Strip racist demon of twin weapons

On Sunday, yet another gunman opened fire in the United States, this time at a church in California, killing one person and injuring five others. The police said the majority of those hit were Chinese.

The incident comes just a day after another mass shooting, in Buffalo, New York, in which 10 people were killed and three injured. The police confirmed that the shooting in Buffalo was a racist attack. US President Joe Biden said that "A racially motivated hate crime is abhorrent to the very fabric of this nation."

There is no evidence linking the two shootings, but the fact that the Buffalo shooting suspect Payton Gendron livestreamed his violent act on a game platform for at least two minutes has increased fears about hate crimes spreading through new channels. The risk of youngsters imitating his violent act remains high. Gendron himself is just 18.

Reports say, Gendron issued a statement saying he was inspired by Brenton Tarrant, who had killed 51 people in New Zealand in 2019; Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in the US in 2015; and Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.

Freedom of speech is definitely important, but a clear line needs to be drawn between hate speech and normal speech. The hateful statements or acts by these violent and racist men should not have been given undue publicity. But instead, the media quoted them at length, social media gave them the means to promote their hate, while game live-streaming platforms did nothing to stop the violent show right away.

In some sense, racism holds two weapons, a gun in one hand and a camera in the other and the two work together to spread hatred.

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of US National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People, has said in a statement that "White supremacy cannot coexist with democracy. We must deal with domestic terrorism". For that to happen, it is necessary to strip the demon of both these weapons.