Why won't people address the massage shootings as the mental health issue rather than racism?

[Anonymous]

Why am I shocked that people cannot wrap their minds around the obvious fact that the murdered were targeted because they were both Asian and women? People use the excuse that he went there because he had been a client there before as an excuse? Why do you think he felt like he could take sexual advantage of Asian women in the first place? He was not suddenly racially motivated, he was racially motivated all along.
I am worried about the way in which this investigation will run. The white police officers will find Asian porn on his computers, no doubt, but then not include it as evidence for his racist motivations. They’ll come up with some convoluted excuse for why it doesn’t count as Asian, but just misogynistic. Or they’ll “interview” him and accept that he wasn’t racist, well, because he said so!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why am I shocked that people cannot wrap their minds around the obvious fact that the murdered were targeted because they were both Asian and women? People use the excuse that he went there because he had been a client there before as an excuse? Why do you think he felt like he could take sexual advantage of Asian women in the first place? He was not suddenly racially motivated, he was racially motivated all along.
I am worried about the way in which this investigation will run. The white police officers will find Asian porn on his computers, no doubt, but then not include it as evidence for his racist motivations. They’ll come up with some convoluted excuse for why it doesn’t count as Asian, but just misogynistic. Or they’ll “interview” him and accept that he wasn’t racist, well, because he said so!

Why are you so worried about this? Do you consider frequenting Asian businesses exploiting Asians? The women who have chosen to perform extra services to massage are either doing so willingly for extra money or are trafficked, in which case the owners and traffickers are the exploiters. How are you so sure he had an Asian fetish? What if these businesses were the only clean places he could get sexual services (as the roommate reported)? You seem to want to reinforce or normalize racial stereotypes by constantly repeating them while you admit you are *assuming* he had these predilections.

It is not obvious that these were the reasons at all. It's possible and certainly a reasonable hunch worth looking into, but we are muddying the waters by insisting something is true without concrete evidence. Maybe you'll get your evidence. But you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you, why you are so worried, and what this all means to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This racist and mentally ill dude should not have had gun access.

That's true but it seems like the left has given up on gun control as a leading issue.

Oh, yeesh! No it hasn't!

It's out of sight out of mind with gun control initiatives. This would be a good time to address it. A waiting period might have averted this horrible crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why am I shocked that people cannot wrap their minds around the obvious fact that the murdered were targeted because they were both Asian and women? People use the excuse that he went there because he had been a client there before as an excuse? Why do you think he felt like he could take sexual advantage of Asian women in the first place? He was not suddenly racially motivated, he was racially motivated all along.
I am worried about the way in which this investigation will run. The white police officers will find Asian porn on his computers, no doubt, but then not include it as evidence for his racist motivations. They’ll come up with some convoluted excuse for why it doesn’t count as Asian, but just misogynistic. Or they’ll “interview” him and accept that he wasn’t racist, well, because he said so!

Why are you so worried about this? Do you consider frequenting Asian businesses exploiting Asians? The women who have chosen to perform extra services to massage are either doing so willingly for extra money or are trafficked, in which case the owners and traffickers are the exploiters. How are you so sure he had an Asian fetish? What if these businesses were the only clean places he could get sexual services (as the roommate reported)? You seem to want to reinforce or normalize racial stereotypes by constantly repeating them while you admit you are *assuming* he had these predilections.

It is not obvious that these were the reasons at all. It's possible and certainly a reasonable hunch worth looking into, but we are muddying the waters by insisting something is true without concrete evidence. Maybe you'll get your evidence. But you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you, why you are so worried, and what this all means to you.

NOT PP

Oh good Lord, not the 'talking about race is racist' old trick that white conservatives love to whip out when it's convenient for themselves.

I hope Asian Americans, particularly the ones that voted for Trump, are seeing the pretzel some white people are twisting themselves into to not make this a race-based hate crime.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The recent wave of crimes against Asians is the worst in the last thirty years as far as I remembered. Yet very few of these crimes are classified as hate crimes. I have yet to see an announcement from FBI that they are investing the massage shooting to find out if this is a hate crime.

Aren’t there certain markers of hate crimes that need to be in evidence to classify? Are all crimes hate crimes?

