COVID-19 is about one year into its reign of terror, and the xenophobic history associated with pandemics has repeated itself. 

The Black Death of the 14th century was one of the first recorded pandemics in history. At the time, Jewish communities were becoming infected at lower rates, which led the masses to believe that Jews were deliberately poisoning wells, thus causing the plague. These beliefs led to a rapid spread of anti-Semitism that culminated in mass murders. The public’s reactions to the U.S. cholera outbreak of the 19th century, the San Francisco plague of 1900, SARS, and many more have echoed the unspeakable horrors of the past; during the San Francisco plague, targeted ethnic populations were inhumanely used as test subjects during vaccine trials, and foreign populations’ perceived associations with disease were called upon by eugenicists and race thinkers of the time. In some cases, even the names given to viruses, like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Swine Flu, have provoked ethnic targeting and the mass slaughter of livestock (CNN). 

The World Health Organization took note of past prejudices and opted out of using a geographical location or animal name when choosing how to name the novel coronavirus this past February, but this did not stop people from name-dropping China when referring to COVID-19. For months, President Trump and other high-ranking public officials referred to COVID-19 as the ‘Chinese Virus’ and ‘Kung Flu,’ and people argued that Asians deserved this racial stereotyping for not adequately handling the virus before it became a global issue and for continuing ‘unsanitary’ and ‘inhumane’ practices like wet markets. In the same tune as online riots, blame for the coronavirus inspired an anger-fueled movement of vegans on Facebook, blaming COVID-19 on ‘Chinese bat soup,’ even though the evidentiary photo was taken by the host of a travel show during her trip to the Pacific Island nation of Palau in 2016. 

Though the crisis could have been managed better and sooner in January, there is a marked difference between holding the Chinese government accountable for its mistakes and defaming the entire East-Asian population for a virus outbreak that occurred in the country of their perceived ethnic origin. ‘Chinese virus,’ ‘Kung Flu,’ and ‘Chinese bat soup,’ only feed into one of the fundamental causes of xenophobia—an intrinsic human fear of infectious disease. 

Fear of disease is not unreasonable in the middle of a pandemic, but looking back at this past year, there were riots against shelter-in-place, ‘Karens’ refused to wear masks in public, and President Trump argued that we conducted too much testing. And to add fuel to this dumpster fire, Trump continued to push the same anti-China rhetoric we witnessed an influx of when the WHO first declared a global pandemic, even through the first Presidential debate which took place last fall. 

It’s now been one year since COVID-19 was first identified; we are in the midst of a brutal second wave, and China is not. Our hospitals are full, and although the FDA has approved two vaccines, a new strain that is 50% more contagious was discovered in the UK and its presence has been confirmed in multiple states in the U.S.

COVID-19 is a prime example of politics and public health getting hopelessly intertwined. It was the White House Coronavirus Task Force controlling pandemic-related information rather than CDC, the United States’ national public health institute. But by making the pandemic a partisan issue, public trust in official statements fell drastically, and when optimism runs thin, it’s easy to hyperfocus on the events that led up to our current situation. This, however, is both unproductive and threatening to our social climate. Ignoring the responsibilities we must assume to fight this pandemic means more lives lost and an only worsening anti-China bias which is then falsely generalized to the entire East-Asian American population.

STOP AAPI HATE is a reporting center that was founded by the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University on March 13, 2020. During its first three months in operation, STOP AAPI HATE received 1843 reports of Covid-related anti-Asian discrimination, and in addition to countless reports of discrimination that are still being reported, the government has enacted several anti-Asian policies. On May 4, Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee introduced the “Stop-China-Originated Viral Infectious Diseases (Stop COVID) Act” which makes China legally and financially liable for the consequences of the pandemic in the United States. On July 20, Senator Martha McSally of Arizona introduced the “Civil Justice for Victims of COVID Act”, which allows Americans to sue China in federal court in relation to COVID-19.

There never has been, and never will be, any justification for turning a blind eye to prejudicial anger and violence. However, smearing racism at a point when it has already permeated both political and social spaces won’t have much effect. It will neither lessen the fears and frustrations that this pandemic has produced nor unravel sweeping generalizations and ignorance. 

Recovery from today’s prejudicial and divisive environment will be difficult. It will require individual awareness and changes instituted by the new administration. 

This is a tricky balancing act to maintain, but every day we are collectively left with a decision to make: do we act on fear, accepting slurs and the opinions of media figureheads as facts, or do we remain active agents in the messages we convey with how we choose to speak about this virus and extend empathy towards others?

By Anita Mukherjee

Indie rock enthusiast and home chef who will always make time to watch a stand-up special