issue press releases, and they exploit our pain/trauma to demand more 
for their bloated budgets.
for their bloated budgets.
6/ As Asian Americans, we have a right to our pain, fury, and heartbreak. But we do not need the carceral state to legitimate us. We need investment/resources for all of our communities to address the root causes of harm and violence. We must build solidarity across communities.
7/ So much is loss when we don’t connect these individualized “hate” attacks to systemic violence. Appreciate this piece by @dylanrodriguez that pushes us to think systemically and historically, and to organize collective responses to violence. https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/the-asian-exception-and-the-scramble-for-legibility-toward-an-abolitionist-approach-to-anti-asian-violence
8/ “Many of the people charged recently with anti-Asian attacks in New York City have also had a history of mental health episodes, multiple arrests and homelessness, complicating the city’s search for an effective response.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/nyregion/nyc-asian-hate-crime-mental-illness.html
9/ “Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings.”
-Angela Davis
-Angela Davis
