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Opinion | Chinese who cry racial abuse amid the coronavirus epidemic forget they are as bad as the rest of us
- We’re all racists, it’s just a matter of degree. If The Wall Street Journal’s ‘Sick Man of Asia’ headline was racist, was it more offensive than the CCTV variety show featuring blackface? Unlike China, at least the US admits it has a problem
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Racism is everywhere. Either get over it or get out of the place where you are being targeted. Fight it, if you want, but moaning about it doesn’t help. Some Chinese in the United States and Europe are telling of racial abuse because the coronavirus, which causes the disease known as Covid-19, originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
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Whenever people tell me about their own experiences of racism, I always ask if they themselves have ever used racial slurs. I know I have. We’re all racists. It’s a matter of degree. Those who say they don’t have a racist bone in their body are not being honest.
I know exactly what the Chinese are going through now. I sympathise because I went through the same thing after the September 11 terror attacks. I was working in the US at the time. The day after the attacks, I had a lunch appointment.
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People – yes, including Chinese – gave me dirty looks even though I am ethnically Indian and my parents were Hindus. But who could tell between Arabs and Indians, or Muslims and Hindus? (Likewise, who can tell between Taiwanese, Hongkongers and even Singaporeans these days?)
Some white teenagers I passed on the way to lunch called me a terrorist. A suspicious Chinese grocery store owner followed me as I shopped. Brown-skinned people with so-called Middle Eastern features were often singled out for questioning when boarding planes. I stared back at those who stared at me. As an American who believes in the values of my adopted country, I stood tall and endured those dark days, knowing they would pass. And they did.
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