Let’s Try to Do Better

So another mass shooting by some screwed-up white man who decided the answer to his personal problems was to kill women, preferably Asian women. Another Tuesday in America.

With the caveat that anything I say about Robert Aaron Long, the alleged Atlanta spa killer, is speculation on my part — misogyny and racism certainly seem apparent in his actions. I have also read today about the way conservative evangelicalism foments a “purity culture” that could have driven Long to want to kill Asian women who work at massage parlors. (See this analysis at Religion Dispatches.)  According to this theory, Long’s extremely screwed up notions about sex and sexuality led him to see himself as a victim of his own desires, and in his mind he was justified in killing women who were the objects of those desires. Because heaven forbid he should take any responsibility for himself.

But, as I said, that’s all speculation. The more important question right now is how are we responding to the Atlanta mass shooting?

Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County, Georgia, Sheriff’s Department, showed us What Not to Do. “While hedging a bit, Baker told reporters there was no immediate reason to think that the White shooter had a racial motivation,” writes Margaret Sullivan at WaPo. “Why not? Well, because that’s what the suspect told police, Baker said at a news conference Wednesday.”

This was followed by The Words That Will Live in Infamy: “He was pretty much fed up and at the end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did,” Baker said. We learned later that Baker had a history of posting anti-Asian imagery on Facebook.

Let us be clear: Screwed-up individuals are always the last people in the world to recognize and understand their own screwiness. For this reason, they don’t get to decide what their deeper motivations are. That’s up to courts and maybe some consulting psychologists. And this applies to both Long and Baker.

For another profile in WTF?, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) spoke today at a House hearing on on violence and discrimination against Asian-Americans. His words are an exercise in stepping in every cow pie in the pasture. He began well enough — “Victims of race-based violence and their families deserve justice,” he said. And then he should have stopped. But he didn’t.

“I would also suggest that the victims of cartels moving illegal aliens deserve justice. The American citizens in south Texas, they are getting absolutely decimated by what’s happening at the southern border deserve justice.”

The conservative congressman continued: “The victims of rioting and looting in the street… last summer deserve justice. We believe in justice.”

And then came an admiring reference to lynchings, a violent and public form of vigilante action that most often targeted people of color: “There’s an old saying in Texas about ‘find all the rope in Texas and get a tall oak tree.’ You know, we take justice very seriously. And we ought to do that. Round up the bad guys. That’s what we believe.”

So, in other words, in a hearing about violence against Asian-Americans we can’t just stay focused on Asian-Americans and why they might be suffering from a spike in violence against them. This is a common way to dismiss the victimization of particular groups, by reminding us that a lot of other people get victimized. And all lives matter. Ending on a ode to lynching was an especially insensitive touch.

Meanwhile, we still don’t know the identities of all the victims. Those we do know: Delaina Yaun, 33, of Acworth; Paul Andre Michels, 54, of Atlanta; Xiaojie Tan, 49, of Kennesaw; and Daoyou Feng, 44. One man, Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz, survived.

See also Atlanta spa killings stir even more fear among Asian Americans at Axios.