When white supremacy knocks on our temple doors, rising hate targets South Asians

IMAGE BY GEMINI

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi decries rising hate and violence against South Asians.

Asian Americans are all too used to feeling like we’re on the fringe, treated as invisible until a crisis forces us into the spotlight. But sometimes, the reality crashing down from the margins is far more terrifying than invisibility.

Look no further than Aurora, Illinois.

Authorities recently thwarted what could have been a horrific mass shooting targeting a Hindu place of worship — the largest in the area — where our community gathers, and where Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) Member Rep.  Raja Krishnamoorthi and his family worship.

The suspect, identified by police as Alexandros Paporakis, who described himself as a Nazi, allegedly drafted a manifesto titled "Why I Fought: A.K.A.: (Aurora Shooter's Manifesto)." Filled with the predictable, rotting bile of white supremacist and extremist ideologies, the document singled out people of South Asian heritage — particularly those of Indian descent —while labeling Indian, Jewish, and African American people as "subhumans."  

Let that sink in.

Thanks to vigilant coworkers who tipped off Palatine and Mount Prospect police, law enforcement stepped in before the manifesto turned into a massacre. Paporakis now faces serious charges, including making a terrorist threat (a class X felony) and unlawful possession of a short-barreled rifle. A Cook County judge ordered him held at a recent detention hearing.

While we breathe a sigh of relief that lives were saved, we cannot and should not view this plot in isolation.

The escalation of mainstream hate

Let’s be honest about the environment we are living in. Hatred doesn't just materialize out of thin air; it is cultivated, amplified, and normalized.

Anti-South Asian hate speech has surged by a staggering 240% on X (formerly Twitter) over the past two years alone, according to a new report from the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, The Rising Tide of Anti-South Asian Hate in the United States. 

CAPAC leadership rightly pointed out the systemic rot driving these numbers: influential figures pumping out racist rhetoric, scapegoating immigrant communities, and shoving bigotry straight into the mainstream.

“The 240% surge in monthly anti-South Asian hate on X did not come out of nowhere," stated Krishnamoorthi.

"We have watched politicians demonize South Asians over something as ordinary as attending a college football game and the Trump Administration traffic in racist stereotypes targeting people named Singh. Americans of every background, and leaders of both parties, need to speak out against racism and xenophobia wherever they appear." 

Krishnamoorthi and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries also condemned the brutal 17-times stabbing of a Sikh truck driver in Wyoming, last month, linking the rising violence to hostile rhetoric and a controversial social media post by the Department of Homeland Security

We cannot talk about this surge without looking squarely at the political establishment. The rhetoric trickling down from high places—including appointments of individuals with a history of derogatory remarks about Asians, official government accounts parroting white supremacist messaging, and the embrace of the dangerous "Great Replacement Theory"—has real-world consequences. When far-right ideologies are legitimized, extremists feel emboldened to load their weapons and target our houses of worship.

Compounding the danger, we’ve watched federal efforts to combat domestic terrorism get hollowed out, including staffing cuts at the FBI tasked with monitoring white supremacist and militia threats.

View from the Edge

No one should have to look over their shoulder or fear for their safety simply because of who they are or where they worship.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the suspect’s coworkers who spoke up and the law enforcement officers who averted a bloodbath. But a police intervention isn't a cure for a cultural cancer. It is incumbent upon all of us — regardless of our racial or religious background —to call out the white supremacy, religious bigotry, and anti-South Asian hate poisoning our communities before another tragedy strikes.

We deserve to be seen not as targets, but as Americans, safe in our homes, our streets, and our places of worship.

Krishnamoorthi reminds us: "South Asian Americans are as much a part of the fabric of America as anyone else, and no amount of hate can erase the contributions we have made to this country.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, feel free to repost.

Scripting the Deception: How billionaires are playing California voters

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UPDATED: Oct. 18 to include sidebar.

If you’ve turned on the TV or scrolled through a streaming app in California lately, you’ve seen them: slick, big-budget commercials paid for by a handful of the state’s richest people running under the misleading name, Building a Better California.

Their goal is simple: confuse the voters. They are spending a fortune to panic working-class families — especially Asian American, Latino, Black and immigrant  communities — into voting against their own interests.

In personal and simple terms: It comes down to a question of fairness. I recently received my Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from my modest IRA investments. It is a case of use or lose it. As usual, before I even saw a cent, right off the top, I took out 10% for federal income tax and 5% for state income tax. My RMD amount is not enough to live on, but it helps.

The so-called Billionaires' tax is asking California's 250 billionaire households to pay a one-time 5% tax, just like I'm required to do. While my RMD is not enough to live on, billionaires will still have billions to pay for their yachts and multiple mansions in whatever state or country they want to live in.

Here is a breakdown of some of the misleading language the billionaires are using:

The "Retirement Shield" Scare:Their flagship ad warns: "Proposition 42 is the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act. We must protect the hard-earned nest eggs of our nurses, teachers, and firefighters from Sacramento's tax grabs." 

