8 dead in Atlanta, Georgia Mass shootings

[Insaanistan]

Considering he was white, no, I would not think it would be racially motivated if he killed other white people. Were it a black person who shot those Asian women, I’d still think it’s racially motivated, because racism isn’t limited to anyone one racial group.

Why not? You do know that people can commit racially motivated hate crimes against people of their own ethnic backgrounds, right? You also realize that correlation does not imply causation, right? Just because you have a high body count of a certain ethnic group during a tragedy such as this, doesn't automatically make it racially motivated.

Does it automatically make it so? No.
Does it make it likely especially given the atmosphere right now? Yes.

If a guy killed 8 Muslims right after 9/11, I would assume it’s because they’re Muslim. Is there a chance that wasn’t the reason? Sure. Is it wrong and unreasonable to assume that it is? No.

[Insaanistan]

Don’t you guys just love how “Christian” was trending on social media after this attack but “Islamic” and “Muslim” trended after the Boulder mass shooting.

[Kazumazu]

Don’t you guys just love how “Christian” was trending on social media after this attack but “Islamic” and “Muslim” trended after the Boulder mass shooting.

Eh... is that sarcasm? I haven’t sold my soul to social media so I don’t keep up with what’s trending.

[Insaanistan]

Don’t you guys just love how “Christian” was trending on social media after this attack but “Islamic” and “Muslim” trended after the Boulder mass shooting.

Eh... is that sarcasm? I haven’t sold my soul to social media so I don’t keep up with what’s trending.

“Muslim” and “Islamic” ARE trending, if that’s what you’re asking.

[Kazumazu]

Eh... is that sarcasm? I haven’t sold my soul to social media so I don’t keep up with what’s trending.

“Muslim” and “Islamic” ARE trending, if that’s what you’re asking.

I guess?...

I’m not even sure as to what your alluding to. Unless I’m just densely missing the suggestion...

[Glorious Hong Kong]

In light of the recent spike in anti-Asian racist attacks that have persisted long after Trump's departure in January, I'm cross-posting this here:

After much thought and consideration, I've decided to personally retire the term China virus in favor of Wuhan coronavirus, CCP virus, or simply the coronavirus. I've substituted the term China virus with Wuhan coronavirus in my Factbook and forum sig. Consider this a gesture of goodwill and solidarity with Asian-Americans and other visible Asian minorities around the world.

Believe it or not, I do, in fact, empathize with the plight of Asian-Americans. I do, in fact, believe that Asian-Americans are more likely to be brutally and racially targeted by non-Asians simply by virtue of being vastly outnumbered and being associated with a disease that communists in China failed to contain.

Asian-Americans, like American Jews, tend to receive the short end of the stick from both violent racist bigots on the Right and woke racists on the Left who want them to fail in life with anti-Asian affirmative action in college admissions. While I may vehemently disagree with woke leftists (to the point of being called a racist and a fascist) as to whether systemic racism even exists in the liberal, enlightened West, I think we can all agree that personal, individual racism is a universal human trait that exists in every country in the world, and it needs to be stamped out completely and utterly.

Asian Lives Matter. All Lives Matter. I see no contradiction between the two and I stand with Asian-Americans, Asian-Australians, Asian-Canadians, Asian-Britons, and visible Asian minorities elsewhere who have suffered tremendously as a direct result of the CCP Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

(Again, I'm not implying some sort of sinister conspiracy involving bioweapons, pedophiles, Jews, lizards, and communists, or whatever the term CCP virus was supposed to imply.)

But don't get me wrong. I still don't believe Trump was actively trying to incite racism through his use of the term China virus or Chinese virus, nor do I believe he is personally, genuinely a racist at heart. Narcissistic sociopaths are incapable of holding genuine and sincere beliefs about anything, racism included. He was responding to China's claim that the virus originated in America and should thus be called the USA virus. I do think his use of China virus was nonetheless clumsy and reckless and he should've stuck with CCP virus instead. I still don't believe that China virus is always a hateful, racist term in every single context, and there may be some limited contexts in which the term may be applied or construed otherwise.

Nonetheless, I will refrain from using the term China virus on online forums from now on to avoid misunderstandings. But don't expect me to start saying Covid-19 anytime soon. There's more than one correct name for the virus and I will not be dictated to by the WHO or by woke leftists. It's Wuhan coronavirus for me.

