The guy went around targeting Asian women specifically. He didn’t only kill asian women he targeted them. Going to two separate massage parlors,with some distance between them,to do the shootings. It’s not screaming the name of the opposing group to say that this guy has some racist and sexist motives behind these murders.
Is the mere act of only targeting Asian-descent women at massage parlors not evidence of racism? Yeah he didn’t write a manifesto (that we know of) before doing these murders, but damn I feel like this is an awfully high level epistemological standards.
I’ve read (and I am taking with a grain of salt) that he was seen at those places before/has visited as a patron and it’s frankly just as likely this is more specific to targeting sex workers/women than a straight up racism thing. Of course, it can also be a combination of these factors, or we can step back and discuss the myriad of factors why asian women were the majority of workers there, etc. I’m not trying to discount the element race plays into this, at all, but it has also been odd seeing people online parading around a single, likely faked, screenshot as proof not only of this asshole’s intent, but also as like the “poster child” for how the media’s rhetoric is inspiring violence. I think it’s reasonably fair to assume that race was a factor, but was this necessarily motivated by covid-19 coverage, as people claim? I don’t know, personally
Edit, just dropping some links as for why doubt the screenshot’s authenticity
There’s obviously a rise of sinophobic violence in this country and I don’t doubt for a second that racism and sexism are to blame here. That said, there’s equal evidence in what you just said that this guy hated massage parlors.
He doesn’t hate the women and workers at the parlor, just the idea of the parlor itself.
I don’t think that’s a very good line of reasoning. By that logic there’s also evidence that the guy merely hates shops that are open late, because both of these places where open late.
That’s not exactly what I’m saying. Just that if you can make a connection between him targeting women or Asians, you can make a connection with him targeting massage parlors. It’s not like he went and shot up a Chinese food restaurant or something. He went after a specific type of business.
