Don't remember mentioning China at all in my post, but whatever floats your boat.
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Why "Chinese Virus" is racist
- Thread starter Copernicus
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Don't remember mentioning China at all in my post, but whatever floats your boat.
lpetrich
Contributor
What propaganda?
Looks to me that both China's leaders and the Trump Admin share plenty of blame for the spread of the virus.
He does that a lot - usually when it comes to being an obvious bigot, and stands around smugly explaining that Dolt 45 it the correct one because Ebola is named after the river (are there mermaids from the Ebola river that are at risk?) and Spanish Flu (which was first recorded in Kansas - and whose name was also controversial).
In other words, I consider this another point in favor of considering "Chinese Flu" to be racist. Maher is, if nothing else, consistently wrong when he decides to attack "political correctness".
Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
I love all the faux outrage over lying from Trump-loving American patriots. So what if a few Asian-Americans are beat up over it? Trump is different. He is just Trump being Trump. It's not the same as Xi being Xi.
Jokodo
Veteran Member
There's a difference between saying it can't and saying you don't have clear evidence that it can. Do you understand that difference?
Actually, that's exactly what happened 102 years ago and we don't call it the American virus, we call it the Spanish flu instead.
repoman
Contributor
Because while French, British, German and American military lied about that flu decimating their ranks, neutral Spain made public their pandemic.
Jokodo
Veteran Member
Exactly.
Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
Yes, bad things do happen in China. There is racism. The government lies and covers things up. They allowed the virus to spread until they could no longer ignore it. All of those things are also true of the US. We also know that the virus started in China. None of that means that you are justified in calling COVID-19 the "Chinese virus". To do so only has one purpose--to vilify people who are Chinese. It leads to the same kind of behavior in the US that we now see against Africans in China.
The virus originated in China, yet that leads to racism against blacks by the Chinese?
How? Chinese think it's called the African virus?
Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
No. There can be other reasons than a racist label to trigger racist behavior in people. The trigger here seems just to be a rumor that Africans are spreading the virus. Since skin color makes Africans stand out, they make convenient scapegoats. In the US, Asians from a number of countries have been attacked on the mistaken assumption that they were Chinese, just as Sikhs are often mistaken for Muslims and attacked because of their turbans.
Cool. Now do White Privilege.
White people are a majority in the U.S. and hold the majority of positions of power! This is an outrage!
Next thing you'll tell me is that in China, the majority of jobs are held by the Chinese! Outrageous! We need more white people in power in China!
And as a big brain buster, in Africa, black people are in charge of their governments! Outrageous!
And as another secret, brown people are in charge in the Middle East!
I for one am tired of the privilege!!!
I disagree on them letting it spread. They cracked down hard once they understood what they were dealing with.
Why? Two completely different discussions.
Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
It's fair to say that they did crack down hard for a while after local officials tried to cover up the outbreak, but lately they seem to have gone back to the practice of trying to minimize the magnitude of the problem by manipulating their statistics and spreading misinformation--e.g. trying to shift the blame onto the US government. For example, they don't count reinfections, once people are declared to have recovered. It isn't realistic to think that all of their cases are now being caused by people entering China from foreign countries. I think that much of this is a reaction to Trump's demonization of China, but the Chinese government is run by people who think that it is more important to control the narrative than to let the chips fall where they may. I suspect that their recent behavior is more of a reaction to Donald Trump's behavior towards them, but they have been extremely embarrassed by the fact that this crisis started in China. Trump has used China as a scapegoat for his own incompetent response to the crisis, so, IMO, China is trying to punch back. Russia is also scapegoating the US in an effort to deflect blame for their own unpreparedness to deal with this epidemic. Worse than the COVID epidemic is the epidemic of finger-pointing by governments and leaders in their efforts to avoid blame.