In order to control public outrage, isn’t it better to say there is no evidence of a hate crime if it’s the truth? It doesn’t mean they won’t bring evidence to light if it’s found.

You mean, it’s better for white audiences to hear that a white man doesn’t seem to have committed a racially motivated crime? Because that is not what Asian Americans and women want to hear.

Not saying that. But why do groups *want* to hear their group is a target of something if the evidence isn’t there (yet)? I can’t understand that.

Our society is totally obsessed by race. That may be natural in any society with a long history of racism, but it also means we unconsciously forcing racial narratives when the evidence doesn't warrant it. The only evidence we think we need is the race of the victims and that's that.

The killer allegedly shouted something to the effect, “I am gonna kill Asians.” This is from one of the witnesses.

That is an uncorroborate report from a Korean newspaper. Also, the narrative that this was racially motivated emerged before that Korean report. The point is that we immediately jump to race as the primary motivator before the facts come out. Most people on this are positive that this all about race. Even those who may admit misogyny are ignoring the very real connection among misogyny, sex addiction and mental health. And who here even considered the class implications of low income sex workers forced into illegal activities to pay the rent while dealing with abusive men?That's a story as old as Jack the Ripper, yet we are mostlt ignoring it.

Every story has multiple narratives. But we prefer racial narratives to dominate over others whenever possible.

Actually, Asian American advocates are clear that this is about race, gender, and class. Keep up.

People say a lot of things, but the racial is narrative is clearly dominant. I didn't say it was exclusive. Also when I said "who here?" I meant on this thread. Mostly posters are saying they were targetted for their race. Very little discussion about violence against prostitutes.

I didn't even say it's wrong to focus on race. I just think it's it important to notice when you are doing and the real reasons why. But you all seem to have a lot of resistance to doing that kind of work. Racial work is only for other people and only accepted when the "correct" conclusions are drawn.

Yes, and according to you, Hitler was just having a bad day when he was at the end of the rope. According to you, you just need to see what Hitler had to say, that abhorring to H, he felt he needed to eliminate the problem because these people were.... (you fill in the blank).

I said nothing of the kind and neither did anyone else anywhere, ever.

Seems like you are dehumanizing the victims by giving voice to the killer. That’s been done before. Read Hanna Arendt, one of the greatest 20th century Jewish political philosophers whose lover was the great Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger. She’ll tell you the horrible Nazi officers responsible for the atrocities were actually Ordinary Joes who worked 9-5 jobs - just like me and you. They had no particular motive or animosity for their actions. Hence the banality of evil.

Again, I did nothing of the kind.

I read Hannah Arendt and lots of other people too. Where does she say that discussing a killer's motivations dehumanizes the victims? And if she does say that, who says I have to agree with it? And if I did agree that the banality of evil applied to all Nazi soldiers, where does she say that it also applies to murderers who weren't paid to kill? And what did Arendt say about the banality of Hitler himself? I don't know the answer to that myself, if I read that I forgot it. But her personal library did include Mein Kampf and biographies about Hitler, so presumably she thought it worth it to consider what he had to say.

https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/hannah-arendt-collection-the-life-and-work-of-adolf-hitler-2015-04-24

I see in many of these posts Arendt’s own banality of evil analysis as applied to the killer, constantly asking for “proof” of this or that. Arendt’s analysis is not limited to Eichmann. Her analysis can be applied to anything - Holocaust, slavery, Jim Crow... According Arendt, you need not impute a particular evil motive bc in her analysis, you can always explain people’s action in practical and mundane way. Most people were simply going on about their daily lives doing their 9-5 job, pushing paper, reporting to their bosses, applying for promotion, etc. In the case of the Georgia killer, he might as well have been Camus’ stranger - someone detached, someone who just shot and killed people not knowing why, just going through his reflexive motions. And Yes, Camus’ Stranger straight up blamed the bright sunlight in the hot desert when he was asked why he killed an innocent man. In short, Camus’s Stranger was just having a bad day. There’s no reason to impute any motive beyond his reflexive motions. They just are.

