Texas salon owner who gave Ted Cruz horrible haircut targets Chinese students in racist tweets

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The Texas hair salon owner who made national headlines in May 2020 for refusing to close her business amid COVID-19 lockdowns has made the spotlight again. This time it’s not for the awful haircut she gave Ted Cruz, but for her racist commentary.

“Chinese students should be BANNED from attending all Texas universities,” Shelley Luther said on Twitter last week, NBC News reported. “No more Communists!” While her tweets have since then been deleted, of course, social media users screenshot them prior. But that’s not all: After deleting the comments, Luther chose a different approach, again targeting Asians. This time, she said state taxpayers “should not be subsidizing the next generation of CCP leaders.” She added that it’s “common sense” that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members “should not have access to our schools.”

Luther, who gained popularity as an anti-lockdown advocate, is currently running for a House seat against Rep. Reggie Smith. She previously ran for Texas Senate and lost.

While she has received almost no backlash from Republican leaders for her comment, at least one member of the GOP who identifies as Asian American, alongside Democrats across the country, has condemned her comments.

Rep. Jacey Jetton tweeted Sunday that the GOP “should stand against canceling Chinese Students on college campuses.” Despite this request coming from a Republican, no one from the GOP acted upon it or seemed to comment on the issue.

Jetton also called Luther’s comments an “attempt to score cheap political points,” noting that she doesn’t “speak for Republicans or Texans like me.”

To make matters worse, when State Rep. Gene Wu, a Chinese American Democrat from Houston, condemned Luther’s comments and requested she publicly apologize, Luther refused.

Wu said in a statement released Friday:

“My parents came here as Chinese students. My wife’s parents came here as Chinese students. Thousands upon thousands of proud Texans originally came here as Chinese students. Like my family, these Texans also chose to use their talents and acquired knowledge here instead of returning to their home countries. In my family alone, these former Chinese students have become nurses, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and physicists. Unquestionably, ‘Chinese students’ have made Texas and this nation a better place through their hard work and perseverance.”

“To casually conflate all Chinese students in America with actual registered members of the ruling party in the People’s Republic of China is not only ignorance of an extreme nature, it is also the type of rhetoric that drives anti-Asian hate crimes. Luther’s racist statement not only paints a target on the backs of Chinese nationals studying in America, but it labels and targets anyone who looks or sounds vaguely Asian as a potential enemy.”

In response to calls for her to apologize, Luther defended her comments. Unlike other Republicans, she didn’t even bother issuing a nonapology.

“It doesn’t surprise me that a socialist Democrat who doesn’t even know how to show up to work thinks the position that communist Chinese citizens should not access taxpayer-funded state institutions is racist,” Luther said in a statement to The Texas Tribune.

She did later try to backtrack though, a typical move made by racists, in which she claimed she had not seen Wu’s statement. Obviously, that doesn’t make sense since she first directly replied to it.

Luther also attempted to explain that her comment was not referring to Asians living in the U.S. but instead “people that live outside the United States”—like that clarification makes things any better.

“I’m saying people from China right now, communist China, should not be getting free scholarships and money to attend Texas schools. Absolutely,” she said, according to the Star Telegram. “But it’s obviously not Chinese-Americans and not people that were born here.”

Referring to comments that she is a racist, Luther said:

“As far as anyone thinking that I’m racist, I’m a Spanish teacher of 13 years and in my salon when I opened it, I was the sole white person that worked in there out of 19. So, me being called a racist is ridiculous … I do not agree with communist thinking, and I do not want our state to be run, or I do not want our state to be influenced by any communism.”

Luther’s comments come as Asian Americans across the country battle another pandemic, racism. Crimes against the AAPI community continue to rise nationwide with data indicating the highest rise in crimes against the community in decades.

According to Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition of organizations dedicated to addressing anti-Asian discrimination, at least 10,370 incidents of anti-Asian bias were reported from Mar. 19, 2020, to Sep. 30, 2021. This data confirms a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans. Last month, data by the FBI found that hate crime reports rose by 76% in 2020, Daily Kos reported.

Wu not only issued a statement condemning Luther’s comments, but also created a thread Monday featuring the achievements of Chinese Americans. “America is a better place because young people can come here and study,” he said. “The entire world is better when America educates their young.” In the thread, he included renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Olympian Michelle Kwan, and others. 

In the comments, shout out an Asian American community member who has made a difference to you!