Coronavirus Alarm Blends Yellow Peril and Red Scare

Disir

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Sep 30, 2011
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As an Asian-American, I’m not surprised that there are numerous reports surfacing of racist and xenophobic responses arising in the US (and elsewhere) as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, where “coughing while Asian” is being compared to “driving while black.” In case there are any doubts that media coverage is being racialized, reports about new coronavirus updates in the US, particularly in areas like New York City, are using unrelated header images of East Asian people wearing face masks to drive the impression that Chinese people are unique carriers of disease, even when they aren’t Chinese.

Watching corporate media’s sensationalist and racist coverage of the COVID-19 coronavirus, it’s clear that everything from the naming of the “Wuhan coronavirus,” to the false narrative and timeline propagated by corporate media to demonize China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, does more to stoke mass hysteria and undermine a US adversary than to show support and solidarity with the Chinese people. In short, it’s the same old Yellow Peril and redbaiting nonsense US media have always engaged in.

Corporate media’s typical framing of Chinese government actions to combat the virus verged on parody, portraying uncontroversial moves in the most insidious terms possible. For example, instead of reporting that Hubei government officials were fired for withholding information about the coronavirus outbreak from higher-ups, outlets like CNN (2/13/20) and Business Insider (2/11/20) claimed they were “purged.” Discussing volunteer efforts to assist China’s effective quarantine efforts, the New York Times’ “To Tame Coronavirus, Mao-Style Social Control Blankets China” (2/15/20) framed it as “one of the biggest social control campaigns in history,” and described “neighborhood busybodies” and “uniformed volunteers” aiding the quarantine efforts as “Mao-style mass crusades.”
Coronavirus Alarm Blends Yellow Peril and Red Scare

This is an excellent article.
 
The last time we had a scare about Asians was when the 100,000 Japanese in California were taken away and put in detention camps (including American citizens).

Hopefully, the Chinese will not be rounded up because of the coronavirus. Of course, some Americans would like that, for (as happened to the Japanese) the houses and businesses of the Chinese would be sold at bargain prices.
 
95% of the pharmaceuticals we have to fight the virus come from China. Big Pharma got greedy and outsourced everything over to there. They can stop the flow anytime they like. We need to get back to basics in a big way and go back to producing and manufacturing our own medicines.
 
The last time we had a scare about Asians was when the 100,000 Japanese in California were taken away and put in detention camps (including American citizens).

Hopefully, the Chinese will not be rounded up because of the coronavirus. Of course, some Americans would like that, for (as happened to the Japanese) the houses and businesses of the Chinese would be sold at bargain prices.
The Chinese have really done nothing to us so far.
 

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