Chinese who cry racial abuse amid the coronavirus epidemic forget they are as bad as the rest of us
racial abuse
because the coronavirus, which causes the disease known as Covid-19, originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Whenever people tell me about their own experiences of racism, I always ask if they themselves have ever used racial slurs. I know I have. We’re all racists. It’s a matter of degree. Those who say they don’t have a racist bone in their body are not being honest.
I know exactly what the Chinese are going through now. I sympathise because I went through the same thing after the September 11 terror attacks. I was working in the US at the time. The day after the attacks, I had a lunch appointment.
People – yes, including Chinese – gave me dirty looks even though I am ethnically Indian and my parents were Hindus. But who could tell between Arabs and Indians, or Muslims and Hindus? (Likewise, who can tell between Taiwanese, Hongkongers and even Singaporeans these days?)
Some white teenagers I passed on the way to lunch called me a terrorist. A suspicious Chinese grocery store owner followed me as I shopped. Brown-skinned people with so-called Middle Eastern features were often singled out for questioning when boarding planes. I stared back at those who stared at me. As an American who believes in the values of my adopted country, I stood tall and endured those dark days, knowing they would pass. And they did.
Yes, racism runs deep in American society. But the same goes for China, Hong Kong, Japan, India and elsewhere. At least the US admits it has a problem and tries to right its wrongs. There is legal recourse against racism. Can I say the same of Hong Kong, where I was born, and China? I grew up being called
mo lo cha
, a racial slur against Indians. Many Hong Kong landlords still don’t rent properties to South Asians.
Up until recently, there was an area in Guangzhou which Chinese nicknamed “Chocolate City” because a large number of Africans lived there. Just imagine the outcry if a US district was dubbed “Yellow City”.
The difference is that the US is a democracy. Chinese and other people of colour can seek redress. I wonder if a Uygur can do the same in China, which doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of racism. Hong Kong’s anti-racism laws so lack teeth that I can remember only one prosecution, which failed.
The Wall Street Journal recently headlined an opinion piece about Beijing’s response to the coronavirus crisis “China is the Real Sick Man of Asia”. Was it racist? Maybe, if viewed in historical context. China demanded an apology and expelled three of the paper’s correspondents.
But was that headline more racist than a Chinese advertisement for laundry detergent in 2016 that showed a black man being shoved in the washing machine by a pretty Chinese woman and emerging as a fair-skinned Chinese man? Or the 2018 Lunar New Year variety show on state-run CCTV, which featured a Chinese actress in blackface and giant fake buttocks and a black man in a monkey suit?
Chinese would say the headline was more racist. Africans would see the ad and the variety show as more offensive. I would consider the epithet “mo lo cha” more racist than the “sick man of Asia” headline. There will never be a meter that measures racism to everyone’s liking.
To CCTV and Leishang Cosmetics, the company behind the detergent ad, it was the critics who were being oversensitive. Then why was there all that Chinese outrage at Western ads, like the one showing a Chinese woman using chopsticks to eat pizza?
I am sure The Wall Street Journal will not apologise for its headline. Doing so would mean allowing China to curtail media freedom in the US. I just can’t see that happening.
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinio...l-abuse-amid-coronavirus-epidemic-forget-they
- We’re all racists, it’s just a matter of degree. If The Wall Street Journal’s ‘Sick Man of Asia’ headline was racist, was it more offensive than the CCTV variety show featuring blackface? Unlike China, at least the US admits it has a problem
racial abuse
because the coronavirus, which causes the disease known as Covid-19, originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Whenever people tell me about their own experiences of racism, I always ask if they themselves have ever used racial slurs. I know I have. We’re all racists. It’s a matter of degree. Those who say they don’t have a racist bone in their body are not being honest.
I know exactly what the Chinese are going through now. I sympathise because I went through the same thing after the September 11 terror attacks. I was working in the US at the time. The day after the attacks, I had a lunch appointment.
People – yes, including Chinese – gave me dirty looks even though I am ethnically Indian and my parents were Hindus. But who could tell between Arabs and Indians, or Muslims and Hindus? (Likewise, who can tell between Taiwanese, Hongkongers and even Singaporeans these days?)
Some white teenagers I passed on the way to lunch called me a terrorist. A suspicious Chinese grocery store owner followed me as I shopped. Brown-skinned people with so-called Middle Eastern features were often singled out for questioning when boarding planes. I stared back at those who stared at me. As an American who believes in the values of my adopted country, I stood tall and endured those dark days, knowing they would pass. And they did.
Yes, racism runs deep in American society. But the same goes for China, Hong Kong, Japan, India and elsewhere. At least the US admits it has a problem and tries to right its wrongs. There is legal recourse against racism. Can I say the same of Hong Kong, where I was born, and China? I grew up being called
mo lo cha
, a racial slur against Indians. Many Hong Kong landlords still don’t rent properties to South Asians.
Up until recently, there was an area in Guangzhou which Chinese nicknamed “Chocolate City” because a large number of Africans lived there. Just imagine the outcry if a US district was dubbed “Yellow City”.
The difference is that the US is a democracy. Chinese and other people of colour can seek redress. I wonder if a Uygur can do the same in China, which doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of racism. Hong Kong’s anti-racism laws so lack teeth that I can remember only one prosecution, which failed.
The Wall Street Journal recently headlined an opinion piece about Beijing’s response to the coronavirus crisis “China is the Real Sick Man of Asia”. Was it racist? Maybe, if viewed in historical context. China demanded an apology and expelled three of the paper’s correspondents.
But was that headline more racist than a Chinese advertisement for laundry detergent in 2016 that showed a black man being shoved in the washing machine by a pretty Chinese woman and emerging as a fair-skinned Chinese man? Or the 2018 Lunar New Year variety show on state-run CCTV, which featured a Chinese actress in blackface and giant fake buttocks and a black man in a monkey suit?
Chinese would say the headline was more racist. Africans would see the ad and the variety show as more offensive. I would consider the epithet “mo lo cha” more racist than the “sick man of Asia” headline. There will never be a meter that measures racism to everyone’s liking.
To CCTV and Leishang Cosmetics, the company behind the detergent ad, it was the critics who were being oversensitive. Then why was there all that Chinese outrage at Western ads, like the one showing a Chinese woman using chopsticks to eat pizza?
I am sure The Wall Street Journal will not apologise for its headline. Doing so would mean allowing China to curtail media freedom in the US. I just can’t see that happening.
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinio...l-abuse-amid-coronavirus-epidemic-forget-they
