This week in TIME Magazine's World edition:

TIME Magazine

Issue Dated March 29 / April 5, 2021

The Atlanta Shootings Fit Into a Long Legacy of Anti-Asian Violence in America

To name anti-Asian racism in the U.S. means confronting centuries of discrimination, violence and oppression—and recognizing how it manifests in the present day

It was heartbreaking and horrifying—but to many, it wasn’t a surprise.

The news that eight people, six of them Asian-American women, were killed at businesses in the Atlanta area on March 16 came after a year of intense anti-Asian racism in the U.S. On the platforms where news arrives first, and quickly attaches to feelings, emotions were already raw.

“This mass shooter was targeting Asian women and their businesses. This isn’t an isolated incident. There have been 500+ hate crimes targeted at Asian people this year alone,” social media specialist Mark Kim wrote on Twitter. “This Atlanta tragedy lies at an intersection of race, gender, class and the legacy of America’s history of colonization and violence in Asia,” journalist Elise Hu said on the site. “I don’t have the words. I’m just despondent. Protect Asian women, solidarity with sex workers, #StopAsianHate.”

This appears in the March 29 / April 5, 2021 issue of TIME.