The legacy media and NGOs are facing criticism for largely ignoring another mass shooting over the weekend at a church in Laguna Woods which was carried out by a Chinese-born gunman who targeted Taiwanese people.
68-year-old David Chou drove to Orange County to attend a a lunch held by Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church at the Geneva Presbyterian Church in the community of Laguna Woods.
After chaining shut the doors of the church and placing numerous firebombs, Chou opened fire on a gathering of mainly of elderly Taiwanese parishioners.
It was only due to the heroism of one man who tackled Chou, 52-year-old Dr. John Cheng, that more people weren’t killed. Only Cheng lost his life during the attack in the process of saving the lives of dozens of others.
It was later confirmed that the gunman had deliberately targeted Taiwanese people in a “politically motivated hate incident” because he was upset over Taiwan’s stance towards China.
You’d think the story would have garnered more media attention, but it has received barely a blip of coverage.
Don’t see major Asian NGOs commenting on this, even though the attacker was motivated by racialized hate. Any time there’s a hate crime that has a bit of moral complexity that falls outside of simplistic oppressor-oppressed narratives, they fall silent. https://t.co/mFpzGFsnp5
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) May 16, 2022
According to the Intercept’s Lee Fang, this is because the media can’t pigeon hole what happened into their feverish obsession with white supremacy.
