One of the less nice aspects of human psychology, of the human condition, is that when people are scared they don't always act rationally, and may resort to doing quite stupid things. When people are scared and feel powerless, they have an instinctual need to gain some level of control, to "do something about it", and in some cases, with some individuals, they start acting irrationally. In some cases this irrational behavior may not only be limited to acting in a stupid and embarrassing way, but in a way that's actually harmful to others.
During the "swine flu" epidemic some people, including some farmers, started massacring pigs, for the sole reason that the disease was called "swine flu", and no other reason. Ironically, humans could not contract the flu from pigs, it could only be contracted from other people. (Even more ironically, pigs could contract the flu from humans. The virus was zoonotic, but only in that one direction.)
But who cares. Pigs are slaughtered all the time anyway, so it's not like a lot of actual harm was done.
It becomes more serious when people start attacking other people because of their fears.
The current coronavirus epidemic has become notorious because of bringing out the worst in people. There have been numerous cases of people avoiding, discriminating against and, sadly, even outright harassing and attacking Chinese-looking people, completely indiscriminately without even knowing where they are from, for the mere reason that they look Chinese. Many Chinese (and Chinese-looking) people have been the targets of such harassment even though they haven't been in China recently or at all. In one of the most outrageous cases, in one country people started throwing rocks at a bus carrying Chinese-looking people.
It's completely irrational to harass and attack people for this (or any similar reason for that matter, obviously). It's not like these people, even if they had been in China in the affected areas recently, were somehow guilty of anything, or being somehow deliberately doing something. It's especially irrational and heinous to harass and attack people merely because they look like they are Chinese, with zero knowledge of whether they have been in the affected areas recently at all (while at the same time not caring about people who do not look Chinese who may have been in such areas recently).
But, as said, that's just a sad side-effect of how human psychology works. When people are scared and feel powerless, they sometimes start doing really stupid and irrational things.
Of course, quite obviously, in the current political climate all the leftist journalists and social media personalities have taken the opportunity to cry racism. This clearly shows how racist people are! Perfect example of racism!
While "racism" is defined as prejudice and discrimination against people based on their race, I wouldn't say this is really a case of racism per se. Sure, there is prejudice and discrimination against Chinese-looking people happening, but that's just incidental. The discrimination is not really happening because they are of a different race, nor because of a prejudice against Chinese people in particular. It's simply that in this particular case "Chinese" happens to be the most outwardly visible cue that these irrational people use to determine who the "enemy", the "scapegoat" is. It could well be something else as well, as long as it acts as a clear visual cue. It's not prejudice and discrimination because they are Chinese in particular, but because they think that these people may be carrying the deadly infectious disease. The distinguishing factor being "Chinese-looking" is just incidental, not the core reason of the prejudice.
It's of course 100% condemnable to be prejudiced against and harass people because of this, but I would not call it racism.
During the "swine flu" epidemic some people, including some farmers, started massacring pigs, for the sole reason that the disease was called "swine flu", and no other reason. Ironically, humans could not contract the flu from pigs, it could only be contracted from other people. (Even more ironically, pigs could contract the flu from humans. The virus was zoonotic, but only in that one direction.)
But who cares. Pigs are slaughtered all the time anyway, so it's not like a lot of actual harm was done.
It becomes more serious when people start attacking other people because of their fears.
The current coronavirus epidemic has become notorious because of bringing out the worst in people. There have been numerous cases of people avoiding, discriminating against and, sadly, even outright harassing and attacking Chinese-looking people, completely indiscriminately without even knowing where they are from, for the mere reason that they look Chinese. Many Chinese (and Chinese-looking) people have been the targets of such harassment even though they haven't been in China recently or at all. In one of the most outrageous cases, in one country people started throwing rocks at a bus carrying Chinese-looking people.
It's completely irrational to harass and attack people for this (or any similar reason for that matter, obviously). It's not like these people, even if they had been in China in the affected areas recently, were somehow guilty of anything, or being somehow deliberately doing something. It's especially irrational and heinous to harass and attack people merely because they look like they are Chinese, with zero knowledge of whether they have been in the affected areas recently at all (while at the same time not caring about people who do not look Chinese who may have been in such areas recently).
But, as said, that's just a sad side-effect of how human psychology works. When people are scared and feel powerless, they sometimes start doing really stupid and irrational things.
Of course, quite obviously, in the current political climate all the leftist journalists and social media personalities have taken the opportunity to cry racism. This clearly shows how racist people are! Perfect example of racism!
While "racism" is defined as prejudice and discrimination against people based on their race, I wouldn't say this is really a case of racism per se. Sure, there is prejudice and discrimination against Chinese-looking people happening, but that's just incidental. The discrimination is not really happening because they are of a different race, nor because of a prejudice against Chinese people in particular. It's simply that in this particular case "Chinese" happens to be the most outwardly visible cue that these irrational people use to determine who the "enemy", the "scapegoat" is. It could well be something else as well, as long as it acts as a clear visual cue. It's not prejudice and discrimination because they are Chinese in particular, but because they think that these people may be carrying the deadly infectious disease. The distinguishing factor being "Chinese-looking" is just incidental, not the core reason of the prejudice.
It's of course 100% condemnable to be prejudiced against and harass people because of this, but I would not call it racism.
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