Facing a torrent of criticism for his clumsy handling — and initial denial — of the coronavirus threat in America, U.S. President Donald Trump tried again this week to make the pandemic political.

“The United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus. We will be stronger than ever before!” he tweeted Monday.

It’s rhetoric that echoes what we’ve seen around the world as people have blamed those of Chinese descent, as a bloc, for COVID-19.

Honestly, if you want to take a jab at Beijing, leave ordinary people out of it. Call it the “Virus that the Chinese Communist Party tried to cover up,” if you must. Or try, “Xi Jinping Virus.”

Before the politicians joined in, Asians were already being ridiculed, harassed and even physically attacked as coronavirus fears spread globally.

When news of the virus began surfacing, there were the typical kind of comments you see online: The mocking of East Asians for “overreacting,” with their masks, with their “social distancing.”

It was all over my personal social media feeds, from people I counted as friends.

Fast-forward a few weeks, and that mockery is gone.

Self-satisfied online ribbing had blithely ignored the fact that people in Asia have traumatic memories of living through the SARS outbreak in 2003.

Most people who haven’t visited extremely crowded cities simply don’t appreciate that it’s exponentially harder in any Asian megalopolis to stay the recommended one to two metres away from other souls.

It’s just one facet of the racism that we’ve seen during this rising pandemic.

Since the coronavirus first spread in Wuhan, a city in central China, waves of xenophobic and racist attacks have happened all over the globe. In Ontario, a family doctor said her young son was cornered at school by bullies who wanted to “test” him for coronavirus because he is half-Chinese.

There were countless online comments from Canadians targeting various people of Asian descent, some of whom have never stepped foot in China or spoken a word of Chinese.

When people are using an epidemic as an excuse to spew hate, it doesn’t matter what your ethnicity actually is. It certainly doesn’t matter if you are a Canadian citizen. If you appear remotely Chinese, you could be a target.

Earlier this month, 23-year-old Singaporean student Jonathan Mok’s face was left bloody and bruised beyond recognition after an attack by a small mob in a busy shopping area in London.

“I’ve always believed that racism was grounded in stupidity — that people who actually believed one’s ‘racial group’ or ‘nationality’ defines an individual must surely be so ignorant that they deserve my pity,” Mok wrote in a Facebook post following the attack.

“But I realise today that to say so, is not only being kind to racists, but also gives them an excuse. Racism is not stupidity — racism is hate,” he added.

I’ve been called “chink” and other racial slurs on Vancouver streets in the past, but what I’m more anxious about these days is someone targeting one of my family members during a time of heightened emotions.

I know I am not alone in wondering if the brazen violence against people of East Asian descent will happen in Canada, too. It’s not as if physical attacks haven’t happened here in the past.

I think some Asians are downplaying our concerns about ongoing racism and xenophobia, partly out of fear of further backlash — and partly because that’s the cultural norm.

Many of us have internalized the “model minority” myth. If we don’t cause trouble or drama, maybe we will get treated better than other minorities.

After putting up with callous mocking for “over-reacting,” many Asian-Canadians have been classy enough to refrain from saying, “told you so.”

Publications such as the New York Times are running glowing articles about how Asian places like Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have successfully contained the coronavirus without resorting to mainland China’s draconian mass quarantine measures.

I’ve spoken with many social scientists, and all agree that if people in communities truly trust and respect one another and come together in solidarity, it is much more likely that coronavirus policies will actually save lives.

Here is what some people of Asian descent in Canada, the U.S. and London want you to consider:

Jessie Lau, 27, journalist in London, originally from Hong Kong

“In London, the people doing the violent attacks are usually teenagers. I think that there have always been gangs of youths participating in mugging and harassing people. But the coronavirus presents an opportunity that emboldens violent actions and racializes them. So they are racially motivated because in these attacks they specifically shout coronavirus-related words.

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When I was reporting, a man from Liverpool, born-and-raised, told me he went to his local shop to buy groceries and was heckled by youth, shouting at him: ‘Coronavirus! Chink!’

