Inconvenient facts about a shooter can make it difficult for the media to tell the truth.
Recent gun violence incidents are troubling. The location was a place of business, and the victims were intentionally selected as targets based on race. People familiar with the shooter’s motivations can confirm that he may have used this hatred to commit a series of shootings.
The last sentence might have made you pause. The shooter at the Tops grocery in Buffalo is only known to have committed that one shooting, so how could he have committed multiple shootings? Well, what I described – though identical in nature – were not the particulars of Payton Gendron’s massacre. Instead, I gave you the details concerning a spate of shootings in the Dallas area targeting businesses operated by Asian-Americans.
Jeremy Smith was taken into custody by police after he opened fire at clients and employees of a beauty salon in Seoul’s Koreatown. Three injuries were inflicted by Smith’s actions, and his description and vehicle were also linked to two other cases that targeted Asian Americans. We did not see the press seeking the services of a chiropractor after their desire to twist and spin this story, as they have been in Buffalo.
The reason is that Jeremy Smith, an African American cannot be used to represent the preferred narratives of media. They can’t even point out that Smith was a victim of Republican indoctrination. Smith has been said to have a mental illness. This creates an interesting dynamic.
Gendron is motivated to act as though it was not due to mental illness. Experts say that racism is a choice, not something that is caused by mental impairment.
The Buffalo shooter wasn’t mentally ill—he apologized to the white shopper for pointing his gun at him.
The shooter possessed sympathy, but only for those with white skin.
White supremacy isn’t mental illness.
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) May 17, 2022
I’d kindly ask people not to refer to the Buffalo shooter as “psychotic.” Regular people suffer from psychosis who are generally more a harm to themselves than others. We have no reason (right now) to believe the shooter is mentally ill. White supremacy is not a mental illness
— Rebecca C. Lewis (@_rebeccaclewis) May 15, 2022
Experts must pretend to ignore that the shooter had been subject to mental health evaluations over the past year. His behavior was very unusual. He had been taken in for making threatening remarks about violence. This was not a stable individual by any measure, but Tucker Carlson, who is being blamed by the media for the shooting, dares to express his opinion.
⚡️Tucker Carlson blames Buffalo shooting on Biden and mental illness, ignores Great Replacement Theory spread on Fox
Carlson has repeatedly spread that minorities are trying to take over, a staple of the GRT
“What is hate speech? Speech our leaders hate”https://t.co/gDveGPVrmQ
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) May 17, 2022
Tucker Carlson’s message in the wake of the Buffalo attack: “So what is hate speech? Well, it’s speech that our leaders hate. So because a mentally ill teenager murdered strangers, you cannot be allowed to express your political views out loud. That’s what they’re telling you.” pic.twitter.com/DMSNa9YoEt
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 17, 2022
Both of these episodes must be clarified. With the sole exception of the race of the individual involved, we have practically mirror-image behavior patterns. Two disturbed individuals acted violently due to imbalanced views on race, after alerting a number of people of their tendencies. But for reasons that seem to be rooted in the desired storyline in the press, one case sees the press blithely alluding to there being a mental disorder, while in the other with a pre-written agenda script, any discussion of mental impairment is forbidden.
Although the media attempts to frame these issues in a serious discussion they are incapable of approaching them seriously on their facts. Instead, they behave like arbiters of truth and social decency.
