Team members: Xinyao Yan, Chengcheng Hao, Samantha Yang
Xinyao Yan:
Let’s get into our topic today. As we all know, 2020 is a difficult year. A global epidemic broke out in this year: COVID-19. Because of the impact of this epidemic, the phenomenon of racial discrimination that was originally hidden in various countries has become more serious. Research so far found that the COVID-19 virus was spread from Wuhan, China. Because of the strong transmission power and infection rate of COVID-19, many countries have suffered from COVID-19, and the casualties are heavy. At this time, because of the spread of the epidemic in other countries, some Asians suffered racial discrimination from different countries. Some people yelled at them, threw things at them, or smashed their things. They turned their hatred of the epidemic to these overseas Chinese, thinking that the occurrence of the epidemic was the fault of the entire race. But no one can predict natural and man-made disasters. After the epidemic, the situation of Asians abroad has become more serious. The Australian National University conducted a survey of more than 3,000 Asians. In the survey, 84.5% of Asians said that they had encountered discrimination at least once between January and October 2020. Between February and April (during the epidemic), the working hours of Asians decreased by 5 hours, which was twice that of other Australians. Discrimination in the market makes life more difficult for Asians who are far away.
The epidemic’s racial discrimination for Asians may have caused great inconvenience to their lives, while racial discrimination for people of color, including African Americans, Asians and Latinos, prevents them from having fair medical treatment opportunity in the United States. In the article ‘An unbelievable chain of oppression’: America’s history of racism was a preexisting condition for COVID-19, it is stated that during the epidemic, the death rate of colored communities was much higher than that of white communities. According to statistics, among the 10 counties with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the United States, 7 counties have permanent residents mostly of color; among the 50 counties with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the United States, 31 counties have more permanent residents People of color; 62% of the counties with the highest death rate from new coronary pneumonia in the United States, their permanent residents are mostly people of color; data previously released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that among the confirmed cases in the United States, about 52% of patients are people of color Kind. There are many reasons for the large mortality gap: people of color have been treated unfairly for a long time, and the living environment is poor, making them more susceptible to infection. And because of poor economic conditions, they cannot support them in treatment. At the same time, the deep-rooted racial discrimination in the United States makes it difficult for people of color to receive equal medical protection. Even if they have symptoms of infection, it is difficult to obtain testing opportunities and even more difficult to obtain effective treatment.
Chengcheng Hao:
Thank you Xinyao for sharing the information with us. Let’s go deeper into the social issue. Now comes another question: is it true that there is no racial discrimination in China?
There is, of course there is. Chinese people are not aware of the fact that racial discrimination is serious and widespread.
In psychology, Discrimination is divided into explicit discrimination and implicit discrimination. Explicit discrimination refers to the external and obvious verbal and physical attacks on people through racial factors, while implicit bias an unconscious association, belief, or attitude toward any social group. Thanks to the blood and sweat of their predecessors in the affirmative action movement, racial equality has long been the absolute political correctness. Explicit discrimination in Western countries, as long as the evidence is conclusive, can be appealed to legal justice. International students and recent immigrants have encountered homeless people on the street who insult your country or attack the color or appearance of your skin, but most Chinese are unlikely to verbally attack a stranger based on race. But does that mean we don’t have racial discrimination? Not at all.
Prejudice based on race, skin color, national origin, etc. Even after a massive rational crackdown, real Chinese (and people around the world) still consciously or unconsciously make subconsciously biased choices. Let’s say you stop two cabs on the street in North America, one Asian and one black, and you subconsciously pick the Asian driver. This is because the stereotype of black people in your mind makes you make a subconscious choice. You unconsciously fear and protect yourself, and you unwittingly become a “racist” in the eyes of the black driver.
Apart from the wariness and rejection of certain ethnic minorities in China, what surprised me most was the widespread prejudice against blacks and the admiration for whites.
Based on the yearning for western culture, white people (whether white people in Europe or America) enjoy “super-national treatment” in China, and enjoy preferential treatment in terms of justice and human rights. As a result, such absurd social phenomena as “report the lost property on behalf of the white people and it will be recovered within 24 hours” have been born.
In the minds of some people, the white man is superior. Racial discrimination in the vast majority of countries is based on the fact that one’s race is the best and other RACES are the worst. The “racial discrimination” in China that elevates another race above one’s social status also opened my eyes.
The discrimination against blacks is even more striking. One of the strangest things I’ve heard is that an English training center in Shanghai is recruiting foreign teachers for oral English. The job Posting says that white Students from Europe and the United States are preferred, followed by white students from non-English-speaking countries. So perhaps a British-born, well-educated, English-standard black man would not be able to get such a job simply because of the color of his skin.
Much of the discrimination against blacks in the country stems from fear. The general impression of black people in China is “black, low level of education, low IQ, violence, a disorderly life,” etc., all of which are negative impressions like backward primitive human beings. There are many strange phenomena, such as taxi drivers being afraid of picking up black passengers, restaurants unwilling to serve the black meals, parents unwilling to let their children be friends with black people, etc. Illegal African immigrants in some cities along the southeast coast are indeed disturbing the social order, but the media’s negative coverage of them through colored glasses is also partly to blame.
If you think about it, we use the word “discrimination” a little too much. Every prejudice is formed for objective reasons. The difference in history, culture, and concept is irreversible, but we can also do it to minimize the harm to people.
First, distinguishing between “individuals” and “species” is a basic form of parenting. Just because a population gives people a negative impression doesn’t mean that every “person” in it has these characteristics. To treat others with courtesy, neither humble nor arrogant, is the first step that our overseas students and Overseas Chinese need to start from me.
Samantha Yang:
Thank you Chengcheng! As my other two teammates have shown different cases of racism, I am going to talk about why racism exists and what can we do to solve this problem.
Seven factors contribute to racism, which are categories, factions, segregation, hierarchy, power, media, and passivism. Categories means organizing people into distinct groups. For example, people are normally recognized by their skin color such as white, black, and yellow. We have learnt the story of Ortiz Cofer who was discriminated due to the different skin color she had. The story Chengcheng shared with us could be connected to Ortiz’s experience. Black people was discriminated in China because of their skin color, even though they do not give offense to anybody. As the world is becoming globalized, more people move around the world. Therefore, people with different background would live together, which will lead to outgroups competition within a society.
The second point that you may be interested in is that whether racism is bred in the bone or taught. The answer is both. People feel more comfortable when they are surrounded by whom they are familiar or groups that share similar identities, and there are some genetic reasons to distrust outgroups. Additionally, people are also influenced by the environment. Like what Chengcheng talked about, parents in China would ask their children to stay away from the black. Being taught to do so, the youth would view the black as “threaten”. This is absolutely wrong because we should not judge people based on their physical appearance.
We have discussed several examples of racism and learnt that racism is a severe social issue across the world. Now, let’s find out what we, as individuals, and governments can do to deal with this problem. As individuals, we should treat everyone fairly and be nice to people. Meanwhile, governments should enact laws to publish racists. As people and governments work together, this issue would be gradually solved.
reference:
http://www.chinaqw.com/hqhr/2020/11-03/274855.shtml
http://news.kf.cn/2020/1018/502599.shtml
http://www.plxww.com/contents/22/64204.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an-unbelievable-chain-of-oppression-americas-history-of-racism-was-a-preexisting-condition-for-covid-19/ar-BB19Xlf1
https://www.zhihu.com/question/295563613/answer/499194316
https://www.stlmag.com/news/alan-lambert/
https://news.stanford.edu/2020/06/09/seven-factors-contributing-american-racism/