Captain Jay Baker is alleged to have shared anti-Chinese jokes about the coronavirus online
Credit: Megan Varner/Getty Images
Today, questions have been asked of a senior police officer leading the investigation after he appeared to sympathise with the suspect, saying: “He was pretty much fed up, and kind of at the end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.”
To compound the issue, Captain Jay Baker had previously shared images on Facebook of T-shirts that contained a racist slogan about China and the coronavirus, it was claimed.
Kamala Harris, the first woman and first person of Asian descent to be US Vice President, offered her condolences, saying: “Knowing the increasing level of hate crime against our Asian-American brothers and sisters, we also want to speak out in solidarity with them and acknowledge that none of us should ever be silent in the face of any form of hate."
On Wednesday evening, vigils were held across the United States, and police presence has been beefed up in Asian communities in major cities, including New York and San Francisco.
President Biden ordered flags at major government buildings, including the White House, to be flown at half mast.
On Capitol Hill, Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee said: "For many Asian-Americans, Tuesday’s shocking events felt like the inevitable culmination of a year in which there were nearly 3,800 reported incidents of anti-Asian hate incidents."
Mr Cohen said Asian-Americans have been subjected to "verbal harassment, being spat at, slapped in the face, lit on fire, slashed with a box cutter or shoved violently to the ground."
The surge, he said, had been fuelled by references to the "China virus" — a term often used by Donald Trump and the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than half a million Americans dead, had exacerbated "latent anti-Asian prejudices that have a long, long and ugly history in America."
Atlanta shooting map
Analysis — Social media split on how to support Asian communities
By Jamie Johnson, in Washington
There has been an outpouring of support for Asian-Americans on social media in the wake of the Atlanta shootings, driven by senior politicians, celebrities and sports stars of all races.
But there has been a debate on how the message should be conveyed and if the hashtag “Asian Lives Matter” is appropriating the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
One tweet which gained thousands of likes and retweets said: “Hi everyone. Speaking on behalf of the asian community, please do not use the #AsianLivesMatter hashtag! it derives it’s (sic) name from the black lives matter movement, another separate movement.”
Instead, people have been encouraged to use #StopAsianHate and #StopAsianHateCrimes.
Barack Obama, Pharrell Williams and LeBron James are just some of the high profile figures to draw attention to the issue.
💔 #StopAsianHate pic.twitter.com/3jm1QAuKuz
— Pharrell Williams (@Pharrell) March 17, 2021
News of the shootings came just hours after the release of a report by the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate suggested a marked increase in hate crimes against Asia-Americans — with women disproportionately affected.
In a tally of incidents reported to the group between March 2020 and February this year, almost 70 percent of Asian-American survey respondents said they had faced verbal harassment and just over one in 10 said they had experienced physical assault.
A spotlight has also been shone on how Asian-Americans are portrayed in popular culture.
American comedian Amy Schumer has come under fire after a sketch from 2012 included her making derogatory comments about Asian women’s intellect, mannerisms and genitalia.
Alafair Burke, a novelist and law professor wrote in the Washington Post: “With every casual “me love you long time” or “happy ending” joke, our culture hypersexualizes and dehumanises Asian American women, portraying us as victims while treating us as targets.”
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