LET THE DOUBLE STANDARDS BEGIN – AT 5:50 P.M. ET:  The United States has seen two horrific mass killings in the last two weeks.  In Atlanta, on March 16th, a lone white gunman opened fire inside a "massage parlor," murdering eight people.   Of the eight, six were Asian. 

Yesterday, a lone gunman opened fire in a grocery in Boulder, Colorado, killing ten.

The press response to the two events tells us much about the current state of journalism, or what passes for journalism.   After Atlanta, some journalists went into a weird and dangerous psychiatric state, claiming that the assault was directed at Asian Americans, and that the blame lay with President Trump, who allegedly whipped up anti-Asian hatred in the United States by calling the pandemic the "China virus," much as we call a variant of influenza the "Spanish flu."  CNN, in particular, not a great sponsor of thorough and accurate journalism, exceeded even its own terrifying style, with little restraint or a waiting for facts.

We now know that the Atlanta shootings probably had nothing to do with the ethnicity of the victims.  It is reported, and we don't have a final determination on this, that the shooter has a psychiatric history, which includes loathing of establishments that deal in sexually related activity.  The case is still under intense investigation, but the association of President Trump and anti-Asian hatred was assumed right from the start, and implanted in the minds of American viewers and readers. 

Yes, there has been an increase in anti-Asian bigotry in America, and there have been assaults on Asian Americans right here on the streets of New York.  But video surveillance and witness testimony suggest that most of the assaults are committed by black men, not white supremacists.  There is substantial friction between Asian Americans and blacks, with Asian Americans claiming, with justification, that they are discriminated against in college admissions and in the treatment of their children in school, in order to favor black competitors.  Just a month ago an important Chinese American group issued a strongly worded statement denouncing critical race theory.  In fact, I haven't seen a stronger statement on that subject.  See this report.

So bigotry against Asian Americans is complex, and has nothing to do with Donald Trump.

By contrast, consider the reporting of yesterday's attack in Boulder.  At first the eager social networkers assumed the attacker was white.  White supremacist with military rifle kills ten in Boulder attack.  What a story.

But...whoops...he isn't white.  He's a Syrian American, a Muslim, and now we're being told repeatedly that we must not draw assumptions before the facts are in.  That is the correct approach, but apparently was forgotten in Atlanta. 

What do we know about the Boulder shooter?  We know he's a Muslim male, an immigrant from Syria, with no criminal record but a history of volatile behavior.  From Fox: 

On a Facebook page purported to belong to Alissa, he wrote messages that criticized former President Donald Trump's response to immigration and refugees, allegedly writing "Trump is such a d---." He also purportedly complained about not having a girlfriend and shared wrestling photos.

Speaking to the Denver Post, a former classmate, Dayton Marvel, said Alissa was "kind of scary to be around" and had once made threats against people during a wrestling match.

"His senior year, during the wrestle-offs to see who makes varsity, he actually lost his match and quit the team and yelled out in the wrestling room that he was like going to kill everybody," said Marvel, who reportedly graduated in Arvada West High School’s Class of 2018. "Nobody believed him. We were just all kind of freaked out by it, but nobody did anything about it."

Marvel also told the Post how Alissa "would talk about him being Muslim and how if anybody tried anything, he would file a hate crime and say they were making it up."

"I just know he was a pretty cool kid until something made him mad, and then whatever made him mad, he went over the edge -- way too far," Marvel continued, according to the report.

The Denver Post also cited an affidavit in describing how Alissa reportedly assaulted an Arvada West classmate in 2017, when he was 18, by punching him repeatedly, including in the head. According to the reported affidavit, the person Alissa was said to have attacked "had made fun of him and called him racial names weeks earlier."

Another former classmate and wrestling teammate, Angel Hernandez, told the outlet Alissa was often paranoid.

That's pretty much what we know.  It's been reported that he is a follower of ISIS, but that has not been confirmed.  Now let's wait for more facts.  I wish some journalists had done that in Atlanta.

March 23, 2021