Former Knick Lin on anti-Asian violence: ‘we cannot lose hope’
Jeremy Lin isn’t going to let racism and hatred toward the Asian community silence him.
After a white man shot and killed eight people, including six Asian women, in a targeted attack at three different spas in northeast Georgia on Tuesday, the former Knicks star continued to spotlight and amplify why the country should not brush off the repeated and increasing acts of violence on people of Asian descent.
“This is sooo heartbreaking…praying for our world,” Lin wrote on Twitter after learning of the recent attack. “To my Asian American family, please take time to grieve but know youre loved, seen and IMPORTANT. We have to keep standing up, speaking out, rallying together and fighting for change. We cannot lose hope!! #StopAsianHate #NOW”
Last month, Lin revealed another NBA G League player called him “coronavirus” during a game in the G League bubble, but refused to name him. “What good does it do for someone in this situation to be torn down?,” Lin wrote on Twitter. The NBA has since identified the player and has been dealing with the problem internally with Lin’s help.
He’s since decided to use his platform to stand up for and call out Asian hate, according to the New York Times.
“With everything happening recently, I feel like I needed to say something,” Lin said in the interview, published on Tuesday. “The hate, the racism and the attacks on the
Asian-American community are obviously wrong, so that needs to be stated and that’s part of my role.”
The suspect in the Atlanta-area shooting, identified as Robert Aaron Long, 21, said he was motivated by his sex addiction and that the spa parlors were a “temptation he wanted to eliminate” and not a racially motivated attack, according to local law enforcement.
“It may be the targets of opportunity,” Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds said during a press conference Wednesday. “We believe he frequented these places in the past and may have been lashing out... During his interview, he gave no indicators that this was racially motivated,” Reynolds said during the press conference. “We asked him that specifically and the answer was no.”
Before being captured — with the help of Long’s family, who identified him to law enforcement — about 150 miles south of Atlanta and leading cops on a high-speed chase, Long was thought to be headed to Florida to carry out more shootings, according to Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Lin, who is Taiwanese American, is a nine-year NBA veteran. He was a sensation with the Knicks and fans dubbed him and his play, “Linsanity.” That was back during the 2012-13 season. He’s since bounced around the league and earned an NBA Championship with the Toronto Raptors in the 2018-19 season. Lin has been trying to resurrect his NBA career with the G League Warriors.