I talked to a Trump supporter and he could not understand all the fuss over why when Trump said 'Chinese virus', he did not understand why that was a big deal since COVID19 came from China. Many people in the dominant group do not understand how hurtful ethnic labels can be especially if that label is associated with something negative like disease. There are already a lot of negative stereotypes associated with Asians and Asian Americans so just adding 'Chinese virus' just adds fuel to the fire. Within US history, Chinatowns have been stereotyped as places infested with dirt, vermin and disease so when Asian Americans are referred to as Chinese virus, it just brings back 19th century negative stereotypes about Chinese immigrants of that time.
When politicians or people of power in the dominant group give negative labels to groups of people, their negative labeling have more impact because their position of power gives that politician more influence over how people think about minority groups like Asian Americans who are struggling to win respect in mainstream society.
Many people in the dominant group use labels that are hurtful to the minority groups like if you say 'Oriental' to Asians when Asian American is the more modern title. People react to how they are labelled and if you want people to react positively to your message, you cannot give people negative labels.Discourse is tied closely to social structure, so the messages communicated through the use of labels depend greatly on the social position of the speaker. If the speaker and listener are close friends, then the use of particular labels may not lead to distancing in the relationship or be offensive. But if the speaker and listener are strangers, then these same labels might invoke anger or close the lines of communication. Furthermore, if the speaker is in a position of power, then he or she has potentially an even greater impact. For example, when politicians use discourse that invokes racist, anti-Semitic, or other ideologies of intolerance, many people become concerned because of the influence they may have. (Nakayama, 282)
When President Trump referred to COVID19 as the Chinese virus, he angered many Asian Americans and also many other people started associating Asian Americans with COVID so when Asian Americans walked outside with a mask on, other people would say, "Go back to China and take your virus with you." It made me feel unsafe to walk outside sometimes when I would get dirty looks from absolute strangers as if I was the virus.
Interesting exercise for students is to have students go to Youtube and put in the search engine, Chinese virus, Asian Americans and you will get hits on a lot of videos of Asian Americans expressing their anger over Trump's use of 'Chinese virus'. Ask your students to listen to those videos and have them tell you why those Asian Americans do not like the usage of the words Chinese virus to refer to COVID19. Ask questions like: Why are Asian Americans angered at Trump's use of Chinese virus for COVID19? What reasons do Asian Americans give for being against the usage of the words Chinese virus? What advice do ASian Americans give to Trump? Did Trump's apology to Asian Americans come too late or do you think Asian Americans believe Trump was sincere when Trump apologized?
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