Prior to reading chickengorl’s post about the coronavirus, I never even considered the link between this outbreak and xenophobia. To be honest, I do not even know much about the coronavirus, except for the fact that it has been causing mass panic and hundreds of people have died. News channels have been consistently covering this outbreak for weeks, and updates are being constantly posted all over social media. Personally, news of this outbreak has left me pretty indifferent, and I am not in fear of contracting this virus. I feel like that is not the case for the general public, and most people are actually fearing for their lives. I think this is due to the fact that the media is heavily covering this virus, and updates are being shoved in our faces day in and day out. Because I do not pay much attention to the media, this may most likely be the reason why I am not too concerned about the coronavirus.
Touching on the link between the coronavirus and xenophobia, I am unfortunately not surprised that Chinese people have been facing increased racism after news about this outbreak. Xenophobia has a history of being tied to mass panic, especially when it comes to disease outbreaks. For example, when the ebola outbreak occurred a couple years ago, Black people started to face increased racism. The color of people’s skin makes them a target, even if they may have never come into contact with an infected person. When disease outbreaks like the coronavirus and ebola occur, people begin to use racial stereotypes and profiling to justify the origin of the virus. For example, the coronavirus was thought to originate in a wet market, where live fish, meat, and wild animals are sold, with lots of animal fluids, blood, scales, guts, etc. are beings circulated. Some people have been claiming that the Chinese people deserved to get the coronavirus after how they brutally treat the animals at these markets and how unsanitary these conditions are. And while it may be true that animals are treated brutally and these markets are unsanitary, have you seen a slaughterhouse in America? Is an industrialized factory farm any more humane to animals or sanitary than an open market? Is it more civilized to grind baby males chicks up alive or debeak chicks in the egg industry, or brand, gas, shackle, castrate, and artificially inseminate animals raised for food in America? And let us not forget all the meat recalls that have happened in the United States, as well as mad cow disease. It is hypocritical to claim that Western animal agriculture is humane and sanitary when so many people contract foodborne illnesses every year and animals still experience a brutal death.
I think the coronavirus is simply an opportunity for people to project racism that has been buried inside of them. According to them, now is a socially acceptable time to project this racism, since the coronavirus has been predominantly affecting a particular race. While this is unfortunate, we need to remember that Americans are no different than the Chinese when it comes to raising animals for food, which is something we should keep in mind the next time we want to point the finger of blame to.
zucchinifries00 