Trevor Noah issued a powerful condemnation of the white gunman who shot and killed eight people at three spas in Atlanta Tuesday evening. Six of the victims were Asian women, prompting an outcry declaring the shooting a racially motivated hate crime. The gunman has said that he went on his murderous rampage because of his sex addiction—a claim that Noah forcefully rejected.
“Fuck you, man,” Noah said. “You killed six Asian people…Your murders speak louder than your words.”
The mass shooting, which has not been labeled a hate crime, came after a disturbing rise in racist physical and verbal attacks on Asian Americans in the wake of COVID-19. The attacks were stoked by months and months of the Trump administration’s racist rhetoric about the pandemic, using terms like “kung flu” and the “Wuhan virus.”
Noah remarked on this, as well as on the culture at large that has contributed to the wave of attacks on the Asian community.
“What makes it even more painful is that we saw it coming,” Noah said. “We see these things happening. People have been warning, people in the Asian communities have been tweeting, they’ve been saying, ‘Please help us. We’re getting punched in the street. We’re getting slurs written on our doors.’ We’ve seen this happening.”
“We can all do something to try and fight against this,” he urged his viewers. “Reach out to people who need support. Donate your money, donate your time, whatever you can—but do something.”
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