T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y
The Chronicle
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The virulence of xenophobia
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n January 23, the RDU airport authority was told that a passenger flying in from JFK had been in Wuhan. They contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about potential exposure to the novel
Nevertheless, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made extraordinary efforts to limit the outbreak, including the construction of two hospitals in Wuhan and a mask-making factory in Beijing within a week. Despite these efforts, mainstream U.S. media have
when it’s cool but discard it when it’s undesirable. This is insulting to the Chinese and Asian families separated from their loved ones and deeply concerned for their safety and wellbeing, especially during Lunar New Year when family is invaluable.
weaponized the outbreak and government response to smear the CCP as repressive and authoritarian. As a result, the distinctions between the physical body and the political body are blurred, and the virus becomes essentialized in and synonymous with the Chinese body and the Asian body. This specifically recalls the fearful narrative of the Yellow Peril, a chronic anxiety about how the yellow people of East Asia pose a significant threat against Western power. Against the advice of global health experts, the U.S. enacted a ban on Chinese travelers that could do more harm than good. This gave a legal green light on racist discrimination as evidenced on social media—clips have been circulating in which Chinese people and their culinary practices are called “gross,” “unclean,” and even deserving of the virus. In Sydney’s Chinatown, a 60-year-old man died from a heart attack, in part because bystanders did not give him CPR for fear of the coronavirus. This is not the first time we’ve seen the conflation of diseased bodies with political bodies—HIV/AIDS and Ebola were also racialized diseases that resulted in calls for travel bans. Altogether, these travel bans have historically been unsuccessful and reinforce the xenophobic perspective of immigrants and foreigners as dirty and contaminated, threatening the sanctity of the U.S. Internally, some people in the Asian and Chinese diaspora have distanced themselves from their home countries by using some variation of “I haven’t been to China in a long time.” Perhaps this is due to internalized racism and the precarious balancing act between the Model Minority and the Yellow Peril. Regardless, there seems to be a convenient choice: flaunt your culture
For Duke, the COVID-19 outbreak has been relevant due to the relationship with Duke Kunshan University. Rather than practicing empathy for the disruption in learning and life for fellow students, students have exploited the viral outbreak as opinion fodder to concoct a reactionary, fear-mongering column steeped in Orientalism and Sinophobia. This adds to the rich history of anti-Asian racism at Duke, from Kappa Sigma’s Asia Prime party to the biostatistics department scandal, all of which rely on despicable stereotypes about China and East Asia at large. Given the escalating panic regarding COVID-19, it is laughable to realize that in the U.S., you are actually more likely to die from the flu than from COVID-19. This season has seen more than 180,000 flu-related hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. Because the flu comes every year, it rarely receives the attention of emerging bugs like COVID-19, even though COVID-19 seems to be a more extreme case of the flu. In both cases, most healthy individuals make full recoveries and seem unlikely to develop a serious illness while fatalities are frequently concentrated in vulnerable populations such as those with weakened immune systems. This all speaks to the importance of media literacy and paramount need to maintain a critical lens in order to minimize unnecessary and misinformed fear and panic not only regarding public health, but also Sinophobia and racism. Rather than spending our time on dismissive, divisive memes, we cannot stress enough the necessity of practicing basic hand and respiratory hygiene, getting a (FREE) flu shot and exercising empathy instead.
community editorial board coronavirus. By January 25, the CDC confirmed that the patient tested negative for coronavirus. Not a single virus, “coronavirus” actually refers to a large family of viruses that can be transmitted from animals to humans. This new strain, COVID-19, was first reported in Wuhan, China at the end of December. Since then, at least 1,113 people have died and about 45,000 have been infected in China as of this past Tuesday. While it quickly received massive attention as a global health emergency and deaths by COVID-19 have now exceeded those from the SARS outbreak in 2003, it still has a very low fatality rate: less than 3%. With a population of more than one billion people, China has been short on supplies and delayed in running tests for COVID-19.
hot take of the week “Injunction-junction, what’s your function...” —Nathan Luzum, Managing Editor, on February 12, 2020
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chronicleletters@duke.edu Letter: Show some gratitude for Duke
ear fellow Duke students, I love our University, so there are few things that bother me more than hearing
prestigious institution and enjoy what will hopefully be some of the four most memorable years of our lives. Yes, we will have to work hard, and yes, there will be
letter TO THE EDITOR
my fellow students complain about what I like to refer to as ‘first world problems.’ We, as students of this amazing university, should be thankful for all the opportunities present in this place and the doors that they open to our future. Let me keep it quick. There are many children in the world that literally dream of attending college someday, but many never even get past middle school before they have to start working to help maintain their families. On the other hand, not only are we fortunate enough to go to a college; we are blessed to go to Duke University, one of the premier academic institutions in the world. It is no secret that coming to Duke can be expensive and is a financial burden to many. But Duke is a place where it doesn’t matter whether you pay full tuition and housing, or don’t pay a single cent to be here; we have all come here to learn. Generous donors, the Duke Endowment, and tuition-paying families are selflessly making it possible for all of us to seamlessly attend this
things we don’t like. But in the grand scheme of things, shouldn’t we be thankful that we can have a tuna poke bowl for lunch or a ribeye for dinner? When faced with the question about whether Duke should ask us for money or not with initiatives like the Senior Giving Challenge, I acknowledge that it is an individual choice. Some people would like to donate but don’t have the financial means to do so. Others have the means but simply don’t want to. And that’s fine. Sometimes I think it is necessary for us to take a step back, take a look around and realize how fortunate we are to be here and have so many resources at our disposal. As the famous Cinderella song goes: “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
Roberto Miselem is a Pratt senior.