From: "Johnny Canuck" [Email him]

As I wrote in a much earlier letter, I live near Toronto’s original Chinatown. (Mass immigration has created a couple of others, but this is the downtown one.) Recently I've seen local Chinese people wearing facemasks, the kind that protect you from germs, and protect other people from your germs.

This is probably a good idea, but I suspect that if a white delivery driver or police officer working in Chinatown did it, it would be racist.

Certainly the Guardian would say so: despite including pictures of Chinese people wearing masks in Toronto to protect them from...germs carried by other Chinese people, they have a long article titled Canada's Chinese community faces racist abuse in wake of coronavirus,by Leyland Cecco, January 28, 2020.

The woman who Tweeted this has a point:

I'm not sure I would call this racism...China is where it started and folks are just scared of getting sick. Canada's Chinese community faces racist abuse in wake of coronavirus https://t.co/VsdZiJPJB0 — Rosie Punch (@RosiePunch) January 28, 2020

It's only called "racist" because the country of origin is, in Canada, an official minority.

"Johnny Canuck" was born in Canada so long ago that he remembers when the flag of Canada was the Union Jack.