They followed him back to his car, where his wife and children were waiting, and threw eggs at the vehicle, so he had to exit the car and chase them away.

These incidents are happening amid rising right-wing, anti-immigration and anti-people-of-colour sentiment. The political changes in the U.K. are coming together with coronavirus fears.

They feel that you are Chinese, and ‘You are not a part of us. You’re the problem.’

Meanwhile, analysts in the U.K. are saying that even if the government implements a lockdown, it would be hard to enforce because people aren’t used to a quarantine situation.

In Asia, it’s completely different, and in Hong Kong, after we lived through SARS, people would think it’s weird if you refuse to self-isolate. People are just so aware of infectious diseases and what to do.

The people in London who were making fun of some people in Asia for stockpiling toilet paper are honestly also panic-buying now. I went to look for toilet paper in my local shop and it was all gone. I think it’s very hypocritical.

Panic is not an Asian thing. It’s a human thing.”

Rui Zhong, 28, program associate at the Wilson Centre in Washington, D.C., originally from Wuhan

“I think the idea of considering some behaviour like wearing masks as ‘foreign’ is something that’s second nature to North American and European culture. When the coronavirus was localized to China and Wuhan, there was definitely a sense of exotification of the virus. The instinct was to isolate it to Chinese peoples’ eating habits, designating Chinese people as deserving misfortune because of the government they have, and so on. The well-being of Asian and Asian diaspora people was never really a high priority.

So when communities began feeling the constrictions and complications of COVID-19 more broadly, stigmatizing of Asians continued and the problem wasn’t prioritized as an issue. When groups that pay attention to racial justice highlighted coronavirus-related xenophobia in America, many people still shrugged off the idea that harm to Asians and Asian Americans is a domestic problem.

I do want to say that Southeast Asian people have also been hit pretty hard, with Hong Kong attempting to keep domestic workers home with their employers and cutting their time off. Likewise, Asian service industry workers in the West, which skew lower-income Chinese and Southeast Asians, will be hard hit by xenophobia and material losses in the crisis to come in the U.S., Canada and Europe.”

Kevin Huang, 34, director of the Hua Foundation in Vancouver, family originally from Taiwan

“The xenophobia and racism that we are seeing and experiencing falls in line with the trope of disease-ridden hordes of Chinese coming over to North America. Such racist rhetoric in the past contributed to the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese immigration to Canada and to the United States.

By singling out Chinese as the ‘source’ of the disease and linking it to specific cultural and societal practices, it is a way of othering Chinese people. This othering licenses the xenophobic and racist acts — in the past and to this day. It also dehumanizes Chinese as lesser and not worth our care — whether it be health care, or other forms of care, such as emotional and social support in our society.

Even in places like Vancouver, where there is a long history of Chinese settlers being present, we have not moved past our anti-Chinese sentiments. The reactions and public commentary judging the ‘overreaction’ of Asians that are a part of our communities is telling. There’s not a lot of consideration in borderline xenophobic English discourse around how cultural practices informs behaviours, how class impacts behaviours (we need to break away from the idea that all Asians are wealthy), and how the experience of SARS — that impacted Asia more than in North America — has forever changed community responses to disease outbreaks.

Who sets the definition of norms and acceptable behaviours, and by extension, what is ‘weird,’ ‘overreacting,’ and ‘bad?’

English discourse was still mostly focused on what the Asians in our communities were doing, which I see as a form of surveillance and exoticism voyeurism. This is nothing new: Surveillance, policing, discriminatory regulations are all forms of control over those who are ‘others’ (people of colour and Indigenous). This includes critiquing, making fun of, or placement judging on those different than those in the hegemony and with power.

I’m more curious as to once this COVID-19 health crisis is over, whether we — here in the West — will change our perception of Asia and look to societies there as equal, or perhaps for once, look to them as global leaders in some regard.”

Interviews have been edited for clarity and length.

Joanna Chiu is a Vancouver-based reporter covering both Canada-China relations and current affairs on the West Coast for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @joannachiu

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