ASIAN LIVES MATTER. ALL LIVES MATTER.

As to this specific shooting in Atlanta, I don't know whether it was a racist hate crime, some other kind of hate crime (sexist, perhaps), or whether the perp was just crazy. The Christian anti-sex cult he was a part of should be thoroughly investigated by the FBI. Religion is bad for our health and bad for our sex life.

I support the protests and rallies in support of Asian lives in America in a general sense, but maybe the Atlanta shootings are not necessarily the best example to rally around?

[Paddy O Fernature]

Why not? You do know that people can commit racially motivated hate crimes against people of their own ethnic backgrounds, right? You also realize that correlation does not imply causation, right? Just because you have a high body count of a certain ethnic group during a tragedy such as this, doesn't automatically make it racially motivated.

Does it automatically make it so? No.
Does it make it likely especially given the atmosphere right now? Yes.

If a guy killed 8 Muslims right after 9/11, I would assume it’s because they’re Muslim. Is there a chance that wasn’t the reason? Sure. Is it wrong and unreasonable to assume that it is? No.

And you would be still be making a shitty assumption.

Also, comparing this incident to 9/11... guess you gotta get that Muslim box checked for this discussion somehow.

[Knask]

Considering he was white, no, I would not think it would be racially motivated if he killed other white people. Were it a black person who shot those Asian women, I’d still think it’s racially motivated, because racism isn’t limited to anyone one racial group.

Why not? You do know that people can commit racially motivated hate crimes against people of their own ethnic backgrounds, right? You also realize that correlation does not imply causation, right? Just because you have a high body count of a certain ethnic group during a tragedy such as this, doesn't automatically make it racially motivated.

Also, just because someone goes to one asian place, murders a majority of asians, and then drives 30 miles past strip clubs and sex shops to get to another asian place where he murders more asian women, doesn't mean his goal was to kill asian women.

[Gig em Aggies]

Why not? You do know that people can commit racially motivated hate crimes against people of their own ethnic backgrounds, right? You also realize that correlation does not imply causation, right? Just because you have a high body count of a certain ethnic group during a tragedy such as this, doesn't automatically make it racially motivated.

Also, just because someone goes to one asian place, murders a majority of asians, and then drives 30 miles past strip clubs and sex shops to get to another asian place where he murders more asian women, doesn't mean his goal was to kill asian women.

also just because he does, doesn't mean it was racially motivated so wait until we get an actual motive before saying it was racial motivated.

[Vassenor]

Why not? You do know that people can commit racially motivated hate crimes against people of their own ethnic backgrounds, right? You also realize that correlation does not imply causation, right? Just because you have a high body count of a certain ethnic group during a tragedy such as this, doesn't automatically make it racially motivated.

Also, just because someone goes to one asian place, murders a majority of asians, and then drives 30 miles past strip clubs and sex shops to get to another asian place where he murders more asian women, doesn't mean his goal was to kill asian women.

But that cant be true because he said he just had a bad day.

[Paddy O Fernature]

Also, just because someone goes to one asian place, murders a majority of asians, and then drives 30 miles past strip clubs and sex shops to get to another asian place where he murders more asian women, doesn't mean his goal was to kill asian women.

also just because he does, doesn't mean it was racially motivated so wait until we get an actual motive before saying it was racial motivated.

Nah, that would make WAY too much logical sense.

[The Black Forrest]

Also, just because someone goes to one asian place, murders a majority of asians, and then drives 30 miles past strip clubs and sex shops to get to another asian place where he murders more asian women, doesn't mean his goal was to kill asian women.

also just because he does, doesn't mean it was racially motivated so wait until we get an actual motive before saying it was racial motivated.

Interesting so just because he killed 8 people does mean he meant to do it? Maybe he meant to give a stern talking!

The problem? It’s a safe guess it was racially motivated. We have an asian hate thing going on which was really amped up by trump with all his chinnah virus bullshit.

[Krasny-Volny]

Absolute America moment. As someone with an Asian significant other who is in the process of immigrating, good riddance go this country

My GF and her family don't feel safe in this country anymore. I can only offer the same advice to those with the resources to move; do it.

And go where, exactly? Not everybody can dump their career plans, good jobs, and uproot their entire social and business network and emigrate because eight people died in a city over 1,000 miles away.

Much better to buy a gun and stock up on ammo if you don’t feel safe.