Luckily for Arendt, despite her Nazi Heidegger lover, she was able to put sense in to her analysis. In the end, she was able to separate her need to analyze, constant need for facts, with Eichmann’s actions.

I'm not really sure where you are going with this. I think it started with a PP (you?) falsely attributing an absurd opinion to me. Now you are you quoting philosophers of the absurd and the evil about why you don't need facts or proof, you can just make assumptions based on whatever you see and take it from there. If that's what you think Arendt and Camus are all about, it's no wonder you think I'm absurd.

You were sounding a lot like Hannah Arendt in her insistence we need not read too much into Nazi's heinous crimes, that these people were mostly performing their 9-5 jobs as they were told, reporting to their bosses - not that they were anti-semites. I've bolded your statements above. And then you said, "I said nothing of the kind and neither did anyone else anywhere, ever." That's when I first mentioned Arendt to show you the parallel in your thinking. You insisted no one has EVER held your view with respect to the nazis. One of the greatest 20th-century Jewish political philosophers Hannah Arendt did. She wrote a book to prove her point. Not surprisingly, she had a Nazi lover. And then there are other things: "And who here even considered the class implications of low income sex workers forced into illegal activities to pay the rent while dealing with abusive men?" And incredibly you went on, "Very little discussion about violence against prostitutes." So, it's not the race in this case. It seems you want to explore the prostitution angle to see what role this had in the Georgia killing. Your point is clear. It was the prostitutes' fault, they brought the violence onto themselves. And in Nazi Germany, it wasn't anti-Semitism, to begin with. You seem to suggest we need to be more open-minded to see what Jews must have done to deserve their fate. You didn't explicitly say these things. But it is clear you are victim-blaming and victim-shaming.

No, I didn't say anything like this and there is no reasonable way you got any of this out of what I did say. You've also grossly misinterpreted Hannah Arendt's thesis thereby ignoring what her actual contributions are to the understanding of genocide, racism, and totalitarianism. Kind of a weird thing to do to a refugee from the Nazis, but hey, far be it from you to victim shame or anything like that.

Dial it back a bit scholar. You're taking that stuff completely out of context. Arrendt's point was that they knew what they were doing but didn't care. They didn't need to enjoy it to willingly do it. Evil isn't torture and zyklon b. Evil is the railway dispatcher and the camp quartermaster. Evil isn't active it is indifferent. It lies in the banal. The mundane tasks of paperwork and logstics. The true horror of the Holocaust wasn't that it happened but that it happened so normally.

She raised that to prove that Eichmann knew. That he had to know. That his claim that he did not know was a lie. He knew. He just didn't care.

You dial it back yourself. You are way out of league. You wrote this:

"Yes, and according to you, Hitler was just having a bad day when he was at the end of the rope. According to you, you just need to see what Hitler had to say, that abhorring to H, he felt he needed to eliminate the problem because these people were.... (you fill in the blank)."

Answer: No I don't think that and I don't think anybody else does either.

That's a really simple answer to a strange comment and I don't have anything more to say about it.

I didnt write that pampelmousse. Stop the sanctimonious parsimony you're nowhere near as smart as you think you are.

If you really thought I was that stupid, you'd be a lot more forgiving of my simplicity.

I never said you were stupid oh master debater. I implied that you were pompous and overly parsing to try and make a rhetorical point. Ill even add, between the aggro condescension and the victimhood, bipolar.

Her point was that whether Eichmann was an active anti-semite didn't matter. Whether there was joy or malice in his logistics is irrelevent. He could not claim that he didn't know. In that regard, it is an interesting point to bring up here. It doesn't matter whether Long was actively racist he knew he was targeting Asians. There did not need to be racial malice the fact that there was an indifference to the humanity of those he murdered is proof enough.

.You are projecting up the wazoo and seem to hate what you see.

Please enlighten me teacher. Where is the projection? You haven't even realized that you're talking to different people. Please, tell me what you think I see? Am I a fool or a heretic?

That's true, I didn't. That's because you are both(all?) so remarkably off base you basically get the same kind of response. Neither of you saw fit to correct me, and that's fine, you don't have to. Or maybe I really am stupid. That's okay too, it doesn't hurt me to think that.

