XENOPHOBIA IS NOT NEEDED FOR DEALING WITH A DEADLY VIRUS

…This president is becoming the nation’s enemy

The president’s rhetoric adds to the hatred misdirected at Asian Americans.

Our president says that he uses the term “Chinese virus” for the coronavirus because “he is being accurate” in describing where it comes from.  Our president doesn’t understand that his xenophobia doesn’t know that there is a difference between saying the virus comes from China, and saying it is a “Chinese virus”.

In today’s era, such language increases xenophobic panic while it doesn’t get us closer to ending the virus.  Asian Americans are being assaulted because of such negative rhetoric.

In fact, in New York, a man assaulted an Asian woman wearing a face mask and called her a “diseased bitch.”  Also in New York, a man on the subway sprayed an Asian passenger with a cleaning solution and verbally abused him.  Meanwhile, on the subway in Los Angeles, a man ranted at an Asian woman, claiming Chinese people are putrid and responsible for all diseases. This woman wasn’t even Chinese, she was an American Thai.

Trump’s idiotic rhetoric just adds fuel to the growing hatred being misdirected at Asian Americans.

The fact that he is the president of the United States, who is responsible for the well-being of all Americans, this only makes that rhetoric even more disturbing. The leaders of both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization (WHO) have warned that we should not use terms such as “Chinese virus.”

The coronavirus today has an official name, it is “SARS-CoV-2”, and the unofficial name is, “Covid-19”.  Injecting an ethnic qualifier like “Chinese Virus” is unnecessary and it stigmatizes all Asian Americans.

Trump’s unnecessary language against the Chinese brings back the history of discrimination against Asian Americans in this United States.  This all started with the Chinese Exclusion Act back in 1882, signed by President Chester Arthur; to the internment camps of World War II; and even to the murder of a Chinese American, Vincent Chin in 1982, who was beaten to death when he was mistaken as a Japanese.  Two American auto workers, who had lost their jobs at a Chrysler factory when the Japanese auto industry was out selling the American auto sales.  Chin’s death became a cause for Chinese Americans across the country as his killers were only given three years of probation. 

Asian Americans are particularly susceptible to being discriminated against by the mistaken belief that they are foreigners or that they have foreign ties.

It was unreasonable to think that this was a foreign virus that wouldn’t become our own problem and it has contributed to our present frantic efforts to play catch-up.

If our current president and his administration hadn’t disbanded the US Pandemic organization that would have dealt with this issue, we wouldn’t be two months behind other countries with being more prepared.

On Jan. 22, Trump was asked on CNBC, “Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?” He responded with: “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”  Yeah, right.

Trump’s weak initial response of only barring foreign nationals, either from China or who had visited China, from entering the United States.  This allowed Americans traveling from China and anyone from Europe to enter the United States with the virus.

The president’s view that the virus was a Chinese problem contributed to his failure to understand the importance of testing people domestically for the virus.  It also prevented the US  from having enough medical equipment to deal with the outbreak.

The United States is still woefully short of test kits across the country, as well as the chemicals necessary to process these tests. The results of this are that the coronavirus has spread exponentially, and if that is not dealt with, we will not have enough ventilators for the patients who need them to stay alive.

Hospitals and first responders are starting to run out of personal protective equipment which is essential for keeping them healthy and safe.  When these essential workers are gone, what do we do?

One country that can help just happens to be China. Though the Chinese government certainly made mistakes at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, we can learn a lot from Chinese doctors and scientists who were on the front lines of this crisis.  We could also cooperate with China and we could possibly get vital medical equipment and supplies.

China recently sent doctors, ventilators, face masks and protective suits to Italy.  They could do the same for this nation, and that is where much of the medical equipment for the US came from before.

For the president to continue using rhetoric that the Chinese find insulting is not helpful. It is not just one country’s problem to solve.

We are in a worldwide, life-threatening pandemic, and we all need to work together.

I just wish the president would set aside his xenophobia while we try to keep scores of Americans from dying.

Copyright G. Ater 2020