In the wake of the Atlanta spa shootings [1] and the surge of anti-Asian hate crimes [2], Sherry Cola is channelling her emotions into poetry. On Wednesday, the 31-year-old Good Trouble star posted a video of her reciting a powerful poem she'd written in support of the #StopAsianHate movement [3]. "A poem I wrote last night," Sherry captioned the Instagram video. "Devastated for my community. Sending love and strength to all of you."
"Innocent immigrants working minimum wage just lost their lives because their skin colour's beige. . . . The old me used to let the hatred slide, but now I'm filled with Asian pride," she recites in the clip. "I'm so sick of holding the pain inside. What has this world come to?"
"We're getting murdered by white terrorists with assistance from the f*cked up system . . . the American dream turned into a nightmare."
In her poem, Sherry emphasises the recent rise of hate-fuelled attacks on Asian Americans. "What kind of country is this?" she asks. "We're getting murdered by white terrorists with assistance from the f*cked-up system. . . . The American dream turned into a nightmare."
Sherry ends her poem with: "My community is under attack, so stop ignoring these crimes and playing pretend. Check in on your Asian family and friends. Let's have each other's backs and put this hate to an end."
On Tuesday, a man named Robert Aaron Long opened fire [4] at three spas in Atlanta, leaving eight people dead. Of those eight people, the majority were of Asian descent. The suspect has since been taken into custody and has been charged with murder [5].