Dear Cabrini community,
Following news of this week’s deadly attacks at Asian-owned spas in Georgia, coupled with Philadelphia’s troubling three-fold increase in reported hatred targeting Asian Americans since 2019, I want to reiterate that the Cabrini community will not be a home for racism or xenophobia against Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) people—nor do we tolerate hate directed toward any group of people.
Though the recent shootings near Atlanta—in which six of nine victims were Asian-American women—have not been determined to be racially motivated, they are the cause of pain and heartbreak within the AAPI community and come amid a surge in anti-Asian xenophobic hatred since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in March 2020. Reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in 16 of America’s largest cities were up a combined 149 percent in 2020. Meanwhile, nearly 3,800 racist incidents targeting AAPI people—from verbal harassment and shunning to spitting and violence—have been reported to activist group Stop AAPI Hate since March of last year.
As members of the Cabrini University community, we have a duty to uphold our founding mission of inclusion and social justice, so that racial violence does not take hold on our campus or in our virtual classrooms and meetings.
Fear, xenophobia, and racism have infected our society for far longer than COVID-19. Scientists quickly developed vaccines to treat the virus, but we have not yet found a cure for hatred. Our community must continue to fight to end this racism and vitriol, so that all people may one day live in a society built upon reason, compassion, and justice.
In solidarity,
Donald. B. Taylor, PhD
President