I made a certain very simple claim about my own personal opinion. That's was my entire point. Everything you wrote seems to be about something else that you are really angry about. I don't know what that is.

Keep dancing little bird. The passive agressive insults arent as distracting as you believe. Please restate your simple claim clearly since we are all so beneath your genius that it flew over our heads.

No. Is that active aggressive enough for you?

Yes. Thank you Mother Goose. Frustrating innit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most crimes show indifference to the victims humanity and subjectivity. PP are you saying they’re all unconscious hate crimes? And if you believe it’s unconscious does it meet the legal standard of a hate crime?

Some posters here think of you believe and intellectually justify assumptions, even logical suppositions, enough they will become facts. Maybe so the narrative fits a larger agenda. I don’t understand why the agenda is so important but it won’t be deterred by logic apparently.

Others need evidence to accept something as fact. We won’t agree. Maybe it’s just different ways of thinking about things but a court of law requires a fairly strict standard of truth.

I don't think we are talking about a court of law. That's a different matter cuz it has its own legal standard. If the court doesn't certify this as a hate crime, it only means the evidence is insufficient to clear the high bar. That's not the same thing as saying it's not a hate crime.

But this conversation is related to how it’s charged. And certainly how the public talks about it. Some posters want to shoehorn this case into historical racism when this case fits no precedent. It’s not even clear who the shooter’s targets were. Seems to me it was the businesses themselves given that customers were also victims. Not enough is known but it sounds like investigators have tried to look for a racial angle and not come up with anything (made public) yet.

People come in and out of these threads, so I am not sure of the flow of the thread.

In truly random shootings, as it was in Beltway sniper attacks in 2002, (shooting spree in the Washington, D.C., area that killed 10 people and injured 3 over a three-week period), all people lived in fear not knowing if they'll be the next target. Random shooting is frightening in a different way bc anyone can be next in line. It didn't matter if you were white, black, or Asian. It was random.

I lived through that and saw the general fear of random killing that gripped the entire city. This one is confined to the Asian communities. Non-Asians know they are not the target, so they can nonchalantly debate academic points, hairsplitting whether this is racial or mental. For Asians, they have targets on their backs. They'd have to be stupid to believe otherwise cuz their life may depend on their judgment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why am I shocked that people cannot wrap their minds around the obvious fact that the murdered were targeted because they were both Asian and women? People use the excuse that he went there because he had been a client there before as an excuse? Why do you think he felt like he could take sexual advantage of Asian women in the first place? He was not suddenly racially motivated, he was racially motivated all along.
I am worried about the way in which this investigation will run. The white police officers will find Asian porn on his computers, no doubt, but then not include it as evidence for his racist motivations. They’ll come up with some convoluted excuse for why it doesn’t count as Asian, but just misogynistic. Or they’ll “interview” him and accept that he wasn’t racist, well, because he said so!

Why are you so worried about this? Do you consider frequenting Asian businesses exploiting Asians? The women who have chosen to perform extra services to massage are either doing so willingly for extra money or are trafficked, in which case the owners and traffickers are the exploiters. How are you so sure he had an Asian fetish? What if these businesses were the only clean places he could get sexual services (as the roommate reported)? You seem to want to reinforce or normalize racial stereotypes by constantly repeating them while you admit you are *assuming* he had these predilections.

It is not obvious that these were the reasons at all. It's possible and certainly a reasonable hunch worth looking into, but we are muddying the waters by insisting something is true without concrete evidence. Maybe you'll get your evidence. But you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you, why you are so worried, and what this all means to you.

Are six dead Asian women in a city were Asian women make up less than 3% of the Atlanta population not enough to give you pause?
And I worry because I am an Asian American woman raising Asian American daughters who are going to be gaslighted by white people will insist that they are not being harassed because they are Asian, but merely because they are women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why am I shocked that people cannot wrap their minds around the obvious fact that the murdered were targeted because they were both Asian and women? People use the excuse that he went there because he had been a client there before as an excuse? Why do you think he felt like he could take sexual advantage of Asian women in the first place? He was not suddenly racially motivated, he was racially motivated all along.
I am worried about the way in which this investigation will run. The white police officers will find Asian porn on his computers, no doubt, but then not include it as evidence for his racist motivations. They’ll come up with some convoluted excuse for why it doesn’t count as Asian, but just misogynistic. Or they’ll “interview” him and accept that he wasn’t racist, well, because he said so!