• The Truth: Total nonsense. Prop 40 doesn't touch standard retirement accounts or pensions. It only hits people with a net worth over $1 billion. The PAC is hiding behind nurses and teachers to protect a permanent tax loophole for billionaires.

 The "We're All in This Together" Myth: Another ad flashes corporate-friendly politicians alongside the claim: "Joined by teachers, doctors, and firefighters, a broad bipartisan coalition is saying No on Proposition 40."

• The Truth:It’s not a grassroots movement. Over 90% of the money funding this opposition comes straight from a tiny group of tech executives and venture capitalists who refuse to pay a one-time 5% tax on their massive fortunes.

Ultimate Cash Grab: Follow the money

When I was working in preint newspapers (remember those?), one of the mantras we repeated when covering complicated or confusing issues, was "follow the money." So, just who are the billionaires contributing to Building a Better California?

The primary billionaires funding the anti-tax PAC Building a Better California are prominent Silicon Valley tech executives, founders, and venture capitalists. The PAC has raised $229M ($248M across all related committees) to defeat Proposition 40 (a proposed one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires) and to support countering ballot measures, Propositions 41 and 42. 

The largest individual billionaire contributors to the PAC, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, include:

• Sergey Brin: The Google co-founder is the group's dominant financial backer, contributing $102 million to the campaign.
• John Doerr: The venture capitalist (chairman of Kleiner Perkins) has contributed $20 million.
• Vinod Khosla: The venture capitalist and founder of Khosla Ventures has contributed $13 million.
• Eric Schmidt, Patrick Collison, and Chris Larsen: These executives are also listed as contributors; consult official California campaign finance disclosures to verify their specific donation amounts.

When Google co-founder Sergey Brin can casually drop $102 million of his own money into a single election just to dodge a tax bill, it’s no longer a political campaign. It’s a corporate buyout of our democracy.

The super-rich are betting that $255 million in prime-time TV ads can trick everyday Californians into defunding their own local healthcare systems and schools.

Below, see the billionaires' preferences and the enormous amounts of money they are contributing to the anti-tax measures that they oppose and support:

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Consider this contrast:

In California, the bottom 10% of earners make $16,000 or less a year, yet they pay over 11% of their income in state and local taxes.

Meanwhile, California billionaires saw their wealth grow by 1.5 times between 2023 and 2025, while paying a mere 0.2% of that wealth in state income taxes.

Yet, these same ultra-wealthy individuals fight tooth and nail to keep every penny, while throwing pocket change — (for them) hundreds of millions of dollars — at campaigns to manipulate elections.

SIDEBAR: If Proposition 40 passes, multi-billionaire Brin would potentially pay $13 billion to California. But, don't feel sorry for him, that would leave him about $247 billion of his non-real estate fortune. He is hedging his bets by moving his official address to a $42 million mansion on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, which might make him exempt from the California tax which only applies to those billionaires who lived in Califorrnia as of Jan. 1, 2026.

What $255 million could actually do

To put that $255 million war chest into perspective, think about what it could actually build for communities in desperate need across California:

• Community Health Clinics: Fully fund operations and equipment upgrades for dozens of clinics in underserved areas, providing free or low-cost dental and pediatric care.

• Mental Health Services: Finance mobile crisis teams and substance-use treatment facilities across multiple counties.

• Classroom Support: Give thousands of classrooms technology grants, books, and science supplies, or help fund real teacher retention pay in high-need districts.

Instead, that cash is going into slick ads designed to pit immigrant communities against public services, weaponizing front groups like the California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce to do their dirty work, much in the same way conservatives used Asian American students to undo affirmative action policies.

View from the edge

As Rep. Roh Khanna has pointed out, California’s roughly 250 billionaires sit on a combined mountain of $2.2 trillion—a fortune that exploded by 144% in just three years.

When a tiny elite spends a quarter-of-a-billion dollars to dodge a modest tax that would help save 150,000 healthcare jobs, it isn't "protecting the economy." It’s an assault on everyday people.

At this point, we also need to remind ourselves that all of this headache-inducing election rhetoric is spurrd by the federal funding cuts to safety net programs, courtesy of Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, which also benefits the top 1%. Under that GOP-sponsored bill, households in the richest 0.1% are projected to receive a combined $60.3 billion in tax breaks in 2027 alone, averaging permanent annual cuts of roughly $309,000 per household by 2029. That $309,000 is no small change for retirees living on fixed incomes.

As the ultra-rich's pockets get filled, Trump's bill also cut funding for the safety-net programs designed to assist those in the lower-income brackets. 

The Olicharchs' propaganda machine wants you to believe the billionaire class speaks for all of us. But ordinary voters are waking up. Until the rules of the game change, we’ll keep getting outspent — and left holding the tab for a rigged system.

As the Indian American lawmaker Khanna asks, the choice comes down to: “Will the Democratic Party stand with the donor class, or with the working class? Are we going to stand with 250 billionaires in California, or with poor kids who need healthcare?”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, feel free to repost.