Pandemics and prejudice (original) (raw)

covid-19 and Anti-Asian Racism

Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, 2021

This issue of adva responds to the covid-19 pandemic and the resulting highly-mediatized surge in anti-Asian racism and misogyny, which has exacerbated deeply-rooted anti-Asian Pacific racisms in North America and underlined continuing legacies of global histories of colonialism and empire. In order to hold space for collective grief, anger, frustration, and exhaustion, and to address the heightened sense of precarity we are experiencing, many of the contributions to this issue focused on how the pandemic affected Asian diasporic artists, activists, community organizers, curators, and scholars this past year. Our authors and editors were not immune to the toll of the pandemic. We were affected by illness, from covid or from pre-existing conditions, worsened by the overburdened healthcare system and global strain, first in the search for a vaccine and now in its administration and dispensation. Rather than rush back to a business-as-usual model, we extended our deadlines and engaged with slowness; we practiced a politics of refusal. Our emergency editorial

Discrimination, Othering, and the Political Instrumentalizing of Pandemic Disease Two Case Studies

Journal of Interdisciplinary History of Ideas, 2020

The complex history of pandemics has created a diversified array of anti-epidemic responses, which have allowed structures of authority to express their power in multiple ways. In this paper, by considering theories applicable to cases ranging from Europe to Asia, from the 11th to the 18th century, we conduct a comparative analysis capable of identifying common traits and radical differences, aiming to show how such deployment of power was not always commensurate with the medical theories of the age, and with the gravity of the epidemiological situation. Specifically, we analyse how Western European States, in their process of formation, employed the concept of ‘public health’ to create the grounds for an unprecedented exercise of power over the private sphere. Furthermore, we compare this attitude with the discrimination of the minority known as burakumin in Japan, which was destined to undertake any ‘dirty’ or ‘impure’ occupation, to preserve the immunity of the community. In other words, we examine how structures of power have exploited states of exception to implement control measures beyond the needs of the situation through an increasingly hypertrophic apparatus of security; and ways in which political authorities have not aligned with medical or philosophical authorities of their times, for opportunistic reasons that benefited their own social, religious, or racial group.

The Impact of Covid-19 Blame Game Towards Anti-Asian Discrimination Phenomena

The Journal of Society and Media

The purpose of this paper is to explain how the relationship between foreign policies based on the 'Blame Game' could affect the social conditions of society, especially in terms of discrimination against people of Asian descent. The act of accusing each other by Western countries against China over who should actually be responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic has made international political conditions more tense and heated. China's defensive foreign policy strategy turned out to be aggressive and even creates a distortion of information regarding the truth of the origins of the pandemic. So the result is a Blame Game that is destructive, uncooperative, and actually makes problems unresolved where to deal with a global pandemic requires collective action. This is also leads to the increase of discrimination acts towards Asian community. This paper uses an explanatory-qualitative method, with data collection techniques through literature study. Constructivism theory and t...

Year of the Bull? Global Bullying of the Asian Diaspora as Repercussions to the Covid-19 Pandemic

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Economic Issues, 2020

The Covid-19 global has exposed another pandemic, that of racism. As a result, Chinese citizens throughout the global community have faced bullying and malice. Bullying is a global problem; in this case the international community has concentrated its collective anxiety about Covid-19, which originated in Wuhan, China, to discriminate against those of Chinese descent. Therefore, this short essay reflects on some historical and psychological underpinnings, which inform the cruelty and blame ascribed to many Chinese people during this unprecedented public health emergency.

The Politics of Pandemic Othering: Putting COVID-19 in Global and Historical Context

International Organization

As COVID-19 began to spread around the world, so did reports of discrimination and violence against people from marginalized groups. We argue that in a global politics characterized by racialized inequality, pandemics such as COVID-19 exacerbate the marginalization of already oppressed groups. We review published research on previous pandemics to historicize pandemic othering and blame, and enumerate some of the consequences for politics, policy, and public health. Specifically, we draw on lessons from smallpox outbreaks, the third bubonic plague, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and more recent pandemics, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, and Ebola. We also compile reports to document the discrimination and violence targeting marginalized groups early in the COVID-19 pandemic. This article lays bare the continuation of a long history of othering and blame during disease outbreaks and identifies needs for further inquiry to understand the persistence of these pandemic politics.

Virtual Town Hall Examines Anti-Asian Racism during COVID-19 Pandemic, GW Today, April 20, 2020

GW Today, 2020

Asian Americans have been spat on, verbally assaulted and physically attacked in more than a thousand race-related incidents in the United States as a result of fear evoked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Alexa Alice Joubin, professor of English and international affairs, women’s studies and East Asian languages and cultures, provided a historical context for the discussion. She said connecting the language of disease to racism is not a new phenomenon. For example, it was seen in an 1886 soap advertisement “for kicking the Chinese out of the U.S.,” she said, and dubbed “yellow fever” in reference to white men who have a fetish for Asian women. Joubin said the language is associated with a history of discrimination against Chinese that made it into U.S. law, including the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Cable Act that prevented Chinese from becoming citizens even when they married U.S. citizens. It will take all of our cognitive ability, analytical reasoning “to concentrate and harness our resources to combat disinformation,” she said, “Our greatest fight is about fear.”

Sinophobic Stigma Going Viral: Addressing the Social Impact of COVID-19 in a Globalized World

American Journal of Public Health, 2021

This article critically examines the recent literature on stigma that addresses the overspread association among the COVID-19 pandemic and racial and ethnic groups (i.e., mainland Chinese and East Asian populations) assumed to be the source of the virus. The analysis begins by reviewing the way in which infectious diseases have historically been associated with developing countries and their citizens, which, in turn, are supposed to become prime vectors of contagion. The latter extends to the current labeling of COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus,” that—along with a number of other terms—has fueled race-based stigma against Asian groups in the United States and overseas. This review further discusses the limitations of current COVID-19 antistigma initiatives that mostly focus on individual-based education campaigns as opposed to multisectorial programs informed by human rights and intersectional perspectives. Finally, the article ends with a call to the international public health community toward addressing the most recent outbreak of stigma, one that has revealed the enormous impact of words in amplifying racial bias against particular minority populations in the developed world.

EXPANDING THE NARRATIVE ON ANTI-CHINESE STIGMA DURING COVID-19 - Initial Report.pdf

2020

Due to the geographic origins of the first major outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, there have been reports of Asians around the world experiencing discrimination, xenophobia, or racism. Such reports have been prevalent in Toronto, Canada and in Nairobi, Kenya, two global urban centres that have significant Chinese diaspora communities. Discriminatory actions have ranged from outright physical aggression to subtle microaggressions. While reports (both media and academic) have highlighted such incidents, we argue that when the conversation starts and stops at the reporting of experiences of stigma, the narrative remains the victimization of the community. While the emerging story of the instances of COVID-19 stigma and discrimination are only one aspect of this story, other aspects include a deeper understanding of the community itself along with an awareness of the capacity the Chinese diaspora community brings forward to help us all overcome COVID-19. By better understanding the...

How Racism Against Asians Exploded In The Pandemic

Junkee.com, 2021

I spoke with Junkee contributor Elfy Scott on the connections between the surge in racism around the COVID19 pandemic and the long history of disasters and discrimination. Episode date: March 16th, 2021