Criticizing anti Asian hate rallies over “wrong” trigger

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Following the mass murder incident that targeted “Asian” message parlors nationwide protests against anti asian hate occurred over the weekend. In some conservative circles the rallies were criticized because they believe the motivation for the attack was not race.

There is still no hard indication this was a racially motivated attack. I don’t think there will be, I think the insistence that it is, is fitting events to fit a narrative. Ultimately I may be proven wrong, the investigation is still open but for the rest of this post lets assume I am right.

It is wrong to criticize the protests against anti asian hate over this. The rise in anti asian attacks and rhetoric is a fact and a legitimate reason to protest even if the trigger for the protests was not. Conservatives that criticize the protests because the trigger was a misogynistic one instead of a racist one are aping the woke perfectionism they claim to despise. They are also criticizing totally peaceful protests they claim to favor. They give further legitimacy to the idea that ALL criticism of the woke revolution is an attempt to deflect from the critics racism and that ALL anti woke pushback is born out a wish to cancel ALL protests they disagree with.

You're right that whether or not racism was the primary motive behind the massage parlour attack that the protests that occurred since are fueled by the increasing trend in racially motivated attacks on Asian people.

The observation that you're making now doesn't just apply to this specific incident though. Historically this has also been in play when BIPOC are killed in interactions with the police. Some portion of those incidents may have been justified but they're all treated with deep skepticism and distrust because so many are not justified that it's always an open wound. Since the ones that aren't justified are declared justified without transparency that makes all of them suspect.

When people immediately join the chorus of insisting that they're justified they might be correct about that specific incident and it's details but they're still dismissing and invalidating reasonable concerns that exist due to a widely observed problem.

The overall problem exists and whether or not a specific incident exactly fits into that bigger problem is secondary to people's concerns about that bigger problem. Since some of the people insisting no problem exists most certainly are racists decent people don't wish to be confused with joining that chorus risks making oneself indistinguishable from those racists and either granting them cover (if ones identification as not one of them works) or being called out for being no different from them (if that identification doesn't work).

Basically trends show the community isn't wrong to feel targeted over all even if any given incident is more complicated or only coincidental. Arguing that their concerns are inadequately proven and that their emotions aren't warranted will always come off poorly.

As for your views that race isn't relevant, racial ideas might factor into why he preferred that establishment or why he felt that one was more suitable to conduct violence in, even if he was also motivated by misogynistic ideas and self-loathing over sex addiction. This is why you've been criticized for dismissing that angle, because the dismissal is only based on a very literal understanding of what motives played a role.

Overall I agree with what you're saying in your post, so a lot of mine is just paraphrasing and supporting what you said.