" 'In my mind...this was an anti-Asian hate crime." So declared Congresswoman Judy Chu regarding the Atlanta shooting, in which eight women died, six of whom happened to be Asian. It seems to be a popular opinion. Andrew Sullivan, writing on his Substack page, reported that (as of March 19) the New York Times had published nine pieces that presented the slaughter as motivated by anti-Asian racism, while the Washington Post had published sixteen stories in the same vein. All these stories, to a T, found the real motivation of the murders the deeply rooted anti-Asian bigotry in American history. Many of them also linked it to the rise in anti-Asian crimes, which was then coupled with Donald Trump's labeling of COVID-19 as "the China virus."
"What makes these stories so shocking — or predictable — is that there is no evidence at this point to suggest that the shooter, Robert Aaron Long, was motivated by racism of any kind. When questioned by police as to why he killed the eight women and wounded several more, Long replied that he was a sex addict who saw the women as a near occasion of sin (he is also Southern Baptist) and decided that if there were no more temptations, there would be no more addiction. Several pieces of evidence back up this declaration. Long's former roommates told authorities that he had frequented the spa/masseuse parlor where his victims worked because he could acquire cheap sex easily. It also doesn't make sense that a white supremacist operating under anti-Asian bigotry would kill two white women along with his six Asian victims." . . . More...