Several high-profile athletes joined the mainstream media in denouncing Tuesday’s string of Atlanta-area massage parlor shootings as anti-Asian hate, despite no evidence to support the claim.
Georgia State Patrol troopers arrested Woodstock, Georgia, resident Robert Aaron Long, 21, a white male, for the murders of six Asian women, one white woman, and one white man. A Hispanic man was also wounded in the attack.
There was rampant media speculation that the murderer was motivated by animus against Asians, based solely on the race of the shooter and the majority of victims. However, according to a confession obtained from the alleged shooter, police say Long targeted the parlors because he saw them as facilitators for his sexual addiction.
Despite the official determinations of the shooter’s motives, many in the sports world immediately blamed “racism” for the attacks because so many of the victims were Asian women.
Former Miami Heat player Dwyane Wade, for instance, quickly jumped to Twitter to decry the murders as an example of “racism” and pushed the hashtag, #StopAsianHate.
Wade was hardly alone in assuming the crime was race-related and using social media to push the claim. Many others also beat that drum:
Some of the victims have been identified. The names include: Paul Andre Michels, 54, Xiaojie Tan, 49, Daoyou Feng, 44, and Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33, were killed. Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, 30, was injured.
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