Dismissing Racism

Whenever white people kill people of colour, as in 2021's anti-Asian shootings in Atlanta Georgia, this sort of counter-commentary appears:

"Since the killing of six Asian women who worked in massage parlors in Atlanta, the media has amplified the false narrative that “white supremacy” is to blame. 

... official crime stats show that white people are significantly underrepresented in terms of the violent crime threat they pose to Asians." 

... citing FBI statistics, whereas whites comprise 62% of the population, they committed 24% of crimes against Asians in 2018. 

In comparison, blacks, who comprise 13% of the population, committed 27.5% of all violent crimes against Asian Americans in 2018. 

So clearly, white people do not represent the biggest crime threat to Asian Americans."

Not only is this an attack on the media and its imagined agenda, it also implies that Asians can't tell who's assaulting them.

It's an attention-seeking diversion couched as fact-check, and I'm sick of it and its like.

White incel shoots Asian women. "What about black-on-Asian crime?"

White cop suffocates black man. "What about black-on-white crime?"

It also lazily ignores local demographics.

In metro Atlanta, blacks outnumber whites 52.4% to 37.2%. IF Atlanta's interracial crime profile mirrors the national FBI statistics*, then clearly white people are a likelier threat to Asian Americans.

In Minneapolis MN, the ratio of whites to blacks is 3.21. If Minneapolis' crime profile likewise mirrored the nation's and the ratio of white to black offenders in cases of white victims was 4.05, then local whites would indeed have more to fear from their own.

The truth is that ethnic diversity in the United States is concentrated. There are huge homogenous swaths in the midwest and northeast where white offenders would be unable to find people of colour to victimise.

However, to acknowledge this would not further the goal of dismissing racism by justifying racist outcomes. Once weakened as an explanation, all sorts of half-baked alternatives to racism can be thrown in. 

"It's not racism, it's the community environment."

"It's not racism, it's a well-meaning, understandable, if erroneous belief."

"It's not racism, it's homicidal misogyny. (So there!)"

More insidious is the accompanying attempt - perhaps the actual end-game - to elevate the dismissive white layman voice above those of established media and proximate victims of colour.

Literally white supremacy.

*I admit that this is a big assumption but county level violent crime stats weren't readily available.