Oak Park And River Forest HS Equity Director Addresses Atlanta Shootings

Press release from Oak Park and River Forest High School:

Good morning OPRFHS Family,

We are saddened and horrified in our reflection on the mass shootings that took place in Atlanta, Georgia earlier this week. It is not, however, enough to just sit and reflect on this tragedy and our strong reaction to it without explicitly naming what it is we are seeing and hearing. There were a total of twenty-one people injured and eight killed in these Atlanta shootings. Of the eight people killed, six of them were Asian-American.

The shooter, a young White male, once in the custody of law enforcement explained that his actions were not racially motivated, which we can't possibly know for certain. What we do know and must be acknowledged, however, is that these shootings bring into focus a longer history of Anti-Asian practices and policies that have existed in America for quite some time. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflammatory, xenophobic rhetoric, racial harassment, and violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander persons, families, and communities have increased.

As an educational institution our district must take our racial equity discourse beyond the Black/White binary and lean into the racialized lived experiences of our Asian American students, faculty, staff, and community. As we move forward into the fourth quarter of the school year, we need to focus our energies on learning and standing with and up for one another so our district and school community can be stronger than ever in these most uncertain times.

As always the Office of Equity is here to work with students, faculty, staff, and families as a source of support. Faculty and staff can reach out to myself or either of our Racial Equity Coaches Sheila Harden and Betina Johnson for further support. Listed below are some resources that speak to the Asian American experience that will bring context and perspective for what this week’s national tragedy means for our country and communities of Asian descent.

• “A Wave of Violent Attacks Renews Focus on Anti-Asian Racism” Li Zhou. Vox. Feb. 2021
• “Anti-Asian racism in schools relation to the Coronavirus” Coshandra Dillard. Feb. 14, 2020
• “Asian Americans Face Wave of Discrimination Amid Pandemic” PBS Newshour
• When Asian-Americans Have to Prove We Belong
• On Anti-Asian Hate Crime: Who Is Our Real Enemy?” Michelle Kim. Medium. Feb. 2021
• Addressing Anti-Asian Attacks With Transformative Justice
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Chicago

LeVar J. Ammons, Ed.D.

Executive Director of Equity and Student Success

This press release was produced by Oak Park and River Forest High School. The views expressed here are the author’s own.