TREVOR Noah has branded the suspected Atlanta shooter a “racist motherf****r” for allegedly killing six Asian women in an impassioned plea to viewers.
The late-night talk show host slammed 21-year-old suspect Robert Aaron Long’s claim that a sex addiction rather than racism was his motivation, stating the choice of victims “speak louder than your words.”
Noah’s comments come as Stop Asian Hate trends across the US and activists highlight the rapidly rising number of anti-Asian attacks in the past year.
“What’s been sad about the story is not just the loss of life but all the auxiliary things that have been happening around the story,” Noah said on Wednesday night as he addressed the shooting that left eight people dead the previous day
“Like, one of the first things that’s been the most frustrating for me is seeing the shooter say, ‘Oh, it wasn’t racism, it was sex addiction.’ First of all, f**k you, man. You killed six Asian people. Specifically. You went there.
“If there’s anyone who’s racist, it’s a motherf****r who kills six Asian women. Your murders speak louder than your words.”
Noah hit out again at Long’s claim of suffering a sex addiction as he alleged that the suspect appeared to blame “a specific race of people for his problems.”
“Even if the shooter says that—he thinks it has to do with his sex addiction—you can’t disconnect his violence from the racial stereotypes that people attach to Asian women,” The Daily Show host continued.
“If that’s not racism then the word has no meaning.”
Noah said the Asian community had warned of the increase in racist abuse targeting them but that America did “nothing to stop it.”
“This guy didn’t go and kill these women by mistake. He knew what he was doing,’ Noah claimed.
“And it’s so frustrating to see this keep happening in America over and over again. America sees things coming, it knows something is gonna happen.
“But then it’s all-in on saying, ‘Oh, it’s so tragic, who could have predicted this tragedy?’ Anyone who was looking at it could.”
The South African host noted that the increase in attacks on Asians has come amid the coronavirus pandemic which originated in Wuhan, China.
It also comes after leading conservative figures such as former President Donald Trump have repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as “Kung-Flu” and “China Virus.”
Stop AAPI Hate on Tuesday revealed that there were 3,795 hate crime incidents against Asian Americans from March 2020 until March 2021.
Women were targeted in 68 percent of these attacks.
Law enforcement has not ruled out that Long was at least partly motivated by an anti-immigrant or anti-Asian sentiment.
Yet they have identified his primary motive as a sex addiction.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that Long had reportedly spent months in a halfway house for sex addiction relapses and often visited massage parlors “for explicitly sexual activity.”
Yet his former roommate Tyler Bayless, 35, claimed that Long is also “deeply religious” and would become “very emotionally distraught that he frequented these places.”
He allegedly launched an attack at three separate massage parlors at around 5pm Tuesday.
There were eight victims, seven of whom were women and six who were Asian.
Long was arrested after a lengthy police pursuit that saw his black 2007 Hyundai Tuscon rammed off the road.
The Atlanta Police Department confirmed that Long “did take responsibility for the shootings.”
Cops added that Long was on his way to Florida, where they believe he was going to “do similar acts in the state” targeting “some type of porn industry.”
Long was charged Wednesday with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault.