Why are you so worried about this? Do you consider frequenting Asian businesses exploiting Asians? The women who have chosen to perform extra services to massage are either doing so willingly for extra money or are trafficked, in which case the owners and traffickers are the exploiters. How are you so sure he had an Asian fetish? What if these businesses were the only clean places he could get sexual services (as the roommate reported)? You seem to want to reinforce or normalize racial stereotypes by constantly repeating them while you admit you are *assuming* he had these predilections.

It is not obvious that these were the reasons at all. It's possible and certainly a reasonable hunch worth looking into, but we are muddying the waters by insisting something is true without concrete evidence. Maybe you'll get your evidence. But you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you, why you are so worried, and what this all means to you.

NOT PP

Oh good Lord, not the 'talking about race is racist' old trick that white conservatives love to whip out when it's convenient for themselves.

I hope Asian Americans, particularly the ones that voted for Trump, are seeing the pretzel some white people are twisting themselves into to not make this a race-based hate crime.

I'm not conservative and I don't categorically object to talking about race, but this person keeps repeating specific racial stereotypes on this thread. That's what I'm referring to.

I hate to break it to you, but not all Asian Americans are in agreement that this was a hate crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That's true, I didn't. That's because you are both(all?) so remarkably off base you basically get the same kind of response. Neither of you saw fit to correct me, and that's fine, you don't have to. Or maybe I really am stupid. That's okay too, it doesn't hurt me to think that.

I made a certain very simple claim about my own personal opinion. That's was my entire point. Everything you wrote seems to be about something else that you are really angry about. I don't know what that is.

Keep dancing little bird. The passive agressive insults arent as distracting as you believe. Please restate your simple claim clearly since we are all so beneath your genius that it flew over our heads.

No. Is that active aggressive enough for you?

Yes. Thank you Mother Goose. Frustrating innit?

No, not really. Just stupid. But we already covered that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This racist and mentally ill dude should not have had gun access.

That's true but it seems like the left has given up on gun control as a leading issue.

Oh, yeesh! No it hasn't!

It's out of sight out of mind with gun control initiatives. This would be a good time to address it. A waiting period might have averted this horrible crime.

+100
I think it’s easier to shame the racists than take away their guns.

I expect we’ll just continue ignoring the elephant in the room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why am I shocked that people cannot wrap their minds around the obvious fact that the murdered were targeted because they were both Asian and women? People use the excuse that he went there because he had been a client there before as an excuse? Why do you think he felt like he could take sexual advantage of Asian women in the first place? He was not suddenly racially motivated, he was racially motivated all along.
I am worried about the way in which this investigation will run. The white police officers will find Asian porn on his computers, no doubt, but then not include it as evidence for his racist motivations. They’ll come up with some convoluted excuse for why it doesn’t count as Asian, but just misogynistic. Or they’ll “interview” him and accept that he wasn’t racist, well, because he said so!

Why are you so worried about this? Do you consider frequenting Asian businesses exploiting Asians? The women who have chosen to perform extra services to massage are either doing so willingly for extra money or are trafficked, in which case the owners and traffickers are the exploiters. How are you so sure he had an Asian fetish? What if these businesses were the only clean places he could get sexual services (as the roommate reported)? You seem to want to reinforce or normalize racial stereotypes by constantly repeating them while you admit you are *assuming* he had these predilections.

It is not obvious that these were the reasons at all. It's possible and certainly a reasonable hunch worth looking into, but we are muddying the waters by insisting something is true without concrete evidence. Maybe you'll get your evidence. But you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you, why you are so worried, and what this all means to you.

Are six dead Asian women in a city were Asian women make up less than 3% of the Atlanta population not enough to give you pause?
And I worry because I am an Asian American woman raising Asian American daughters who are going to be gaslighted by white people will insist that they are not being harassed because they are Asian, but merely because they are women.

