In NYC Stabbings, Only Some Victims and Narratives Matter

But how can only one of the two victims in the stabbing coverage matter? While it has been a few years, Asian communities in the city have protested against waves of anti-Asian crimes.

We don’t know what was going on this stabber’s head—New Yorkers are all too accustomed to the fact that he may very well likely be deranged with little discernible motive. But if such an attack can be used to beat up on Mamdani’s pro-Palestine positions, why is there no exploration into whether constant fearmongering about China from the White House is responsible for the stabbing of an Asian person? Why is there not as much attention to how Asian communities are feeling about this?

“Elected officials and Jewish leaders demanded Friday that politicians be more mindful about their rhetoric around Israel. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s name came up several times,” Politico reported. The same statement about right-wing politicians and their views on China doesn’t get the same kind of treatment.

And there’s another problem: All of this digression about how incendiary Mamdani’s comments about Netanyahu may have been helped bury the news Mamdani was trying to highlight: that the Israeli leader and his government have been accused of heinous crimes against humanity.