Last week, a 21-year-old white man roamed the streets of Atlanta, Georgia, searching for his victims. She stopped at three massage parlors and killed eight people here, six of them Asian women.
Confessed killer Robert Aaron Long declared himself a “sex addict” and described his crime as an exorcism to “end the temptation.” He is known to have previously visited at least two of the massage parlors he shot.
And while acts of violence happen frequently in this country, every time a new one happens people again wonder why this aberration.
The conjectures about the possible reason for this case revolve around four poles the engine is hate. The killer acted for religious reasons or for his resentment against the Asian community or for xenophobia itself or for misogyny. Or maybe for a combination of some of these reasons.
Attacks on religious grounds have been central to attacks on Jewish temples by anti-Semitism. Also for strays who kill in the name of Islam. In this case, it seems that the decision to kill was for personal reasons. The church to which Long belongs has hastened to disqualify his explanation.
In the Asian community they see it as a case of racial hatred. Another on the long list of grievances against him since his arrival in the United States. In the mid-19th century, a ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice, which prevented people of Asian descent from testifying against a white person, translated as a guarantee that no white person would be punished for raping an Asian.
During World War II, prejudice against his community aroused distrust in his loyalty, and thousands of Americans of Japanese descent were imprisoned in concentration camps on the possible suspicion, without any evidence, that they might be traitors. in his homeland.
The Atlanta massacre is part of a new phase of attacks against people that began in 2019, when the pandemic began, and that has caused more than 3,800 hate crimes against people of Asian descent. Just from the moment Trump blamed China for ruining the re-election with the coronavirus and the contempt of the arrogant teenager with whom he adjective whom he disliked, Trump spoke of the pandemic as “the Chinese virus “,” from the kung fu virus “.
Another interpretation is that xenophobia could have played a decisive role as well. Experience shows us that it is common for hatred of a minority community to spread to members of other communities of color who come from non-European countries. Racism and xenophobia almost always go together, and this country fusion is full of country history.
Not long ago, another 21-year-old white Texan, self-proclaimed protector of the white race, drove 11 hours non-stop to get to El Pas, Texas, with the deliberate intent to kill Mexicans. Paradoxically, of the 22 dead, only eight were Mexican.
Another theory resorts to another facet of feminicide. According to a psychologist at the University of Georgia, Long went to kill women to arouse unhealthy desires in him. Accordingly, this case responds to the old and evil idea that women should be punished for the feelings they arouse in men.
The truth, I believe, is that this crime lies at the intersection of various dangerous ideologies and cannot be easily unraveled. However, noting that the problem of hate crimes due to racial prejudice, xenophobia or misogyny dates back a long time and is very difficult to resolve should not immobilize us. You have to fight it to get it eradicated, no matter how long the fight lasts.
SERGIO MUÑOZ BATA