Commentary
The opportunistic and the misguided wasted no time in fanning the flames of racial grievance after two mass shootings in California last week.
Taking place separately in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, both shootings resulted in the murder of multiple victims of Asian descent at the beginning of the Lunar New Year, a major holiday for Asian communities.
Soon after news of the Monterey Park shooting broke, Rep. Adam Schiff of California named anti-Asian bigotry as a possible motive. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer attributed the shooting to undefined “bigotry and hate.” Many others chimed in on social media, denouncing former President Donald Trump and white supremacy as responsible for the tragedies. None, of course, had any evidence for their assertions.
Law enforcement later announced the Monterey Park suspect to be Huu Can Tran, a 72-year-old Asian male who subsequently killed himself. Meanwhile, the suspect for Half Moon Bay, Chunli Zhao, is a 66-year-old farm worker from China.
Inconveniently for those who peddled the claim that white supremacy and anti-Asian bigotry were the cause of the shooting rampages, neither Monterey Park nor Half Moon Bay fits their political narrative.
Thus far investigators have said nothing indicating that the tragedy in Monterey Park might be a hate crime, and local law enforcement in Half Moon Bay has determined the killing spree there to likely be workplace violence.
This doesn’t change the reality that far too much violence occurs against Asians in America, including at times by Asian perpetrators, as in the Laguna Woods mass shooting last August. While many are eager to call for an end to anti-Asian hate, far too few dare to speak the truth about a large subset of the crimes: those committed by black offenders.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration condemned anti-Asian racism after a white woman stabbed an Asian Indiana University student. The media didn’t hesitate to describe the…
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