It most likely gives everyone on this thread pause. But some of us are waiting for such questions to be confirmed before stating them as fact and and some of us see clear alternative explanations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why am I shocked that people cannot wrap their minds around the obvious fact that the murdered were targeted because they were both Asian and women? People use the excuse that he went there because he had been a client there before as an excuse? Why do you think he felt like he could take sexual advantage of Asian women in the first place? He was not suddenly racially motivated, he was racially motivated all along.
I am worried about the way in which this investigation will run. The white police officers will find Asian porn on his computers, no doubt, but then not include it as evidence for his racist motivations. They’ll come up with some convoluted excuse for why it doesn’t count as Asian, but just misogynistic. Or they’ll “interview” him and accept that he wasn’t racist, well, because he said so!

Why are you so worried about this? Do you consider frequenting Asian businesses exploiting Asians? The women who have chosen to perform extra services to massage are either doing so willingly for extra money or are trafficked, in which case the owners and traffickers are the exploiters. How are you so sure he had an Asian fetish? What if these businesses were the only clean places he could get sexual services (as the roommate reported)? You seem to want to reinforce or normalize racial stereotypes by constantly repeating them while you admit you are *assuming* he had these predilections.

It is not obvious that these were the reasons at all. It's possible and certainly a reasonable hunch worth looking into, but we are muddying the waters by insisting something is true without concrete evidence. Maybe you'll get your evidence. But you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you, why you are so worried, and what this all means to you.

Are six dead Asian women in a city were Asian women make up less than 3% of the Atlanta population not enough to give you pause?
And I worry because I am an Asian American woman raising Asian American daughters who are going to be gaslighted by white people will insist that they are not being harassed because they are Asian, but merely because they are women.

How does it even matter if they're harassed because they're Asian or merely women? It will vary from individual to individual. How can you even know? You're saying you need to know how to be able to get into the head of the harassers before any harassing even happens? Because that would be necessary in order to tell your daughters that it is more than just their female-ness, but definitely their Asian-ness.

When #metoo was big, it didn't break along racial lines. I don't recall there being a "just imagine how much worse it is for Asian women!" contingency. That was just, what? Three years ago? That is evidence of how race obsessed the US has become.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why am I shocked that people cannot wrap their minds around the obvious fact that the murdered were targeted because they were both Asian and women? People use the excuse that he went there because he had been a client there before as an excuse? Why do you think he felt like he could take sexual advantage of Asian women in the first place? He was not suddenly racially motivated, he was racially motivated all along.
I am worried about the way in which this investigation will run. The white police officers will find Asian porn on his computers, no doubt, but then not include it as evidence for his racist motivations. They’ll come up with some convoluted excuse for why it doesn’t count as Asian, but just misogynistic. Or they’ll “interview” him and accept that he wasn’t racist, well, because he said so!

Why are you so worried about this? Do you consider frequenting Asian businesses exploiting Asians? The women who have chosen to perform extra services to massage are either doing so willingly for extra money or are trafficked, in which case the owners and traffickers are the exploiters. How are you so sure he had an Asian fetish? What if these businesses were the only clean places he could get sexual services (as the roommate reported)? You seem to want to reinforce or normalize racial stereotypes by constantly repeating them while you admit you are *assuming* he had these predilections.

It is not obvious that these were the reasons at all. It's possible and certainly a reasonable hunch worth looking into, but we are muddying the waters by insisting something is true without concrete evidence. Maybe you'll get your evidence. But you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you, why you are so worried, and what this all means to you.

Are six dead Asian women in a city were Asian women make up less than 3% of the Atlanta population not enough to give you pause?
And I worry because I am an Asian American woman raising Asian American daughters who are going to be gaslighted by white people will insist that they are not being harassed because they are Asian, but merely because they are women.

It most likely gives everyone on this thread pause. But some of us are waiting for such questions to be confirmed before stating them as fact and and some of us see clear alternative explanations.

The Asian American community and those who understand the history of racism in this country are saying that six Asian female dead is a relevant fact. You and the white people who are privileging the testimony of the white murderer don't see this number as relevant. Its not about facts - it's about what you are willing to accept as relevant evidence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most crimes show indifference to the victims humanity and subjectivity. PP are you saying they’re all unconscious hate crimes? And if you believe it’s unconscious does it meet the legal standard of a hate crime?

