Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, sent an email to employees noting the Atlanta shootings’ effect on the company’s large Asian population.
According to CNBC, Pichai sent the email last week after a shooting spree in Georgia which killed eight people, including six Asian women. This spurred nationwide protests over the weekend.
According to various reports, countries including the U.S. have seen a rise in discrimination and violence against members of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company’s latest data refers that Google’s full-time workforce comprise 41.9 percent of Asian-identifying employees.
Pichai’s consoling mail to employees said company leaders have checked in with the company’s site leads in the Atlanta area.
“The news is weighing heavily on all of us,” he said. “Please reach out to your managers and teammates if you need support or some time to process.”
Pichai further stated that the company condemns racism, sexism and violence “in all its forms,” adding that it stands with Asian and Pacific Islander communities.
Pichai had made its first statement in February, when he and other tech leaders tweeted the hashtag #StopAsianHate, stating, “It’s important that we not let the violence against Asian and Pacific Islander communities fade from the headlines.”
According to a report by Stop AAPI Hate, a not-for-profit coalition tracking incidents of violence, discrimination and harassment, Asian Americans from all 50 states experienced everything ranging from verbal abuse to physical assaults, from getting coughed on to getting denied services because of their ethnicity.
Nearly 3,800 hate-related incidents were reported during the pandemic, which according to experts is just a fraction of the true total.
The report states that women reported hate incidents 2.3 times more than men. California and New York had the most reported hate incidents, with 1,691 reported in California, and 517 in New York.
