In cartoons, we often see children frolic in lush green gardens with their toy guns. Yet, in the last two years, when devout racists exploited real guns, a spate of gun violence -- from the notorious George Floyd murder case to the 2021 deadly massage parlour shooting in Atlanta -- broke out. As such, contending with harassment, mockery and discrimination against Asian-Americans cannot be put on the back burner anymore.
Both the New York Times and NPR have reported an apparently pandemic-propelled spike in hate crimes: Some 3,800 instances of discrimination were recorded in 2020 alone. Yet, had racism been effective in curbing COVID, infections would have crested rapidly. But the fact the number instead skyrocketed speaks volumes.
What we are determined enough to do are supposed to curb the excruciating pandemic. The irony is, not only does racist violence not eradicate COVID, it also creates a double whammy of COVID and itself. And now there is another urgent problem to tackle: Racial bias and malaise thanks to slurs like "You have the Chinese Virus, go back to China!" that even forced some Asian Americans to pull up stakes or be labelled as foreigners.
Talk about the model of callow racists across America. Even former President Donald Trump, as the leader himself, repeatedly condemned the virus as "Chinese/Wuhan virus", while rebuffing suggestions America should contend with COVID seriously, falsely believing racism is useful. As it turned out, his racist rhetoric was not only pointless, he also lost votes of countless disaffected voters because of his mishandling of the crisis that led to hundreds of thousands of tragic yet evitable deaths across the U.S.
Irrefutably, the gripe about Beijing silencing doctors and being lax in warning the public of a likely pandemic contributed to the virus' spread holds water. Nonetheless, does this mean the pandemic is the Chinese people's fault? Should all Chinese people bear responsibility for this virus? What's more, while the virus may have originated in Wuhan, the Chinese people are literally victims, just as dismayed as Americans are.
There is one thing that racists may have forgotten: Communicable diseases do not discriminate. They slaughter people rich and poor, black and white. And while many insist the genesis of COVID is conclusively in China, the blame game is perennial, yet purposeless.
It is noteworthy that the hundreds of thousands who denounced racism in America's streets are representative of the urgency to remove the lethal racism. Instead of venting our anger via discrimination, being cognisant of the fact Asians are also victims is one step closer to weeding out racism altogether.
Works cited:
Shihipar, Abdullah. "Declare Racism a Public Health Emergency." The New York Times. 7 Mar. 2021
Wezerek, Gus. "Racism's Hidden Toll." The New York Times. 11 Aug. 2020.
Lu, Joanne. "Why Pandemics Give Birth To Hate: From Bubonic Plague To COVID-19." NPR. 26 Mar. 2021.
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