Last night there was a horrific
string of shootings in and
around Atlanta that left a number
dead, especially apparently
targeting women of Asian descent.
There were shootings at two massage
parlors in Atlanta, one in the
suburbs, it left eight people dead.
21 year old man suspect in
the shooting was taken into custody
in southwest Georgia hours later
after a manhunt.
So identified quickly,
tracked down and acquired quickly.
And then pretty much everything
after that, Francesca,
when it comes to the police and
this individual, I think we can all
agree we would have preferred that
it had been very different.
I'm glad that they got him before
it could kill more people, and
apparently he had been planning to
potentially travel to Florida and
to commit more shootings that would
have almost certainly left more
people dead.
But aside from that,
pretty unfortunate.
So we want to show you some footage
that a lot of people have been
talking about today, and it
involves one of the representatives
for the police talking about what
they know about the shooter.
>> Did take responsibility for
the shootings.
He said that early on once we began
the interviews with him.
He claims that these, and
as the Chief said, this is still
early but he does claim
that it was not racially motivated.
He apparently has an issue, what he
considers a sex addiction, and sees
these locations as something that
allows him to go to these places,
and it's a temptation for
him that he wanted to eliminate.
Like I said,
it's still early on, but
those were comments that he made.
>> Did he discussed any kind of
religious motivation for this or
was he- >> Not that I'm aware of,
not that I'm aware of.
>> Or political?
>> Non-political,
I've heard nothing about politics.
They got that impression that, yes,
he understood the gravity of it and
he was pretty much fed up, had been
kind of at the end of his rope, and
yesterday was a really bad day for
him and this is what he did.
>> Remorseful?
>> I don't know if he
was remorseful or not.
>> Francesca, what
are your thoughts?.
>> I mean,
I think it's an incredible
exhibition of a police officer
doing the PR work for a murderer.
When do we get this kind of
an insight into someone who just
killed eight people?
At what point did anyone ask
a police officer to say anything
other than we're investigating
whether this was racially
motivated, whether it was
politically motivated,
we're investigating it.
You don't just funnel the words of
a mass murderer into the public
sphere unquestioned.
I mean if anything say nothing.
So it's just shocking, it's just
immediately shocking to hear that.
And I guess I just want to say that
for everyone, when something like
this happens, you immediately
think, probably because most of you
watching are not mass murderers,
which is wonderful, great audience.
I'm just kidding.
>> [LAUGH] Don't kill us.
>> You immediately think,
why would someone do this?
I mean I think that's the any
rational response is why would
someone do this.
And I think that we all have to
kind of take a step back and
think about, there
is no justification, number one,
there's never a justification for
this kind of killing.
So let's just get that out of
the way.
But you definitely don't expect
a police officer or chief to come
up and immediately make the talking
points that the murderer
apprehended very peacefully,
as most white suspects are,
to do the PR work for him.
>> Yeah, and I know, god,
there's so much there.
I want to touch on the last
point that you made, which a lot of
people have pointed out,
we always point this out, that when
it's a white shooter they always
seem to capture them peacefully.
And people who especially are in
media and the right wing,
that whether they admit it or not,
they do think of
themselves as unpaid PR for
these sorts of racist murderers.
Will say, well they surrender,
that's what's
different is that they surrender.
Is that what's different?
I mean how many white shooters suit
up with body armor and all that,
clearly anticipating that they're
going to be killed, and yet
they still get brought in.
I think it has something to do with
the fact that the police in one
situation versus another conceive
of threat very differently.
And that is the big thing.
We know that the cops are trained
that the most important tool that
you need to check constantly is how
deathly afraid are you right now.
And if you get to a certain amount
of fear, begin shooting.
That's basically how it works.
And I think that there is something
about these sorts of shooters that
they believe is less inherently
threatening to them.
A little bit of the Ron Johnson,
I felt like I was under no threat
at the Capitol sort of thing.
