Conservative media’s refusal to address white supremacy in Atlanta only strengthens racism
In response to the sharp rise in anti-Asian violence, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has suggested black Americans are primarily responsible. “According to federal statistics, African-American perpetrators are more likely than any other group to attack Asian-Americans,” Carlson said in a broadcast shortly following the murder of eight people, six of them Asian women, by a white man. “It happens quite a bit.”
Carlson’s displacement of blame in the Atlanta spa shootings and the rise in anti-Asian violence exemplifies a common theme in conservative discourse: a refusal to critically examine how racist perspectives disseminated by white culture are inextricably linked to racial violence perpetrated by white men. Instead, conservative media tends to spotlight a number of other issues — some relevant, others not at all — when examining instances of racially-motivated violence.
“Why is there so much prostitution in Atlanta?” Carlson asked during his discussion of the Atlanta spa shootings. “Google business listings show more massage parlors in the city than Starbucks outlets.” Shortly after, Carlson claimed that Harvard was exploiting the tragedy to downplay their alleged discrimination against Asian Americans in Harvard’s undergraduate admissions process. “Harvard doesn’t want to talk about it,” Carlson said. “And a mass murder in Atlanta was the perfect way to change the subject.”
Each of these points made by Carlson fails to directly address the issue which he claims to be discussing: the murder of six Asian women and two others by a white man. Carlson’s assertion that prostitution in Atlanta is connected to Atlanta’s massage parlors is also unfounded and highly misleading. Carlson offers no evidence that the number of massage parlors in Atlanta is causally linked to prostitution in Atlanta. Instead, he asserts that the larger issue of human trafficking in Georgia manifests in the form of prostitution offered through massage parlors. His support for this? “Wikipedia…[having] an entire entry on human trafficking in the state of Georgia.”
Perhaps the only section in Carlson’s analysis which unambiguously focuses on the shooter’s motives is his discussion of the shooter’s mental health, a discussion which has become a regular fixture in conservative dialogue during the aftermath of mass shootings, such as the racially-motivated massacres in Charleston and El Paso. “Robert Long seems deranged, but his obsessive and violent behavior seems sadly familiar,” Carlson said, because it reflects “an increasing number of Americans [who] struggle with mental illness.” There does appear to be evidence that Robert Long struggled with a sex addiction and mental health issues. Yet by reducing Long’s motives to solely a mental health issue, Carlson and other conservative media fail to confront how Long’s “sexual temptation” became embodied specifically in the form of Asian women, ultimately turning Asian women into the target for his sexual rage.
This ignorance, or perhaps even ignoring, of such an inevitable racial motive in the Georgia spa shootings is not at all harmless. By attributing the Atlanta spa shootings to alternative explanations, such as the “high level” of prostitution in Atlanta, and by casting the spotlight on controversial yet unrelated issues in racial politics, such as the alleged discrimination against Asian Americans in Harvard’s undergraduate admissions, Carlson not only disrupts from an accurate investigation of the Atlanta spa shooting, but actively perpetuates the veil of silence which is white supremacy. Silence from those in positions of power permits the abuse of that power to perpetuate; in the aftermath of Atlanta, Carlson’s and other conservative media’s steadfast silence on racism permits white supremacy to fester in the space provided by that silence.
Even more disturbingly, in discussing the Atlanta shooting Carlson goes as far as to implicitly encourage racism against black Americans. By minimizing any potential role of racism in the Atlanta shooting and instead highlighting violence against Asian Americans by black Americans, Carlson effectively redirects outrage over Atlanta and anti-Asian violence onto black Americans whilst ignoring the racist rhetoric spread by the former President and even an officer investigating the Atlanta shooting.
Unfortunately, Carlson’s and conservative media’s refusal to engage with racism extends far beyond Atlanta. “[Liberal media said] George Floyd was executed by racist cops on the street,” Carlson said when reporting on the murder of George Floyd. “Yet, when the autopsy became public, it showed that George Floyd had lethal levels of fentanyl in his system among other drugs.” In another broadcast on the murder of Breonna Taylor, Carlson alleged that “Taylor was warehousing…[her ex-boyfriend’s] drug money.”
Both of these assertions are patently false. George Floyd died from a lack of oxygen, not a fentanyl overdose, and there is no evidence Breonna Taylor was holding money for her ex-boyfriend. Yet even independent of their veracity, their use by conservative media to silence any meaningful discussion on or any consideration of racial injustice is deeply problematic.
This pattern of racial ignorance in conservative media not only diverts from valid interpretation of hate crimes, but also actively enables their continuity. This is not to say that the issues Carlson brings up don’t merit critical discussion. The disproportionate violence against Asian Americans by black Americans must be addressed by both communities, and the role of race in college admissions must be closely scrutinized. But the exclusion of racism by conservative media in discussions about racially-motivated violence perpetrated by white men creates a space in which white supremacy grows and thrives. To truly begin rooting out racism in America, Carlson and other conservative voices must extend their analysis of racially-motivated violence beyond the individual perpetrator and to the racist perspectives which drive their actions.
