Comments on: Racism hinders the fight against COVID-19

By: Risk Communication in the Media – Language on the Move

Risk Communication in the Media – Language on the Move — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 22:56:43 +0000

[…] ‘Wuhan coronavirus’ not only implicates a specific geographical region but also inadvertently fosters discrimination against the Chinese community, contributing to a surge in racist incidents globally (Human Rights Watch, […]

By: Audrey

Audrey — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 12:52:57 +0000

Thank you, Zhang Jie, for sharing your view. I recognize racism is a problem in every country, including Australia. I have read many cases of international students who got assaulted for being Asian. The emergence of COVID-19 has provoked a wave of racism, discrimination, and hatred against Asian people. People have been harassing, assaulting, and discriminating against people due to the fear of COVID-19. I think that COVID-19 is simply driving an existing issue. The pandemic has only made racism more apparent.

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 12:51:58 +0000

Hi Jenny. You make an excellent point and it’s also interesting to hear, directly, what racism in the context of Covid-19 responses feels like. I have not heard anyone call it Wuhan Virus, which is a relief, and maybe a reassurance, but certainly not a denial that there’s a lot of anti-Chinese racism going around. https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-covid19-pandemic-cause-prediction-prevention.html Here is a transcript of an interview (and link to the audio within it) with a zoologist explaining the systemic causes of new viruses like this, and it makes it very clear it’s not one person or one market or country: its our overall human progression into, and development of, natural habitats. I’m sad to see the racism continues, however, and now with the addition of social media authors pursuing the futile quest of proving that Covid-19 actually originated in the USA. Sad that people respond to racism with more racism.

By: Ana

Ana — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 06:27:03 +0000

Thank you so much for shining a light on this important topic. In these trying times, it is very important to challenge the unfortunate racist discourse and response that many people have had over this pandemic. Very well written post, I very much enjoyed reading it!

By: Pia Tenedero

Pia Tenedero — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 01:28:04 +0000

Well-written and informative — Racism is an unfortunate and misguided response, motivated by fear and lack of knowledge about the nature of this epidemic. At this time, we see this issue extending to other ethnic groups whose home countries have declared travel bans due to increased cases and, therefore, heightened risk of spread. Racism, as well as other forms of discrimination, is also viral. As people get exposed to this attitude and practice, they develop the same tendency or eventually become immune (in the sense of resignation). Will humanity ever find a cure for this disease, which has been a global epidemic since God knows when.

By: Coronavirus meets linguistic diversity - Language on the Move

Coronavirus meets linguistic diversity - Language on the Move — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 23:59:28 +0000

[…] that panic and anxiety are the normal reaction of people exposed to an epidemic like COVID-19, as described by Zhang Jie. Such narratives seem to be missing entirely from official multilingual communication. Rather than […]

By: Wendie

Wendie — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 12:41:15 +0000

Thanks for your efforts in explaining the truth! As a Chinese citizen, I am so angry at those racists who attacked us mentally and physically. It has been confirmed the coronavirus might be from America‘s flu in 2019’. China is just the first place of the outbreak of the virus. All Chinese people have been making great efforts to contain it and the situation is gradually getting improved as we expected. Almost people from all walks of life in China has been tremendously influenced. Lots of noble and competent doctors and nurses have been died from sacrificing their lives to save the patients. The students can’t go to study in school. Lots of companies and enterprises have suffered from the loss of money. Everyone has to stay at home and not allowed to be out except buying food and necessities. Under such miserable situation, Chinese people have to suffer the discrimination behaviors from those racists.

Some European and American medias are just trying to exaggerate the situation and mislead other people which is NO GOOD to anything and anyone. Now a series of countries confronted with the increasingly severe situation of coronavirus outside China including Japan, Korea,Italy, Iran and other European countries which have already forbidden Chinese people to enter for several months, which shows, to a largely extent, China is NOT the original place of the outbreak of the coronavirus, and China has contained it very well so far. May I ask those racists to apologize for what they did to attack us?

By: 谢杭玲

谢杭玲 — Wed, 26 Feb 2020 01:52:36 +0000

We should be friendly to the patients infected by coronavirus disease or people from the heavily infected area. More than, we should provide them with sufficient shelter, food, drinking water and medical services. We believe “winter will eventually pass, and spring is sure to come.”

By: Hanna Irving Torsh

Hanna Irving Torsh — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 23:19:10 +0000

Thanks you for sharing your perspective of this incredible and unprecedented situation. I agree totally that the media coverage of the coronavirus has been along nationalistic lines. In Australia we frequently get media statistics about numbers of those infected which separate out the Australians, as thought they are a special or more important group. The current travel ban from China to Australia is another example, where citizens are allowed in but non-citizens are not. As many doctors have posted on social media, the virus does not differentiate and citizenship is not a vaccine. It is a reminder that although the ideas of ethnicity/race/nationality are socially constructed, it does not make them any less real nor mean they do not have significant consequences for individuals and societies.
And just a final note, wishing you and your family, and your beautiful city, better days ahead. We are all thinking of you.

By: Miriam Faine

Miriam Faine — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 21:23:29 +0000

Well said! I am ashamed (again) of ignorant and racist attitudes in Australia and the West. I send my sympathy to the people of Wuhan and Hubei province who are suffering the consequences of the virus

By: Paul Desailly

Paul Desailly — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 08:42:16 +0000

You’ve depicted an alarming scenario Jenny whose consequences beg many a question that might even affect corporate English pedagogy when Brexit is added to the mix. Maybe these disturbing signs of racism and anti-Chinese slogans and cartoons in certain elements of western media will move the Communist Party of China in its negotiations with President Trump to ask him to balance matters of trade by reckoning America’s language bonanza: China’s enormous expenditures for attracting English teachers to her shores and for sending a zillion youngsters to America’s cash cow colleges to gain a sub-optimal education in a language that’s beyond most of them amounts to the biggest failure to negotiate a fair deal that monolingual President Trump could ever hope for.

By: Li Jia

Li Jia — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 06:40:57 +0000

Thanks Jenny. Totally agree! Virus could contain different forms and some are implanted in people’s mindset and nurtured by unscrupulous media depicts. Those who are infected by media-virus seem to lose the ability to analyze and to distinguish between truth and liar. As a consequent, we have lost the shooting bar and shoot without the right target and even hurt the innocent. This morning, I’ve heard similar attack on Chinese researchers who have been doing diligently with their studies and just because of their productive publications in SCI journals, those researchers out of sudden become the shooting target as “spy” “selling secret information to foreign countries”.