Guilt By Association
By Trevor K. McNeil
A Little Bit of History Repeating
History is more of a cycle than a straight line. Those who have looked at it closely recognize trends have a tendency to repeat. Themes and progress ebb and flow in the oceans of time. Sadly, there are some areas where the water is darker than others. One such dark spot in the ocean of time is the anti-Chinese sentiment in North America.
An Ill Wind
One of the more damaging aspects of coronavirus, aside from the death toll, is the misinformation being spread about it. One being the Anti-Chinese sentiment, fostered and fueled by President Trump and his surrogates. Attempting to redirect blame from his colossal mismanagement of the pandemic response Trump continues his attacks on China. Our boneheaded and close to illiterate president regularly promotes the idea that the virus “came from China.”
Historical Reference
Did it spread through China first? Yes. Do we know for a fact that it is where the virus originated? Hell no. In fact, the Chinese point an angry finger to the United States military. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS–
Guilt By Association
Hearty rounds of fist pounding, finger pointing, and name calling are nothing new. Anti-Chinese propaganda has dubbed the virus “The Chinese Flu,” “The Wu Flu” and “Kung Flu”, each infamously used by president cotton-candy hair himself. Xenophobia and racial incidents targeting Asians have increased as Trump has scapegoated China. The victims of the marked increase of harassment and hate crimes often are not even Chinese. Many are Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese or Filipino. Whether verbal or physical, the attacks are based on the asinine assumption that it is somehow “their” fault. All because they happen to resemble people from the country where the virus is thought to have originated. A truly sterling leap in logic, a racist knee-jerk so sharp it could knock someone out. Not that it has exactly come out of the clear blue sky.
The Descendants
Compounding the absurdist irony of attacking Asian-Americans as a reaction to COVID-19 is that many of them are as American as the people attacking them. Many Asian-American families being here literally for decades or a century or more. The first major immigration occurring in the 19th century to work mining camps in America and the East to West railway in Canada. Contributing to the fact that the largest population of Mandarin Chinese outside of the People’s Republic of China on the West Coast of North America is Vancouver, B.C. New York City has the largest Chinese population in the United States.
Discrimination Abounds
There has long been significant discrimination facing these immigrants, in both Canada and the United States where the Chinese were denied citizenship and forbidden to own property for many years. Many of these people have been here well ahead of my lily white British family who didn’t set foot in the “new world” until the 1950’s. Technically, I’m more of an immigrant than the current victims of abuse and yet they are bearing the brunt of it because they “look Chinese.”
Broken Windows
In 1905 White San Franciscans formed the Japanese Korean Exclusion League. In 1907 the Canadians formed the Asiatic Exclusion League. The AEL became a club of violent political activists that were startlingly popular on the West Coast in the early 20th century as the number of Asiatic immigrants grew. The League in America and Canada stoked a anti-Chinese(Asian) sentiment that culminated in the “anti-Asiatic riots.”
Riots From Vancouver To San Francisco
Violent gangs of angry white boys and men caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to Chinatowns and Japantowns from Vancouver to San Fransisco with little to no police intervention. The group has seen a resurgence in the last few months. The instance of anti-Chinese attacks in Vancouver alone raising to 29 from 4 at the same time last year. Statistics in the United States are hard to assess. What I have learned indicates that between March and April there were approximately 1,500 hate crimes against Asian-Americans. Some things never change.
It’s “Their” Fault
Trump is desperate to redirect the public’s attention and their looming retribution at the ballot box. This Memorial Day week-end our country will surpass 100,000 deaths to COVID-19. In Trump’s search for a target to scapegoat his negligence and incompetent reaction to the pandemic he has seized on the Chinese. Political leaders are prone to finding “others” to blame for problems. Frequently, those being accused have nothing to do with the problem. But that matters not. After Rome burned, Nero blamed the Christians and thousands were persecuted and murdered. The most significant finger pointer in the 20th century was of course, Adolph Hitler. His scapegoating of the Jews led to the death of six million souls. Blaming “others” has always been a means to make devastating events comprehensible to the masses, and therefore fixable.
