As COVID-19 ravaged humanity, xenophobia and racism remained alive and well. For example, an Iranian leader played on fears of America and Israel. He advanced, without evidence, the claim that the virus was created specifically to target Iranians. In addition to conspiracy theories that the Chinese engineered the virus (either to reduce their own population or for use against other nations) there was also a worldwide rise in xenophobia and racism against Asians.
One reason for the xenophobia and racism is that people were looking for a visible enemy upon which to take out their fear and anger. Many people felt helpless and afraid during the pandemic and as humans are inclined to focus on other humans as threats, there was a rise in xenophobia and racism. People are also inclined to seek an intelligence behind dangers, as they did when they attributed natural disasters to gods. Since humans suffer from in group bias and evil leaders feed xenophobia and racism, it is no surprise that people are sought a scapegoat for the crisis: someone must be to blame. Someone must pay.
The United States, with a long tradition of racism against Asians, saw an increase in xenophobia and racism. While most incidents were limited to verbal hostility, racism in the context of disease raises serious concerns. The United States has a history of weaponizing racism in the context of diseases and we should be on guard against this, because leaders try to appeal to their base and divert attention away from their failings. An example of an American leader’s effort to use xenophobia and racism is Donald Trump using the term “Chinese virus” in place of “coronavirus” or “COVID-19.”
Trump did have excellent, albeit evil, reasons to use these terms. One is that it appeals to parts of his base. This dog whistle sends the message he is speaking to them. A second reason is that it shifted blame from Trump’s inept and harmful early handling of the pandemic. By presenting it as a Chinese virus Trump created the appearance the threat is the responsibility of a foreign power (and people) and attempted to mitigate his responsibility. Third, it helped create an “us versus them” mentality, with the “them” being other people rather than the virus. Unfortunately, while Trump gained some apparent advantages from this approach, it came with a high cost.
There are those who will defend Trump and take issue with my criticism of him. My first response is that Trump is just an example for the problem of xenophobia and racism. If a Trump defender claims he was not engaged in any racism or xenophobia, then I would refer to the United States being blamed by other for the virus. I suspect a Trump supporter would agree that the xenophobia of other countries towards the United States was not helpful and was, in fact, detrimental.
My second response is that Trump engaged in in open racism and xenophobia. He used the well-worn xenophobic and racist trope of the foreign disease and the diseased foreigner—which was also used in the racism aimed at the allegedly diseased caravans heading towards the United States from the south. That Trump’s defenders had to engage in relentless efforts to explain away his seemingly racist claims undercuts their own case. One would have needed to argue Trump unintentionally but constantly used racist tropes and language. While not impossible, it does strain the boundaries of possibility.
Another piece of evidence is that Trump used his infamous sharpie to cross out “Corona” in his speech and replace it with “Chinese”, showing his use was intended, rather than a slip. His defenders could engage in verbal gymnastics to explain this. One strategy was to argue Trump used the phrase “Chinese virus” as “Spanish flu” was used. While this approach has some appeal, using the phrase “Spanish flu” is also problematic. Labeling a disease with a specific country or ethnicity tends to lead to stigma and racism. As such, using the “Spanish Flu” defense is like defending the use of “wetback” by saying that people also used “wop.”
A second strategy is to argue that Trump was just referring to where it came from and, for bonus points, one can point out that it was originally called the “Wu Han virus.” One can say that it cannot have been racist or xenophobic for Trump to use “Chinese virus” because the Chinese used “Wu Han virus.” The easy and obvious reply is that the use of the term “Wu Han virus” was also seen as problematic, for the same reasons that “Spanish flu” and “Chinese virus” are problematic. To use an analogy, this would be like a Chinese leader talking about “Caucasian flu” and saying that was just fine because, for example, Americans first started using a term like “Connecticut flu” when the disease first appeared in Connecticut. Since Trump decided to refer to it as the “Chinese flu” and there are no good reasons to use that term, the best explanation is the obvious one: Trump used a xenophobic and racist dog whistle, cashing in on the well-worn trope of the diseased foreigner and the foreign disease. For those who would try to present this in a positive light, one must ask why do this? And why defend him against the umpteenth reasonable charge of racism and xenophobia?
As noted above, there was already racism and xenophobia against Asians (and Asian Americans) and Trump’s insistence on calling it the “Chinese virus” was likely to have contributed to the uptick in such incidents. Using this sort of label also put the United States at odds with other counties. And other countries blaming us had the same effect. Having Americans turn against other Americans is harmful, especially during a crisis in which community unity is an important part of our survival toolkit. It is also harmful to create conflict between nations when cooperation will improve our response to pandemics. A pandemic is a war between humans and a disease. Creating conflict between humans might serve the selfish goals of some leaders, but it harms humanity. As such, a key lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is that using racism and xenophobia will only make things worse. As it always does.