>> Absolutely. >> But anyway,
obviously the more important point
in particular here is what he did
and why he's in it, and we can't
know for sure and it is possible
although never for sure that over
the next few days we'll get
far more information about that.
But I would say what the killer
says the day of is largely
irrelevant.
This is seemingly controversial,
I don't think that whether a thing
is racist is up to the racist,
is that controversial?
because a cop is acting as if it's
really up to the person who did it
as to whether it is an instance of
racism or not.
>> Absolutely,
that's exactly right.
And I think that, and
I know we're going to go into
the numbers of anti-Asian hate
crimes that have occurred recently.
But I would urge people to
understand, especially understand
how the Asian-American community is
feeling right now.
That now for the first time, right,
states are opening up,
people are out and about more.
One of the sort of ironic things we
kept on talking about about
lockdown is that there's going to
be less mass shootings
because that's the hell world that
we live in in this country.
And low and behold it was right,
except now that lockdown is ending,
people have been fed so
much anti-Asian racism, vis-a-vis,
the pandemic.
And now this is what's happening,
they are being targeted.
And so just put yourself in
the shoes of families,
in the shoes of workers who put
themselves on the line.
Who are actually trying to open up,
trying to run a business,
who are trying to live their lives.
And understand that you cannot see
what happened last night in Atlanta
and divorce it from the many, many,
many instances of anti-Asian hate
crimes.
So whether or not what's in
the heart of the shooter was that
he was targeting Asian women is
irrelevant right now,
it's irrelevant.
>> Yeah, and just very briefly to
touch on the, I would say what his
criminal defense will at some point
claim as the foundation for
some sort of insanity defense,
the whole thing he's obsessed
with porn or whatever, temptation,
insert whatever BS
thing he's going to say.
Even though in this case it was
the cops for some reason doing that
defending for him.
There's been a lot of conversation
about that, and I want to read this
tweet from Millie Tran who said, as
if these things aren't related and
based on centuries of sexualized
and submissive stereotypes of
Asian women, white supremacy
is rooted in misogyny and racism.
Yeah, they come up
with something that seems like it's
something else when it is
just another part of that thing.
And the lack of ability to see
the connection seems like it's part
of the problem actually.
>> Yeah, yeah, and I just think
that folks need to understand
obviously all immigrant communities
have been invisiblized and
are invisiblized in their
particular ways.
Obviously one of the biggest
communities that has been hit by
COVID is the the Latino community,
right, working in meat processing
plants and such.
But Asian Americans have been
invisiblized for so long and have
been used as scapegoats for so long
in this country, right, going back
to the Chinese Exclusion Act, etc.
And the ways that not just
invisiblized but
also hyper sexualized.
And ironically with these spas
where these Asian women worked in,
that is precisely the kind of work
that is invisiblized work,
sex work that we don't talk about.
And also the ways in which we sort
of allow ourselves to see folks who
work in those industries as
dispensable and as disposable.
And how you there's no way you can
bring yourself to kill that many
people honestly, or anyone really.
But unless you are willing
to participate in a level
of dehumanization that absolutely
a culture of anti-Asian racism has
created, that has been fomented and
stoked by the pandemic and Donald
Trump so recently out of office.
But so again,
this stuff, it's not one to one,
but be smarter than that, guys.
Zoom out a little bit, understand,
situate this.
Not just in the year, not just in
the four years of Trump, but
in the long history of racial
animus in this country.
>> Exactly, yeah, and
it's such a weird dodge.
I mean as many people have pointed
out, this is Atlanta.
How many strip clubs did he drive
past to get to these spas to
then say, it was just temptation I
was fighting against?
It's such a bizarre argument.
But anyway, as you alluded to,
we do want to talk a little bit
about the numbers.
There's some interesting trends
here in this tweet.
Verbal harassment makes up
68% of hate incidents,
physical assault makes up 11%,
women are 2.3 times more likely to
report hate incidents.
And in particular in terms of sort
of zenaphobic attacks against
Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders.