Some posters here think of you believe and intellectually justify assumptions, even logical suppositions, enough they will become facts. Maybe so the narrative fits a larger agenda. I don’t understand why the agenda is so important but it won’t be deterred by logic apparently.

Others need evidence to accept something as fact. We won’t agree. Maybe it’s just different ways of thinking about things but a court of law requires a fairly strict standard of truth.

I don't think we are talking about a court of law. That's a different matter cuz it has its own legal standard. If the court doesn't certify this as a hate crime, it only means the evidence is insufficient to clear the high bar. That's not the same thing as saying it's not a hate crime.

But this conversation is related to how it’s charged. And certainly how the public talks about it. Some posters want to shoehorn this case into historical racism when this case fits no precedent. It’s not even clear who the shooter’s targets were. Seems to me it was the businesses themselves given that customers were also victims. Not enough is known but it sounds like investigators have tried to look for a racial angle and not come up with anything (made public) yet.

People come in and out of these threads, so I am not sure of the flow of the thread.

In truly random shootings, as it was in Beltway sniper attacks in 2002, (shooting spree in the Washington, D.C., area that killed 10 people and injured 3 over a three-week period), all people lived in fear not knowing if they'll be the next target. Random shooting is frightening in a different way bc anyone can be next in line. It didn't matter if you were white, black, or Asian. It was random.

I lived through that and saw the general fear of random killing that gripped the entire city. This one is confined to the Asian communities. Non-Asians know they are not the target, so they can nonchalantly debate academic points, hairsplitting whether this is racial or mental. For Asians, they have targets on their backs. They'd have to be stupid to believe otherwise cuz their life may depend on their judgment.

This crime is confined to Asian-staffed massage parlors, not the broader Asian community so here it was not random. Still, it's upsetting and frightening that someone can have a grievance, buy a gun, and kill innocent people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why am I shocked that people cannot wrap their minds around the obvious fact that the murdered were targeted because they were both Asian and women? People use the excuse that he went there because he had been a client there before as an excuse? Why do you think he felt like he could take sexual advantage of Asian women in the first place? He was not suddenly racially motivated, he was racially motivated all along.
I am worried about the way in which this investigation will run. The white police officers will find Asian porn on his computers, no doubt, but then not include it as evidence for his racist motivations. They’ll come up with some convoluted excuse for why it doesn’t count as Asian, but just misogynistic. Or they’ll “interview” him and accept that he wasn’t racist, well, because he said so!

Why are you so worried about this? Do you consider frequenting Asian businesses exploiting Asians? The women who have chosen to perform extra services to massage are either doing so willingly for extra money or are trafficked, in which case the owners and traffickers are the exploiters. How are you so sure he had an Asian fetish? What if these businesses were the only clean places he could get sexual services (as the roommate reported)? You seem to want to reinforce or normalize racial stereotypes by constantly repeating them while you admit you are *assuming* he had these predilections.

It is not obvious that these were the reasons at all. It's possible and certainly a reasonable hunch worth looking into, but we are muddying the waters by insisting something is true without concrete evidence. Maybe you'll get your evidence. But you need to ask yourself why it's so important to you, why you are so worried, and what this all means to you.

Are six dead Asian women in a city were Asian women make up less than 3% of the Atlanta population not enough to give you pause?
And I worry because I am an Asian American woman raising Asian American daughters who are going to be gaslighted by white people will insist that they are not being harassed because they are Asian, but merely because they are women.

It most likely gives everyone on this thread pause. But some of us are waiting for such questions to be confirmed before stating them as fact and and some of us see clear alternative explanations.

The Asian American community and those who understand the history of racism in this country are saying that six Asian female dead is a relevant fact. You and the white people who are privileging the testimony of the white murderer don't see this number as relevant. Its not about facts - it's about what you are willing to accept as relevant evidence.

Of course it's relevant. But it's directly confounded with the type of business he targeted. So it could be a racial target or it could be the type of business being targeted that was the motive and so far there is more evidence for the latter. The bolded is scary and it is not consistent with living in a liberal society.