With the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, many people have been quick to expose their suppressed prejudices against the Chinese.
While there has always been a quiet disgust of Asian lifestyles and eating habits from the West, the coronavirus has provided an outlet for these prejudices to make themselves known.
The coronavirus began in Wuhan, China, from a food market that sells many exotic foods, including snakes and crocodiles. Though the source of the virus has not been confirmed, people are blaming the Chinese and the stereotype that they’re “willing to eat anything” for the coronavirus.
This stereotype has already caused a lot of harm to Chinese. They are called “dirty” or “savage” for food that certain Chinese ethnicities eat. Chinese restaurant owners have been harassed with dead animals, and it’s dismissed as a joke.
With the coronavirus, people seem to think that these ideas have found a source. They say that it’s the ridiculous Chinese diet and dirty lifestyle that has caused this deadly disease.
Since the outbreak, there have been many incidents of harassment against Chinese around the world. People use their social media platforms to say that the Chinese deserve it because they eat cats and dogs. The University of California Berkeley Health Services made an Instagram post saying that feeling anti-Asian sentiments was a normal reaction to the coronavirus outbreak.
If there was an outbreak of a disease in a western country, the world would not have reacted this way. Even with the outbreak in China, everybody is still focused on what will happen to the western countries.