Commentary
It looked like red meat for liberal, “woke” media. On March 29, a 65-year-old woman of Filipino descent was punched and kicked in New York City in broad daylight by an attacker who allegedly made anti-Asian statements. The attack, two weeks after spa shootings in Atlanta that killed eight including six women of Asian descent, looked like it would add fuel to news coverage of an increase in anti-Asian violence.
But it wasn’t the perfect crime story. Unlike the white, presumed racist arrested in the spa shootings (though he and police denied a racial motive), the New York attack suspect wasn’t an alleged white supremacist methodically acting out hate crimes. Instead, police arrested Brandon Elliot, 38, a parolee of color convicted of previously killing his mother.
Certainly a suspect like Elliot—disturbed enough to commit matricide and not white—couldn’t be a poster child for anti-Asian hate. Alleged Asian hatred was clearly not his only issue, and highlighting criminal suspects of color could reinforce stereotypes. Moreover, his release on parole could raise disturbing questions about New York’s judicial system. The story was rapidly jettisoned from headlines, unlike the spa shootings, which are still getting play, especially because the suspect was found to be religious.
The Atlanta spa shootings on March 16 supported the dominant liberal media narrative that white supremacy threatens immigrants, people of color, women, and low-wage workers, and detailed profiles soon surfaced of the victims. But fewer profiles were written six days later when 10 died at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, even though their numbers were higher and included a police officer.
Why the downplay? The dead weren’t primarily ethnic minorities and the suspect was a 21-year-old Muslim American named Ahmad Al Aliwi Al-Issa, originally from Syria. Strong coverage could encourage Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, according to liberal media. Like the New York City attack, the King Soopers story quickly dissolved.
Two days later, another shameless attack occurred: an attempted carjacking in Washington, D.C. that took the life of a 66-year-old Pakistani immigrant who was an Uber Eats delivery driver. Mohammad Anwar, a father of three, was killed as the alleged carjackers drove his car away while he was hanging on the outside.
Few could imagine a more brutal and heartless crime against a powerless person, and the story could have remained a headline for weeks except for one fact: police arrested teenaged girls, aged 13 and 15, in the lethal carjacking, not a white male. Children allegedly killing immigrants isn’t a story liberal media want to report. The girls had allegedly premeditated their carjacking crime and came armed with a stun gun, authorities said. The story was dropped like a hot potato.
Liberal media’s infatuation with white male perpetrators and perfunctory treatment of other perpetrators is hardly new. Who remembers when college student Mollie Tibbetts disappeared while jogging in 2018 in Brooklyn, Iowa, and was later found dead in a cornfield? “Murdered co-ed” stories are notoriously clickbait for news outlets because of the sexual overtones and the audience of college and university readers and viewers whom the stories typically draw. But instead of a white male perpetrator, hopefully a frat boy, police arrested Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who had been in the United States illegally, in connection with Tibbetts’s death.
The story became radioactive. Media give wide berth to stories about illegal immigrants committing crimes in the United States (or joining gangs) because they lend credence to anti-open border arguments. Conservative columnist Ann Coulter’s 2016 book “Adios, America,” documented page after page of shocking crimes committed in the United States by illegal immigrants that were cavalierly ignored by mainstream media. Her book was ignored, too.
The trial of Rivera hasn’t occurred yet, but the story is safely out of national news and has become a local story.
As I write this, another crime story with the wrong suspect has surfaced. On April 2, a U.S. Capitol Police officer died and another was wounded when a vehicle rammed a police barricade outside the Capitol building. News media were likely expecting a redux of the Jan. 6 riot by conservative white people. But instead, police identified the suspect—who was shot and killed—as Noah Green, a 25-year-old African American.
While media probe the suspect’s motives and compare this U.S. Capitol violence with that on Jan. 6, one fact is already clear. The story will evaporate soon.
Martha Rosenberg is a former advertising copywriter who knows a lot about marketing. She began as an investigative journalist and since has been on TV and radio as a health expert. Martha has taught about drug marketing tactics at a Chicago medical school and is part of the FDA press corps. Her book “Born with a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks, and Hacks Pimp the Public Health,” exposes what goes on behind the scenes in the food and drug industries.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
