Media Members Ignore the Facts in Atlanta Mass Shooting In Order to Push Their Own Narrative
For many in the mainstream media, mass murder apparently isn’t enough.
Under any circumstances, the shooting deaths of eight innocent victims should evoke a special kind of horror.
But when it comes to the reaction to Tuesday’s series of fatal shootings in Atlanta and one of its suburbs, the reaction of many in the mainstream media and in liberal politics has a horror all its own. It’s a logic no liberal would want to follow to its conclusion, though.
Because six of the eight victims were Asian women, and the confessed gunman is white, the theory goes, the killings must have been rooted in racism — even if the killer says otherwise.
A tweet from Karen Attiah, the global opinions editor for The Washington Post, said it all:
“The white man who murdered several Asian women told the police he’s not racist, so it must be true.” -Media, basically
Guys. DO BETTER.
— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) March 17, 2021
“‘The white man who murdered several Asian women told the police he’s not racist, so it must be true.’ -Media, basically,” Attiah wrote. “Guys. DO BETTER.”
In case the sarcasm wasn’t obvious enough, Attiah followed it up with another tweet to make it more clear:
“The inability or straight up refusal to engage critically and confront white supremacy, misogyny and violence — enables these evils to continue,” she declared.
Jennifer Rubin, the NeverTrump “conservative” at The Washington Post, apparently agrees.
just as we do not take racists’ excuses that they are not saying racist things
— Jennifer ‘pro-voting’ Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) March 17, 2021
The fact that two journalists at one of the country’s best-known newspapers are so eager to make the facts of an event fit their preconceived ideas of the world — and view everything through the lens of “racism” — is a sad comment on the state of the modern journalism profession.
In the immediate aftermath of the arrest of 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long in Tuesday’s killings, long before the case has gone to court or even been thoroughly investigated, there’s no telling what actually transpired before seven women and one man were shot to death at three separate massage spas (two of them right across the street from each other).
What is known is authorities in Cherokee County, Georgia, said the suspect told them his crimes were motivated by sex addiction, according to USA Today and other news outlets.
“He does claim that it was not racially motivated. He apparently has an issue with what he considers a sex addiction and sees these locations as something that allows him to go to these places. It’s a temptation for him he wanted to eliminate,” Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jay Baker said at a news conference Wednesday, according to The Christian Post.
“Those are comments that he made.”
The comments the killer made are clearly not facts many in the biased mainstream media are interested in pursuing.
The only facts that matter for some are that Long is white, and six of his eight victims were Asian. Therefore, his motivation had to be racist hatred of Asians as a segment of the population — no other explanation is possible or allowed.
Ted Lieu, the Democratic congressman from California, not only leaped to the assumption that Long is was motivated by racist hatred of Asians, but also that former President Donald Trump had to be somehow implicated, as well. (Lieu is one of the party’s best-known victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome.)
One year ago, we had a former President and White House officials inflaming hate against Asian Americans. Some elected officials continue to use ethnic identifiers in describing the virus, which adds fuel to the hate. If you are one of those officials, please stop.#StopAsianHate https://t.co/Bb92pULMTX
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 17, 2021
“One year ago, we had a former President and White House officials inflaming hate against Asian Americans,” Lieu tweeted Wednesday. “Some elected officials continue to use ethnic identifiers in describing the virus, which adds fuel to the hate. If you are one of those officials, please stop.”
Again, there’s no telling for sure what drove an individual to murder eight fellow human beings, but the knee-jerk assumption that it could only be specifically racist animus, and that all media outlets are somehow at fault for not painting it that way, is clearly dangerous.
Fortunately, there were plenty of voices on social media, from all ends of the political spectrum, that pointed that out.
You can’t determine guilt or motivation based on skin color.
The media should report the facts available at the time, not the story that fits your prejudices. https://t.co/sF8tS827Ew
— Chad Felix Greene (@chadfelixg) March 17, 2021
“The white man is racist, no matter what he says.” –Media, basically
Guys. DO BETTER. https://t.co/UqjBsrMxK3
— Taxpayer1234 Neanderthal (@Taxpayers1234) March 17, 2021
So society has gotten to the point where mass murderers aren’t ashamed of being a murderer, but they are of being a racist? Is that the logic we’re going with? https://t.co/pGbTHR6aFK
— BoilerCat (@BoilerCat54) March 17, 2021
If so, there’d be no way a white person can commit a crime against a non-white person for any reason but race. And this is a very, very bad implication, in large part because it diminishes the victim to merely his/her race. (2/2)
— Ellen Carmichael (@ellencarmichael) March 17, 2021
That last tweet — pointing out that under Attiah’s logic, no crime committed by a white perpetrator against a non-white victim could have any motivation but racism — just needed to take one more step.
By those standards, it would be just as fair to say that no crime committed by a non-white person — say, a black man — against a white victim — say, a police officer — could have any other motivation than anti-white racism.
Considering that in interracial violent crimes involving black and white people, offenders are overwhelmingly black and victims white, it’s a good bet liberals don’t want to make that argument.
In an eye-opening 2015 piece for National Review, Manhattan Institute researcher Heather MacDonald broke down the racial statistics of such crimes.
“In 2012, blacks committed 560,600 acts of violence against whites (excluding homicide), and whites committed 99,403 acts of violence (excluding homicide) against blacks, according to data from the National Crime Victimization Survey provided to the author,” she wrote.
“Blacks, in other words, committed 85 percent of the non-homicide interracial crimes of violence between blacks and whites, even though they are less than 13 percent of the population. Both the absolute number of incidents and the rate of black-on-white violence are therefore magnitudes higher than white-on-black violence. There is no white race war going on.”
Granted those numbers are from almost a decade ago, but there’s no reason to think they’re substantially different today.
No liberal would ever use that kind of data to build the argument that all violent crime involving black perpetrators and white victims is motivated by anti-white racism. And no honest conservative would either.
A crime is committed by individuals, against individuals, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s racism, of course. Sometimes it’s greed, or lust, or psychological sickness.
Sometimes, it’s simply evil. The old saying about the devil convincing humans he doesn’t exist is as true as it ever was.
Liberals in politics and the most blinkered minds of the mainstream media should be careful how far they take their worldview. They might not like what they really see.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
