On March 16, 2021, Robert Aaron Long opened fire on businesses in the Atlanta area that employ a large number of Asians. Six of his eight murder victims were Asian women. Similar to Dylan Roof who murdered nine Black parishioners inside an African Methodist Episcopal church in South Carolina and Patrick Wood Crusius who murdered 23 people in Texas in the deadliest anti-Latino attack in recent history, prosecutors should consider hate crime charges for Long.
Yet, some people are actually buying that Long’s actions were solely over an alleged sex addiction. There are a ton of massage places in the Atlanta area. Why did he only target the ones operated by Asians? It is because he is racist and probably sexist; plain and simple. It should not take domestic terrorists writing white supremacist manifestos, like those of Roof and Crusius, in order for us to classify their behavior as hate crimes. It is not enough for people to only be convicted of murder. They should also be convicted of hate crimes or we will continue to see everyday, mundane […]
This is the first major disconnect I’ve felt with the Schwartz Report.
Let me first say that I affirm and understand why shielding racism (and any other specific of hateful act) is bad — and why calling it something else is wrong.
But is it not wholly misguided to think in terms of crime and punishment? To my mind, the only way that line of thinking can go is further towards a police state that has the ability to subjectively determine who’s hateful and who’s not. At any given time, that state may be under Biden, white supremacist-christofascists, or any other stripe. Wouldn’t such absolute punitive power corrupt absolutely (and allow anyone in the seat of power to enforce their interpretation of “hate”)?
Of course, Alex G, you cannot solve racism through punishment. It has to be solved by changing the consciousness of the culture. By the same token individual acts of racist terrorism must be addressed. This also means that the American Gulag has to be completely reconfigured. Our prison system is barbarous and rather than solving racism, exacerbates it.
Thank you sincerely, Stephan, for your thoughtful response. It helps to understand how your view may differ from the article’s.
Be well — and thanks for the Schwartz Report generally speaking; I find it to be an immensely well curated digest.