Atlanta faith leaders grieved over mass shooting at Asian-owned spas
Gold Spa in Atlanta was one of three massage parlors where 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long shot and killed customers and employees. Creative Commons photo.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Robert Aaron Long, 21, was baptized at the Crabapple Baptist Church, and in 2017, he graduated from Sequoyah High School in Canton, Georgia.
On the Instagram account that belonged to the 21-year-old was a bio that read: "pizza, guns, drums, music, family, and God.”
The word “gun” seemed almost out of place until on March 16 when he walked into three Atlanta-area spas and shot eight people that included six women of Asian descent.
Elders at the Crabapple First Baptist Church in the suburb of Atlanta issued a statement expressing grief over the shootings.
“We are heartbroken for all involved. We grieve for the victims and their families, and we continue to pray for them," the statement read. "Moreover, we are distraught for the Long family and continue to pray for them as well."
In a 2018 video clip on Facebook, Long talked about his baptism and the youth group he was part of in the seventh grade. In the video, which has been taken down, a speaker discussed the parable of the prodigal son in the New Testament book of Luke.
But despite Long’s spiritual roots, the non-profit coalition Stop AAPI Hate, which tracks reports of racism, harassment and discrimination against Asians, said it received at least 3,795 firsthand complaints since 2020 from all 50 states with at least 503 anti-Asian hate incidents logged between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28 of this year.
"The alarm has been raised in our community, and it's louder," said Charles Yoon, president of the Korean American Association of Greater New York said on CNN online. "What's happening now is a systemic crisis engendered by xenophobia. Asians are being perceived as 'other,' but we are Americans."
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating whether the killings were hate crimes.
“Our investigation is looking at everything, so nothing is off the table,” Deputy Atlanta Police Chief Charles Hampton Jr. said at a news conference following the shooting.
President Biden called the Atlanta shootings "very troubling,” and on Friday, he and Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Atlanta to meet with families.
Harris, the first person of South Asian descent to become vice president, said the shooting speaks to the "larger issue" of violence in the country.
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson also said about the Atlanta shooting:
“Our hearts are shattered tonight. The horrifying shooting in Atlanta this evening is a disgusting and disturbing example of how the spread of domestic terrorism has been allowed to torment communities. These acts are the visible manifestation of hateful words birthing hateful acts. An attack on one is an attack on all. We condemn this in the strongest possible terms.”
The United Methodist Women, the largest denominational organization for women, issued a statement. Emily Jones, an executive for racial justice, on March 18 released the following statement on behalf of the organization:
“Today, United Methodist Women mourns with the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. We mourn with the victims’ families. We decry both the recent upsurge in attacks against Asian American communities and the racist myths upon which they’re built. We lament the long-standing and lethal sexualized violence targeting Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander women in the United States. Until the violence ends, we weep as Jesus weeps. We renew our commitment to fight for racial justice for all people while paying specific attention to the ways race and gender intersect to target women of color uniquely.“
Rev. Gerald Durley, a Civil Rights veteran who is now the interim pastor of West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, said, “We are going to surround the Asian community and let them know that we are all in this together.”
Durley, who is the retired pastor of Provident Baptist Church, is now leading the church that Rev. Ralph Abernathy pastored, who Martin Luther King's top aide was.
Durley said he isn't accepting a belief that Long was motivated by sexual addiction issues. He blamed racial animosity stoked by “the previous administration.”
Bishop Jamal Bryant, pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, in Atlanta, said that on this Sunday at his church, members of the Asian Christian community will worship at his church to show solidarity.
“Dr. King said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and all of us have been on the battering ram’s edge of the last administration in terms of hate toward ethnicity,” he said. “Regrettably racism has been the norm in this country and I am not surprised but I am disappointed.”
Senior contributor Hamil Harris is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland College Park and has been a lecturer at Morgan State University. Harris is minister at the Glenarden Church of Christ and a police chaplain. A longtime reporter at The Washington Post, Harris was on the team of Post reporters that published the series “Being a Black Man.” He also was the reporter on the video project that accompanied the series that won two Emmy Awards, the Casey Medal and the Peabody Award. In addition to writing for ReligionUnplugged, Harris contributes to outlets such as The Washington Post, USA Today, The Christian Chronicle and the Washington Informer.