Asian hate crimes? A deep dive into news stories, statistics shows there is no there there
Fascist Left narrative intended to further divide and alienate Americans from one anther and drive minorities into the Democrat tent
On cue following last month’s Atlanta shooting and the attack on an Asian woman in New York City, Asian-Americans were recruited to turn out for big demonstration to “end Asian hate” that, from what ACV can find, does not exist. (Photo: Edward Englehart/New York Post)
Before the next of kin were even notified in the horrific shootings last monthk at three Atlanta-area massage parlors, the narrative was established: The fact that six of the eight victims were Asian women provided the proof that a “surge in hate crimes” against Asian-Americans has bubbled up in the U.S. in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
That, of course, fits neatly with the view of some Americans that our society, at its heart, is racist.
For contrast, consider the mass shooting three weeks ago in Boulder, Colorado, in which the suspect is Syrian-American. Even though all the victims were of the same race, no one assumes without proof that he was acting out of racial animosity because, of course, they were white. Instead, the narrative initially was that he was a “white shooter,” until they found out he wasn’t. That is another story.
In Atlanta, the shooter killed two white people and injured a Latino. But the killings must still be motivated by anti-Asian hatred, right? When doubt and “wait a minute, where are you getting this stuff?” questions started popping up, a perfectly timed incident of a black parolee stomping a 65-year-old Asian woman in front of a store in New York City occurred, seeminly “confirming” the claims.
That incident is one such apparent hate crime we know about, for certain. Where are the others? Well, wait just a minute, the Fascists will be happy to tell you.
“Racially motivated violence must be called out for exactly what it is -- and we must stop making excuses or rebranding it as economic anxiety or sexual addiction,” Rep. Marilyn Strickland told members of the House a day after the Atlanta shootings. In a CNN interview, Strickland, whose heritage is both African American and Korean American, called the incident a racially motivated hate crime.
There’s a problem with this narrative. It is false. In fact, none of the evidence to emerge thus far supports the Fascist Left’s insistence that violence against Asian-Americans is on the rise.
The idea that someone might randomly attack an Asian-American at the gym or hurl racist invectives at someone of that heritage the grocery checkout line makes everyone uneasy. People are confused — as well they should be. Where are all these “acts of violence” against Asian-Americans that the Fascists know about but no one else apparently does?
ACV looked into the numbers being used to support the so-called “surge” in attacks. They turn out to be thin, with data points cherry-picked to invoke fear and bolster the wobbly claim that, not only was the Atlanta shooter driven by racism but that Asian-Americans are increasingly the victims of hate crimes.
A report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism drew national media attention for identifying a 149 percent increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020 compared to 2019 in 16 of our largest cities. A startling number — until you learn the actual number of hate crimes in those cities rose from 49 to 122 — in a country of 330 million people.
An organization barely a year old, Asian-American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), formed to counter anti-Asian incidents following the spread of the CCP virus, is now on Capitol Hill seeking what all political groupls seek — federal funding. (Photo: Daryl Stanks/The Washington Examiner)
In my hometown, Kansas City, there were none last year. The year before, there were also none.
And what about the 3,795 incidents of harassment and discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders documented by Stop AAPI Hate? The group’s data point is even more useless than the 149% increase figure. Stop AAPI (shorthand for Asian American and Pacific Islander) Hate was formed as the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the U.S. in March 2020. That have no base point as a reference for their “data.”
It may, however, be sufficiently frightening for congress members facing another election in 19 months to open a line of federal spending directly to Stop AAPI Hate’s member organizations. The group was on Capitol Hill the first week of April to urge lawmakers to address the kind of incidents it tracks and to fund programs supporting the victims. To heck with the fact their data is worthless. It will impress enough people for them to start getting federal funds.
There have been incidents of ugliness directed toward Asians, like the woman in Houston caught on videotape last spring yelling, “Get out of our country” at the owner of a Vietnamese restaurant. But the motivation for most of these incidents proves much harder to tease out. And “white supremacy” certainly doesn’t appear to be the animating motivation.
To wit: The case of an 84-year-old man of Thai descent who died in January after being shoved to the ground by a teenager in San Francisco. The district attorney was roundly criticized on social media after saying he had found no evidence the attack was racially motivated and that the teen, who was African-American, had been seen banging on a car and having a “temper tantrum” at the time of the attack.
Similarly, the evidence in Atlanta did not point toward race. The sheriff’s office said the 21-year-old suspect told them he had a sex addiction and he was trying to “eliminate” the temptations those massage parlors represented for him.
A roommate from a halfway house whee the shooter lived while on parole backed up his story of struggling with compulsive sexual behavior and described him as having a “religious mania.” It came out later in the week that he had recently been kicked out of his parents’ home and had been furloughed from his job.
Police who are actually investigating the crime say they are still looking into his motives. But they are treading a fine line. In America in 2021, if you don’t see all events through the lens of race, you risk being called a racist.
The murders at the spas in Atlanta were despicable. If any criminal act with a victim and perpetrator of different races is a hate crime, though, the legal distinction becomes farcical. That shooting and the attack in New York City are the only actual violent crimes that have risen to the level of national news in the last year.
Wielding inflated, misleading numbers and overheated but meaningless language for the sake of a “hot take” media narrative insults the 18 million Americans of Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Island descent – and misleads all Americans. But that’s what Fascists do.