The FBI has opened a hate crime investigation into a man who was arrested by Dallas police on Mon. in connection with a shooting at a Korean-owned hair salon last week.
Jeremy Smith reportedly entered the Hair World Salon and fired more than a dozen shots with a .22 caliber rifle, injuring three Korean women. He has been charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Unfortunately, anti-Asian sentiment has always been part of American society, and it will continue to be unless people speak up. Attacks against Asians are all too frequent, but non-Asians are quick to ignorantly disregard the role of race. America's white supremacist structure has historically fueled tensions in Asian communities, and it's time this changes.
The driving force behind urban crime is not racism, but rather the malevolence of thugs like Jeremy Smith. The Asian community faces violence from an ethnically diverse group of criminals - most of them non-whites - who need to be held accountable. The state must be tough on crime to solve this problem.