Once you see what they declare to be a massive rise of intolerance you will be less hysterical.
The shooting in Atlanta had the media in desperate spin mode to declare that the root cause of the shooting was a white male who was perpetrating an advanced hate crime against Asians. This was being pushed by most news outlets, despite an abject lack of any hard evidence. The shooter never indicated prior to harboring an animus towards Asians, and the authorities never heard anything after the shooting to point towards the claim. The fact he attacked multiple massage parlors would also indicate the locations were the primary focus of his rage.
Yet, the press continued down this path, going so far as to impugn the lead investigating officer as well. Their charge was based on his having once posted an image of a gag t-shirt referencing the virus as originating in China. That this had zero to do with the shooter, and zero to do with his motives, was not a factor; it served to somehow prove the narrative as accurate.
We heard repeatedly how this shooting was an extension of the steep rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, a figure said to have spiked by 150% last year. While numerous outlets have repeated this figure, the source from where it has been referenced is less enthusiastically cited. This comes from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. While that 150% rise sounds jarring, what we come to learn when looking over the figures is that it is rooted in a number that was significantly low to begin with. Get ready to be unimpressed.
This ‘’spike’’ in hate crimes has been described as ‘’soaring’’, ‘’jumping’’, and any other dramatic adjective. Last year, across the top urban centers, the amount of anti-Asian hate crimes was tabulated at — ONE HUNDRED TWENTY TWO. You read that correctly. 122 is the entirety of the anti-Asian hate crimes counted in the big cities. Understand this includes all manner of reports, including possibly racist words spoken or other non-violent confrontations.
In 2019, the nationwide total was 49. Last year it soared to an additional 79 cases. In New York City, cited as one of the biggest contributors to this sharp rise of intolerance, the amount of anti-Asian hate crimes spiked to 28 cases. This is in a city of over 8 million citizens.
And of course, the source for all of this violence was readily cited; former President Donald Trump. See, his having insisted on referring to the pandemic as being due to the ‘’Wuhan virus’’, or ‘’Chinese virus’’ is said to be the cause of this intolerance. This rationale falls apart when something lacking in the media industry gets applied — common sense.
There is nothing at all to connect this shooting to the practice of naming a viral outbreak after the location of origin. For generations we have used this precise tactic, and at no point would you point to an outbreak of violence towards a group as a result. The media themselves cannot keep things straight, as they had for months reported on the outbreak with the Wuhan virus being noted. Even after their lectures, the press has been more than willing to note there was a regional mutation of the virus, which they curiously are comfortable having dubbed the ”South African variant’’.
This whole claim suffers also from the fact that they are selling this myth as a continental effect. Naming the virus after the city of origin, or even the country, is still rather specific, but we are told the intolerance is aimed at all people from Asia…somehow. Call it ”Wuhan virus’’ and South Koreans are threatened? Explain how ”Chinese virus’’ leads to people from Japan becoming targeted for hate crimes. If we applied a direct-line measurement, the amount of newly inspired intolerance towards Chinese-Americans would shrink to well below that 122 caseload.
This is a massive dose of convenience for the media. How come when the Ebola virus was all across the news, we did not see people from all African nations being victimized with intolerance? It turns out there may be a reason for this hyped hate hysteria.
In the last election, there was a strong drop of support for Democrats among Asian-American voters, in some cases a drop of over five percentage points. Donald Trump seeing record amounts of minority votes in November has shaken the party, and by extension the media complex. How else could it be explained that a shooting this month can be attributed to a man using a disapproved name for a virus, who has been out of office since January and has barely been heard from for months?