Those numbers are basically what
we see, the distribution between
women and men.
And 45% of reports originated in
California, making it the first in
the nation for
hate incident reports.
And not directly connected but
I on the pre-show for
the Damage Report this morning I
was talking about how there's this
new report on white supremacist
propaganda incidents,
it being distributed at campuses or
flyers and things like that.
And in 2020 there was something
like 5400 incidents,
in 2017 it was like 250.
It has simply exploded.
But again, we're supposed to act as
if that's not a problem,
white supremacy probably has
nothing to do with this.
>> Right, no, and then I think
the other excuse that people
are making, right, is because some
of the perpetrators of anti-Asian
violence have been black.
That is seen as, see, well yeah, so
they're black, so anyway,
white supremacy doesn't apply, bye.
And that is two things, one is
an it's an excuse to not actually
deal with this kind of hatred and
racism.
Number one, it's the same thing
with black on black crime.
Well black on black crime, yeah,
okay, well then we don't have to
talk about it anymore.
People are still dying, but
we won't talk about it, right.
But then specifically it's seeing
that so narrowly and not again
zooming out and understanding the
ways that white supremacy, the ways
that the roles that immigrants,
the ways that African Americans
have been put into and the ways
that they are either taught to
behave, make yourself invisible, do
work that no one else wants to do.
And also the ways that that then
pits communities of color against
one another.
That is all part of a rubric of
white supremacy, that's part of
a rubric of a country that sees
people of color as useful pawns,
as model minorities when they need
to be, as sexual objects when they
need to be,
as in this man's case, right.
And then as victims when they have
a bad day.
>> Yeah, yeah, and
we have this tweet from Matt Walsh.
I'm not even interested in showing
it, but anyway,
but the argument you made is one
that is definitely out there.
And I will just say that it is that
on everything you said was
exactly right.
If your stance that you want us to
believe is that America doesn't
have a race problem,
racism doesn't exist, these
are things that supposedly serious
people actually still say in 2021.
If that's what you believe,
that racism isn't a problem,
white supremacy isn't a problem.
It's weird that when a white guy
kills Asian people you yell, yeah
but black people kill people too.
That's a weird, yeah,
I think maybe we do
have a racism problem if that's not
what we're talking about.
Why are you talking about that?
Why are black people the excuse for
literally everything that white
people do if we don't have a race
problem?
But they do find this convincing or
at least distracting,
because after all, super fast.
When something like this happens
and yet another white guy shot up
a bunch of people, we know exactly
what the strategy is for
Fox News for the Matt Walsh's and
all that, it's maybe briefly we'll
pretend to care about the victims,
although they did generally don't
even bother to do that.
Let's keep our head down for
a day or two and then we can go
back to demonizing whoever we want,
and we will never learn from this,
no conclusions will be drawn
that'll be useful or helpful.
>> Right, and
the problem is, I mean like with
the Florida nightclub shooting,
right, where the the perpetrator
was Muslim and
targeted the LGBTQ community.
It's once again sort of seen as,
well that's that's a problem over
here, and
or, well this man is ISIS.
That's great, that's a perfect tool
for the right to use.
But they don't care about the LGBTQ
community, but they don't care
about the Asian American community.
And in fact, Asian American
organizations and LGBTQ
organizations have been leading
calls for community led solutions
rather than more policing,
which as they very well know,
comes down on people of color,
specifically black Americans.
And so the solution is so
much about solidarity.
And so I would urge news
organizations, including us, right,
but we have to make sure that
we lift up some of the work that is
being done in cities like Oakland
or Los Angeles or New York,
that actually is being led by
the communities which they say no,
no, no, no more policing.
We don't want more cops on
the streets, that's your solution.
We know who gets hurt when
that happens, right.
We know that feeds into this
system of racist policing already.
We need actual tools in
the community, and those tools can
also be housing, business loans,
and stopping gentrification.
So yeah.