A shooting at three Atlanta-area spas Tuesday by the same gunman that left eight people dead, six of whom were Asian, has to bee seen in the broader context of a dramatic rise in hate crimes against the Asian American community in the past year, accordting to national security expert Juliette Kayyem.
"Six Asian women dead, out of eight, suggest a racially motivated crime," Kayyem told Boston Public Radio on Wednesday. "But [the gunman] was also known to have frequented these facilities, so we just don't know the motive yet."
The theory that these shootings were racially motivated should certainly be investigated, Kayyem said, specifically due to the rise in anti-Asian sentiment this past year.
"The reason why anti-Asian crime and a hate crime should be on the table are of course because of the rise of hate crimes, violent crimes and property crimes against the Asian American community since COVID started," she said. "The idea of a 'China virus' and all of these terminologies being used by the previous [Trump] administration are directly linked in terms of timing with this huge increase in anti-Asian hate crimes."
Anti-Asian racism is a part of America's history that is not often discussed, Kayyem said.
"From immigration laws in the 20th century to, of course, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II to attacks against South East Asian Americans after 9/11 — it is a throughline in American history that we don't talk about as much," she said.
Juliette Kayyem is an analyst for CNN, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and the faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
