I have not been able to stop crying.

My heart is shredded.

I realize that what I am about to share isn’t filtered, and probably won’t even be mindfully articulated. I’m just sharing what I feel.

These women were somebody’s daughters, and perhaps mothers and sisters.

Now, dead, because of a white man’s “bad day.”

Merely “temptation(s) for him that he wanted to eliminate.”

A clear “racial motivation” admitted from the murderer isn’t even relevant at this point because OF COURSE it’s racist: the sexualization and fetishization of Asian women is baked into American culture and how we are seen and treated.

Ask any Asian American woman and I promise they will tell you of their experiences.

I’ve been sexualized and fetishized.

I’ve been stopped on the street and asked for a massage. I’ve been grabbed at, stared at, catcalled with “ni hao”, followed in subways, down alleys, forcefully touched, forcefully kissed.

I’ve been propositioned by male coworkers (this is plural) when working in all male kitchens because I fulfilled some sick “fantasy” of theirs to sleep with someone that looked like me.

I’m grieving tonight with my Asian American community.

What happened in Atlanta feels gut-wrenchingly personal because it could happen to me,

to my children …

to my daughter.

Please educate your sons and daughters to not sexualize, eroticize, fetishize, or kill mine.