[Glorious Hong Kong]

Absolute America moment. As someone with an Asian significant other who is in the process of immigrating, good riddance go this country

My GF and her family don't feel safe in this country anymore. I can only offer the same advice to those with the resources to move; do it.

And go where, exactly? Not everybody can dump their career plans, good jobs, and uproot their entire social and business network and emigrate because eight people died in a city over 1,000 miles away.

Much better to buy a gun and stock up on ammo if you don’t feel safe.

Asian-Americans should arm themselves to the teeth. Like these guys.

[Kubra]

I assume they were there to get erotic messages. Which is a thing couples do.
"Without evidence"? I really don't know how else to tell you this. Massage parlours, bad parts of town, blacked out windows, alluring images on their webpages, rubmaps listings, google reviews stating what sorts of establishments they are, anyone else can tell you what this is and what goes on. Not only is it quite obvious you don't know a damn thing about the trade, but you also refuse to learn a single iota of information regarding it. Like, willful refusal.

Lots of assumptions, light on facts.

When you actually have any information beyond your speculations, I'll be here to listen to it. Until then, it does not help your case to whine about not learning any information when you provide no information to learn from, only guesswork and assumptions.

And if say that they are likely sex workers and that this is violence targeting sex workers, *I'm* victim blaming?

Yes. When you you feed harmful stereotypes and support the killer's narrative without any evidence you are indeed taking part in the victim blaming process.

Buddy, you're currently engaged in the demeaning and covering up of violence against sex workers. Full stop.

Wrong. They may be sex workers, they may not be. You insist that they are, despite a lack of evidence. You seem to want them to be, while I'm saying that we don't know if they are. Admitting to not having information is not covering up anything, but insisting that they are is harmful if they weren't. Remember that we're talking about cultures in which sexwork is especially shameful. According to her son, Hyun Jung Grant did not want anyone to think she was engaged in sex work, yet here you are, like Rchard Littlejohn trying to carve "Prostitute" into her tombstone.

This is full on, and this is the unfortunate literal term, "whorephobia". That is, you know, what you are engaged in, and I don't know if you know, but it's a form of discrimination. I mean here you are, saying it "won't matter" if they're sex workers, as if it's right for them simply to be murdered for being so. That's why it matters if I'm right: it goes to show just how little you care about sex workers, and also *why their issues matter*.

It does not matter whether they were sex workers, because he targeted them because he percieved them to be sex workers while being asian women. If they were sex workers, which there is still no evidence for, it does not change his motivations. If they weren't, it still doesn't change his motivation, but claiming that they had to be sex workers because they were asian women working at a massage parlor feeds a harmful stereotype and objectifies them. You are directly contributing to harming asian women, sex workers and otherwise.

To quote Elene Lam, the executive director of Butterfly, a Toronto-based support network for Asian and migrant sex workers:

I think we need to start off by saying that people working in massage parlors don’t necessarily provide sexual services. Certainly there is a lot of overlap, but even if they do, they may or may not identify as sex workers because there is so much discrimination. So the first issue is that people make this assumption in the first place, which comes from fantasies about Asian women’s sexuality. Part of the reason Asian women are fetishized is because we do not recognize their agency. We assume white women have control over their bodies. But we often assume Asian women are passive objects to be used and dominated.

I'm sure you'll accuse her of "whorephobia" next.

So to be clear, it's fair to see this as a threat to and attack on sex workers in general. But the failure to view the women as individuals, acknowledging that they might not fit neatly into your preconcieved stereotypes, and treating them as such by claiming they are most likely "whores", is part of the problem. It's a failure to see them as real people.

“Even if they were providing non-sexual massages, this ends up being a sex work issue,” said Esther K, a co-director of Red Canary Song, a grassroots Chinese massage parlor worker coalition. “The women are de facto being seen as sex workers and being scapegoated as such.

“Removing the anti-sex-work component really removes the crux of what this specific kind of racism is about: the fetishization of Asian women’s bodies, the objectification of their bodies and the assumption that Asian women are obviously going to be providing sexual services at massage parlors,” she continued. “The conflation of massage parlors and sex workers without any nuance is very specific to anti-Asian racism against Asian women.”

By the way, if he had targeted them only because of their (percieved) profession as sex workers, then it's puzzling that he didn't continue on to a nearby strip club or sex store. Instead, he went out of his way to go to asian places of business.

