By Hank Beckman -
Steve Kerr, the socially-conscious coach of the Golden State Warriors, thinks that the way to stop hate crimes against Asian Americans is to engage the nation’s entire citizenry.
In the wake of the recent killings of six Asian women in Atlanta, Kerr tweeted that it “was on all of us” to combat the scourge of the recent rise of hate crimes committed against Asians.
What he means by this is anybody’s guess. The phrase really conveys a message no more detailed or informative than that the person making the statement is a decent, enlightened soul. That’s nice.
You hear the same call for the general population to employ some vague collective action or rhetoric to combat any number of societal problems; it’s on “all of us” Joe Biden once said to stop the “rape culture” crisis supposedly infecting our college campuses; the climate crisis can only be solved through collective action and sacrifice; discrimination against anyone is discrimination against everyone.
Of the making of these nebulous, virtue-signaling statements there is no end; the only purpose they serve is relieve those making them from anything resembling critical thought.
It’s often a dicey proposition to determine what motivates a person, but one suspects that Kerr’s intent is to promote the leftist talking point that there is a rising scourge of white supremacists responsible for increased attacks on Asians.
His other recent tweets included reminding everyone that Donald Trump recently referred to Covid-19 as a “China virus,” lecturing that it’s not acceptable to call the virus “the Asian flu,” and retweets of at least one other Twitter member blaming the shooting on white supremacy.
Kerr would do well to do some research on hate crimes before he starts blaming Donald Trump or gives comfort to those who automatically agree that the problem is predominantly the fault of white nationalists.
In New York, the police department’s statistics for 2020 hate crimes show a total of 20 committed against Asian Americans. Five of the offenders were listed as white Hispanics. Two were listed as black Hispanics. Only two known offenders were listed as white, while the remaining 11 offenders were black.
At least in 2020, the New York data seems to suggest a very different picture of anti-Asian hate crimes than suggested by Steve Kerr and most of the leftist media.
The Chicago Police Department provides an online “Hate Crime Dashboard” providing statistics on hate crimes from the years 2012-2021.
It shows no specific data concerning convictions from arrests, but does show that of all the hate crimes reported in that period, 61.1 percent were found to be legitimate complaints, 9.1 percent were unfounded, and 29.7 precent were undetermined; a small fraction pending investigation.
While it does show 18 hate crimes reported against Asians during that time period, doesn’t show who the offenders were.
But one key takeaway from the CPD’s stats is that during the time period studied, 47.2 percent of the known hate crime offenses were committed by blacks, as opposed to 34.9 percent by whites. That doesn’t show which group is more likely to target Asians, but it does show that the people most likely to commit a hate crime in Chicago are not of the caucasian persuasion.
Limited data from two cities isn’t definitive evidence about which group is responsible for committing hate crimes in the entire nation. And since there are many who insist that hate crimes, like sexual assaults, are underreported, we really don’t have rock-solid evidence as to the magnitude of the problem.
And the data cited reveals nothing about the seriousness of the offenses committed. All crimes of bias are despicable and should be categorically condemned by persons of good will. But there is a qualitative difference between yelling at a Chinese person that they were responsible for Covid-19 and physically assaulting or taking their life in a spasm of bigoted rage. So the data cited can only tell us so much, especially in the context of a short column.
But anyone who pays attention to local news reports or lives in an urban area populated by a variety of cultures will be skeptical of the notion being put forward that the recent surge of hate crimes against Asian Americans are being committed by an organized group of Nazis or white nationalists.
To be disabused of that notion, all that’s required is to take a look at the internet video circulating of a African American male of some significant size stomping on a 65-year-old Asian woman on her way to church in Manhattan. Almost as disheartening as the attach itself were the security guards who failed to help her.
Michelle Malkin provides further evidence casting doubt on the evil white racist meme with her recent column highlighting recent physical attacks on Asians—all committed by black males.
Her 10 March article in the Norfolk Daily News lists at least three brutal attacks against elderly Asian Americans in the last few weeks all committed, again, by black males.
Steve Kerr has a golden opportunity to demonstrate to the entire nation that he isn’t just some rich, guilty white liberal virtue signaling to a media culture eager to lap up the latest minority victimhood/white racism news cycle.
We know he’s capable of thoughtful reflection because he admitted he was wrong when he failed to stand up for Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey when the Chinese Basketball Association ceased cooperation with the Rockets and state-run Chinese TV suspended broadcast of NBA games when Morey criticized the CCP for its anti-democratic actions against the people of Hong Kong.
He could use his influence with the NBA Players Association, and NBA fans, to stress to the black community that when he says ridding the nation of ant-Asian bias “is on all of us,” he includes the black community as being responsible for part of the solution.
Kerr could reach out to LeBron James, who has recently assured us that he is well-educated on social issues, who in turn could reach out to his like-minded, socially-conscious African American friends at ESPN and the other networks who might speak out about some of the vicious attacks made by members of their community on Asians.
Who knows, maybe all these prominent social justice warriors could look a little deeper at the issue and begin to speak out against the anti-Asian bias openly practiced by admissions departments at colleges across the nation.
It would be nice, wouldn’t it? Don’t count on it.
