#StopAsianHate
The police and much of the media’s response to a murderer killing 8 people in Atlanta is sickening.
Because this is 2021, and it’s the US, I unfortunately need to give more context.
What matters to the police, and what appears to be shaping the general narrative in the media, is this:
The murderer was white.
Six of the eight victims were Asian women.
They worked in a massage parlor.
The killer used his Christian religion as a justification for the murders (he wanted to get rid of “temptation”)
Any one of these factors almost automatically would lead a frighteningly large number of people to decide these murders can't be *that* bad.
And like clockwork, it didn’t take long for it to happen. Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office was more concerned about trying to excuse the murders by telling the press that the murderer had a “really bad day”. Apparently not considering that maybe his eight victims had a much worse day.
Will that murder apologist get fired or resign? Possibly. Will it change the dialogue among the police and in the media? Very, very unlikely. A number of outlets are covering the police spokesperson’s insane comments. It’s good that his comments are being criticized in the media, but it’s not all media (see the headline from the NY Daily News below — Apparently Twitter being disgusted was important enough to fit into the headline. Shouldn’t they be disgusted?)
Now the focus has largely turned to those comments instead of what really matters.
The women who died. Who were targeted because of their ethnicity, their gender, their profession. Their family and friends who are mourning. The Asian-American communities in Atlanta and around the country who have another reason to be scared to death that they will be the target of racist hatred and violence.
The media, and our society, need to focus on the systemic issues that allow someone to even consider saying with a straight face that a man who went on a racist killing spree was just having a bad day.
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