This, by the way, sums up my views:

As more details about the victims’ identities come out, Lam agreed that the outcome should be the same, regardless of their line of work.

“Not all massage parlor workers provide sexual services, but some do,” she said. “But no matter what services they provide, they deserve rights and safety. They are facing multiple layers of oppression.”

"Assumptions and guess work?" Buddy, your case for racial motivation can be stated as such: "six of the right victims were Asians. Coincidence? I think not!"
I mean, could you explain how that isn't "guesswork and assumption?"

The killers "narrative"? I don't think his narrative is "I have committed an act of femicide for my warped perceptions of gender and sex work". It doesn't make him an object of pity, see? I mean if you want to ignore overt acts of violence aimed at sex workers that's on you, man.

Unfortunately, sex work is often portrayed and perceived as shameful work, which affects those engaged in the trade and how they perceive themselves.

Now I'm not going to say I've never cherry picked before. It's unfortunate, but it happens. However, this example is fairly egregious. You've taken an article on *violence and precarity among sex workers in the parlour trade* and made it a reason not to speak. Even further, it's *in response to this very shooting*.
I of course will not be accusing her of "whorephobia", she's written a very succinct article on the matter. Personally, I think you should try giving it a closer reading, rather than a skim for a favourable outcome.

On the matter of not all Asian massage parlours being venues for sexual services: this is of course right. Plenty are legitimate, and so if you were to meet an Asian person and are told they are a masseuse it would be quite wrong to assume off the bat they are a sex worker with such a limited context, and would in fact be quite racist, especially in the Canadian context.
We, however, are not so limited, aren't we? As I've already said, a legit place and a rub 'n' tug are *real* easy to distinguish. Even if we ignore what you called "assumptions", it's already been reported that he had been a patron of two of the three targets. Two of the spas had been regularly raided on prostitution charges resulting in arrests. A Korean paper has already went and reported that the victims were mamasans, which is consistent with his likely method (bursting in the door, shooting, rinse repeat), as well as the other very obvious signs I already listed. Unless, like their rubmaps presence, you want to state that those were all faked.

As for the question of why he did not shoot up the strip clubs and sex stores, hoo boy. I'm getting some strong Steve Carell vibes.
Like, have you ever, you know, been in either type of place? What in gods name do you think goes on in them??

[Thermodolia]

Fulton County DA will seek the Death Penalty and hate crim against the shooting suspect

[Insaanistan]

And go where, exactly? Not everybody can dump their career plans, good jobs, and uproot their entire social and business network and emigrate because eight people died in a city over 1,000 miles away.

Much better to buy a gun and stock up on ammo if you don’t feel safe.

Asian-Americans should arm themselves to the teeth. Like these guys.

But not Palestinians? Those guys should just take it?

[Insaanistan]

Fulton County DA will seek the Death Penalty and hate crim against the shooting suspect

This however, is quite the development.

[Herzpunkt]

Asian-Americans should arm themselves to the teeth. Like these guys.

But not Palestinians? Those guys should just take it?

No body makes arab palestinians vote for more gun laws to disarm themselves.

[Thermodolia]

Fulton County DA will seek the Death Penalty and hate crim against the shooting suspect

This however, is quite the development.

It definitely is. So what it means is that if he is convicted there will be a second trial with a new jury to decide if the death penalty is warranted.

[Adamede]

Asian-Americans should arm themselves to the teeth. Like these guys.

But not Palestinians? Those guys should just take it?

What the fucking hell does anything they just talked about have to do with Palestinians?

[Paddy O Fernature]

But not Palestinians? Those guys should just take it?

What the fucking hell does anything they just talked about have to do with Palestinians?

....guess you gotta get that Muslim box checked for this discussion somehow.

[Kowani]

House votes to condemn the shooting, reaffirm House's commitment to combating hate, bigotry, and violence against the AAPI community (244-180)

[Insaanistan]

What the fucking hell does anything they just talked about have to do with Palestinians?

....guess you gotta get that Muslim box checked for this discussion somehow.

It was less in a hope to bring Muslims into this and more to call out GHK’s hypocrisy for saying Asian Americans should arm themselves while simultaneously condemning Palestinians for throwing rocks at one of the most advanced militaries on earth for occupying their land.

[Insaanistan]

House votes to condemn the shooting, reaffirm House's commitment to combating hate, bigotry, and violence against the AAPI community (244-180)

Woo!
Good. Progress is always good.