Donald Trump’s Racist Response
Calling COVID-19 the ‘Chinese Virus’ Will Inflame Anti-Asian Bigotry
Calling COVID-19 the ‘Chinese Virus’ Will Inflame Anti-Asian Bigotry
Donald Trump insists on calling the Novel Coronavirus the “Chinese Virus,” and his supporters are all on board with a naming designed to deflect blame and inflame anti-Asian anger.
Trump has been using the phrase in his tweets for at least a week, after calling it a “foreign virus” in his national address last week — a tactic he’s been using to rally his base no matter the larger issue since he announced his candidacy five years ago.
The president’s overt xenophobia and racism is the context here, over-riding all other claims he and his supporters have made about naming the virus — especially the canard that this is about where this virus originated.
“It’s not racist at all,” Mr. Trump said (as quoted by The New York Times), explaining his rationale. “It comes from China, that’s why.”
I posted to Facebook about this the other day, and the responses I got were telling. I was told that it was basic virology, naming the virus after its origination point, like the Spanish flu, the Russian flu, Ebola, an argument that quickly morphed into one claiming that because the Chinese government essentially engaged in a coverup, then it is accurate to call it a “Chinese Virus.” Or this newest twist, from Trump (The Times): he calls it the “Chinese Virus” to “combat a disinformation campaign promoted by Beijing officials that the American military was the source of the outbreak.”
All of this is nonsense. What we know is that the first cases were discovered there, likely after the virus “jumped” from an animal to humans, though researchers say more data is needed to be sure.
We also know that the Chinese government (as opposed to “the Chinese”) acted with a reckless disregard for their own people and were only concerned with image and power. Trump’s early response, however, was little better. He dismissed the dangers, called it a hoax, and operated with his own reckless disregard for Americans — with Fox News acting as cheerleader. The goal then was. — and still is — to safeguard his power. Both can be true and neither should be absolved of responsibility.
But this doesn’t make this a “Chinese Virus” — nor does the misbegotten history of naming earlier pandemics like the Spanish Flu (which likely didn’t start in Spain). Public health officials and researchers — and most public officials and news agencies — have called in the Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 — and, as the Times reported, “have tried to avoid names that might result in discriminatory behavior against places or ethnic groups since releasing more stringent guidelines for naming viruses in 2015.”
Trump’s insistence on calling it a “Chinese Virus,” therefore, makes it clear the administration wants the virus associated with the Chinese people, wants them to be the physical manifestation of our fears. It’s irresponsible at best and racist at worst, and what we know about Trump is that when given the choice of best and worst, he always chooses worst.
From the Times again:
“The use of this term is not only corrosive vis-à-vis a global audience, including here at home, it is also fueling a narrative in China about a broader American hatred and fear of not just the Chinese Communist Party but of China and Chinese people in general,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Mr. Kennedy said that past language used by Mr. Trump and his administration had eliminated any benefit of the doubt. “Given the Trump administration’s long record of statements and actions on immigration, immigrants and issues of race,” he said, “use of this term can’t but be interpreted as xenophobic and tinged with racist overtones.”
This language is inflaming the already extant but often buried racism against Asians that has been a signature hatred in our country since at least the 1800s. But this is about more than Trump, of course. It’s about his supporters, too. Those who justify his obviously pointed and racist appeal are complicit in what can happen. And what can happen is bad.
New Yorker Staff Writer Jiayang Fan tweeted about an incident that she said she “hopes is anomalous,” though I fear may not be.
As The Times reported, “Asian-Americans have reported incidents of racial slurs and physical abuse because of the erroneous perception that China is the cause of the virus.”
But Trump and his supporters in the media continue to push this canard, and they will continue to do so unless they are called out, unless their racism is called out.