Stop Referring To Atlanta Shooter Robert Aaron Long As A “Kid” With An “Unknown Motive”

A series of shootings that left eight dead in the Atlanta area has stoked concerns over the uptick in violence against Asian Americans in the United States in the past year.

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The first shooting took place at Young’s Asian Massage on Tuesday evening, leaving two Asian people and two white people dead. Not long after, four Asian women were killed at Gold Spa and Aroma Therapy Spa, on the same street.

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Details are still emerging, and authorities will not say with absolute certainty that these were hate crimes or even committed by the same shooter, but 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long was arrested as the primary suspect after footage showed his car at each location.

All that’s known about Long so far is that he’s from Woodstock, Georgia, and that he’s very religious. 

According to The Daily Beast, all a former classmate of the suspect really remembered about him was that “his father was a youth minister or pastor” and “he was big into religion,” and his church’s Facebook page featured a video of him giving his testimony back in 2018 that was deleted after his arrest.

The names of the victims have not yet been released.

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The shooting has prompted outrage and fear for the safety of Asian communities across the country, with many drawing the dots to connect this — and the other alarming hate crimes against Asian people that have been happening over the past year — to the blame placed on China for the coronavirus.

Now do you understand why calling it the “China Virus” can fuel real life and death consequences for Asians and Asian-Americans?

— Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) March 17, 2021

This is why saying things like “Kung Flu” and “China Virus” matter. People insisted it was just words, but hate starts with words. It builds and builds, until this happens.

I am so especially angry tonight.https://t.co/UPUMGZGKBV

— Liz Hsiao Lan Alper (@LizAlps) March 17, 2021

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This is deeply, deeply sad.

Trump on Fox *tonight* referred to COVID using the racist slur “China virus.”

He previously called it the “Kung Flu.”

While he continues to spread hatred against Asian Americans, people like this shooter are listening.https://t.co/bBAkzQl3R1

— Padma Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) March 17, 2021

Anti-Asian hate crimes have increased by 1900% since the beginning of COVID. There have been over 3,000 reports. 7.3% of crimes were specifically directed at the elderly.

If you didn’t understand why the President calling it the “China Virus” was a problem, I hope you do now.

— Alanah Pearce (@Charalanahzard) March 17, 2021

People are also bracing for the inevitable attempts to humanize the white male suspect and dismiss the larger issues of racism and misogyny, rather than focusing on the lives that he took and the insidious reasons that likely played a hand in choosing his targets.

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honestly i’m just so fucking done and tired with it all. i’m angry that i know the white supremacist shooter’s name before the names of the asian women. i’m angry that it’s working class asians that are targeted and people wanna erase us all as wealthy. i’m just fucking angry

— monica 예주⁷ (@monicayk97) March 17, 2021

Stop calling the Atlanta shooter a “kid.” He’s a 21-year-old man.

— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) March 17, 2021

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Prepare for long think pieces about how the motive is unclear and a huge mental gymnastic for the benefit of the doubt.

— Brandon Music (@BrandonMusicKy) March 17, 2021

We’re going to hear a lot about how six Asian women being murdered was an isolated incident by a lone shooter – anything to detach this from the superstructure of misogynistic violence and anti-Asian racism.

Hound anyone who does this like they’re accomplices.

— David Lo Pun-ch Nazis (@helpmeskeletor) March 17, 2021

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Correction: six Asian women, one white woman, one white man.

— feminist next door (@emrazz) March 17, 2021

Right now I don’t care about the shooter’s name, his past, his views, his motives. Fuck that guy, and fuck everyone active and complicit in dehumanizing Asians right now. And when I say right now, I mean since the moment we arrived in this country.

— Angry Asian Man (@angryasianman) March 17, 2021

As pointed out repeatedly on Twitter, hate crimes against Asian Americans have been on the rise right alongside high profile figures insisting on referring to COVID-19 as the “China Virus.” People have been harassed, attacked, and even murdered in these incidents over the past year, and some feel it was always leading to a mass incident like the Atlanta shooting.

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Even if alternate motives are determined to have played a role in this shooting, it won’t change the fact that it took place after a year where anti-Asian rhetoric was repeatedly broadcast to the entire country — a country that’s already wrestling with deeply rooted racism and misogyny. Nor does it change that the conversations surrounding these events need to change.

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*First Published: March 17, 2021, 7:43 am