Asian Americans face a wave of intense racism during the past months of coronavirus pandemic. Due to the deliberate use of terms like ‘Chinese virus’ without any scientific proof, it has largely fanned the flames of racism towards Asian Americans in many states and has led to the emerging of racial act and violence. According to a news from CNN, a Seattle resident Kari her daughter who are Korean American were rejected to enter a local grocery store in Mid-April since the shopper considered them as “Asian virus carrier”. This incident is just one of thousands of racist actions that have been reported over the past several months and in some regions, things were even serious, for instance, some Chinese Americans were even abused and beaten by others. It shows how pervasive and widespread the anti-Asian cases are occurring and the outbreak of corona virus just perpetuates this trend.
Additionally, it highlighted the ways in which immigrants have often been tied to disease and considered as an invasive threat which will ruin the United States. For example, immigrants from Ireland were blamed for cholera and Italians for polio, while Japanese and Mexicans were scorned for smallpox outbreaks. Due to the occurrence of HIV disease, Haitians even were forced to not enter into the United States which violated people’s basic rights. This shows a long-lasting racial discrimination and stereotypes towards immigrants which brought about many discriminatory public health restrictions that disproportionately influence immigrants and minority groups. I believe that the anti-Asian sentiments concerning Cov-19 can be greatly tampered if the government can see this plague in a scientific and objective way instead of judging and inciting it as the error of a specific group or country deliberately.
This event can also well be associated with what we learned before. According to de Beauvoir, he believed that “Otherness” is a fundamental category of human thought (de Beauvoir, 1). Otherness is inevitable as people tend to judge and assume unfamiliar people and things based on their external characteristics and their stereotypical reflections within their original culture, which may definitely further lead to discrimination and ethnocentrism. As a citizen of one country, they may think of immigrants as a threat of stealing their resources and illegal groups.
CNN news:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/politics/trump-china-coronavirus/index.html
This picture shows how Chinese customers were deliberately discriminated due to coronavirus.
Debate on coronavirus
Your topic of systemic injustice is very similar to mine, and undeniably, this injustice continues to happen in the U.S since March. As a Chinese student, it’s heartbreaking to see how society is treating Asians especially Chinese unfairly. I would say that two factors contribute to this systemic injustice. The first one is that people lack knowledge of the virus. Although the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Wuhan, China, it’s not reasonable to say that the outbreak of COVID-19 was China’s fault. Many People travel between countries before the pandemic, so it’s hard to determine where the person was infected. The second reason is the impact of President Donald Trump. As the president of the U.S, he consistently called COVID-19 as “China Virus” in the conferences and on his Twitter. He has great power in influencing people, so his behavior led more people to discriminate against Asians.
I really like your post as it speaks for my heart. It is ridiculous how there are so many uneducated racists in the US that they would and could simply exert violence on a group of people based on false beliefs in a modern country governed by law. I was afraid of going grocery shopping in March and April when I was still in the US because the environmental hostility towards Asian was real. China has been offering all kinds of help it could including facilities and faculties to aid countries in need of fighting COVID-19. I wish the world realizes that it is Human against Virus. Furthermore, I think you related “Otherness” to this case very well. All in all, hope the pandemic ends soon.