When your country has a white supremacy problem, it's not bad enough when another young, sick, white, racist guy with a fetish commits mass murder at three Atlanta-area massage parlors, killing six Asian women and two other people; you also get another old, sick, white, racist cop benevolently explaining the kid was having "a really bad day" - the white-male-rage alternative to bingeing on ice cream - and man they sure know what it's like to have a bad day and kill eight people, though they feel compelled by their white-guy-ness to insist this white kid's bloody crimes against non-white women had nothing whatsoever to do with racism or misogyny, as God is our (white male) witness. Robert Aaron Long, 21, who has been charged with eight counts of murder, was taken into custody "without incident," which is to say with nary a knee on his neck or a gun wildly drawn on him, though many wondered if police got him a shake and fries with his burger en route to the station, where they likely rolled out the white guy carpet for him. Long reportedly came from "a good Christian family" yada yada yada and described his life as "Pizza, guns, drums, music, family, and God" - to which we can now add white rage, untreated mental health issues, sex addiction or at least poor impulse control, the racist fetishization of Asian women, too-easy access to guns and maybe too much time listening to former bigots in power sneer about the "Chinese Virus," including just last night, which has helped spark this year's almost 3,800 acts of hate against Asian-Americans, a spike of nearly 150%. But no cause and effect here.
At a news conference, Sheriff's Office spokesman Capt. Jay Baker, who we hope has submitted his resignation, said Long was "fed up" and "kind of at the end of his rope." "Yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did," he said. One Twitter sage: "What (and I can't stress this enough) the fuck?!" This, many retorted, is why we need police reform, and why we can't have change or other nice things until white supremacists are "removed from the uniform." #TheresYourProblemRIGHTThere: "Why does this keep happening? cries the country that continually makes excuses for white mass murderers and believes access to military-grade firearms is a God-given right but health care, a living wage and racial justice are a plot to destroy the U.S." Others: "You know who it was a really, really bad day for? The eight people he killed and their families." Many noted cranky black people don't get to have "bad days," or they're killed by police and then exposed as "no angel" on national media "for smoking a joint once in middle school." And when white people who aren't misogynistic sociopaths have a bad day, they nap, cry, watch old movies, bake bread, get high, play speed chess online "but I always try to stay polite," binge on ice cream or tacos or "two bowls of Goldfish crackers for dinner like a regular person," and "all the people they come into contact with are still alive at the end of the day." Others got real: They suggested support for massage parlor workers; sought to know the names of the victims, "who and what they loved...the fabric of their days"; and furiously confronted those to whom Asian women, sex workers, Kung flu "are your punchlines - you fucking did this." "SAY WHAT IT IS," wrote Jenny Yang. "Asian Women Slain In Mass Shooting Hate Crime By A White Terrorist."
Update: As first reported by CNN, the victims have been identified as:
Delaina Yaun, 33
Paul Andre Michels, 54
Xiaojie Tan, 49
Daoyou Feng, 44
Soon C. Park, 74
Hyun J. Grant, 51
Suncha Kim, 69
Yong A. Yue, 63
One man, Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz, was shot and survived.
Say their names.
Praying at one of the shooting sites. Getty Image
