5 Ways to Cure the Virus of Racism
“Implicit bias is a kind of distorting lens that’s a product of both the architecture of our brain and the disparities in our society.”
Yes.
Is calling the COVID-19 virus the “Chinese Flu” racism?
But before exploring why this might be, let’s define what racism is and what it isn’t.
Though we often use the words prejudice and racism interchangably, prejudice and racism are not the same. Prejudice is prejudging a person or a group before having knowledge about said person or group.
Though prejudice in its rawest form “judging before” is largely neutral, we commonly understand it to be judgement without knowledge through a negative lens.
In most cases, it’s a racial lens framed in stereotypes, ignorance, and hate.
Though racism is always rooted in prejudice, the act of being prejudiced isn’t always racist. It can be racially insensitive, racially unaware, but not necessarily racist. The best way to understand racism, is to use this simple formula:
Prejudice + Power = Racism
Racism is the the dynamic where prejudice is weaponized and creates destructive impact.
It is a weapon that influences systems, policies, and behavior.
It becomes institutional eg: American criminal justice system, national health/wealth disparities, countrywide education gaps, etc, then it becomes invisible.
As time passes, it’s taken for granted that this is just how things were meant to be.
When the President of the United States describes a viral pandemic as the “Chinese Flu” rather than by its clinical name, he is spreading the debilitating virus of racism from sea to shining sea.
Some People: “Come on, Julian! There are much more important things to focus on in the midst of this global health crisis other than a wayward sentence. Can we just move on, please?”
Me: “No. No we can’t.”
A major component of the American political, cultural, racial, polarization is our inability to hold two truths in tension without invalidating the other.
Truth 1: COVID-19 is a serious issue
Truth 2: Calling COVID-19 the “Chinese Virus” is a serious issue.
When we negate one truth to validate another it produces societal gridlock. Conversely, by validating both truths, we can better find solutions to solve meaningful problems. Let’s focus on eradicating COVID-19 while doing our best to cure the virus of racism along the way.
Part of curing the virus of racism is knowing that language matters. Racist language has always preceded racist actions, and by extension, racist systems.The language of racism is intended to vilify as well as dehumanize its target. It’s the reason that enslaved Africans were called coons, Sambos, Uncle, Auntie, Boy, Picka-Ninnies, Jigga-Boos, and Niggers.
It’s why Jews were called rats in Nazi Germany, the Tsuti were called dogs+cockroaches in Rwanda during the 100 days of slaughter, Native Americans were labeled savages+uncivilized, and Japanese Americans were referred to as Japs before being sent to internment camps in the United States.
It’s why Hispanics fleeing poverty, pain, and oppression are labeled “illegals”, why Mexican children are bullied amid “build the wall chants”, African Americans are being told to go back to Africa, and Asian Americans are being assaulted.
Language matters.
Michigan State professor, William A. Donohue calls the Identity Trap, “..where various linguistic conventions combine to establish a social context that builds up the speaker’s social identity while denigrating the ‘enemy’s’ social identity, which provides the rationale for escalating conflict against that enemy.”
Linguistic violence always precedes physical violence.
It makes an enemy of the “other” and morphs human beings into animals or property, rather than people. In its most extreme examples, the genesis of genocide derives from verbal sticks and stones that ultimately break bones.
Some People: “Come on, Julian! Didn’t it come from China? Let’s be accurate!”
Me: “Yes. I agree. Let’s be accurate.”
From all accounts, the virus did originate in China.
Let’s revist our “truths in tension” construct from earlier.
Truth 1: Covid-19 originated from China
Truth 2: Covid-19 is not the “Chinese Virus”
A virus has no race, color, gender, religion, creed, likes or dislikes.
A virus is just that, a virus.
This is the primary reason the World Health Organization instituted a formal naming process in 2015 to prevent labels that were “inaccurate or stigmatizing” in the words of then Director- General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
For those still not convinced, notice how negative associations are linked to some groups but not other groups.
To illustrate, we will again use language as our lens.
TERRORIST.
While reading that word, what images popped into your mind? If you think like many people, an image of bearded man (or men) from somewhere in the Middle East entered your brain.
He was angry, extremist, and dangerous.
But what if I told you that the leading perpetrator of terrorism in this country is not an angry man from the Middle East, but a Caucasian male from the United States?
Though that is statistically true, we don’t usually associate the evils of domestic terrorism with Caucasian Americans. We don’t call it “white crime” or call them “Caucasian killers.” There has never been any general association between terrorists and white people.
In fact, we often go out of the way to humanize them.
Words like “frustrated”, “lonely”, and “troubled” are used to describe these violent perpetrators.
The headline of 2015 New York Times story about Charleston, SC church shooter, Dylann Roof states, “Dylann Roof’s past reveals trouble at Home and School”.
Can you imagine if Dylann Roof was Black? Muslim? Undocumented?
But like Dylann Roof, these men are rarely if ever lumped into an out group, negative framing isn’t attached to those that look like them, and rationalizations are often given to explain their aberrant behavior.
Negative actions of certain groups are viewed as an exception.
Negative actions of other groups are viewed as the rule.
By putting “Chinese” on COVID-19, we spread a second virus in our pursuit to cure the first one.
It falsely equates Chinese people (and by association, anyone who “appears Asian”) with a deadly pandemic. Going down the path of racial stererotyping, racism, and xenophobia doesn’t help people.
It hurts people.
We can do better, and there is hope.
5 Suggestions to Help Us Cure the Virus of Racism:
Face Our Biases: What attracts? What repels? Who is a friend or foe?
Connect with the Common: Where is the common ground with those that might disagree with us?
Get into Community: What opportunities will be missed if we don’t grow through human connection?
Get Outside Your Cultural Comfort Zone: When did we last spend time beyond our ideological echo chamber?
Ask Better Questions: When have we authetically asked someone different than us about their human experience?
I’m not a doctor, a scientist, or an expert on viral pandemics.
I will leave the treatment of COVID-19 to the trained professionals.
But in relation to the virus of racism?
I think these principles are truly part of the antidote.
We can build a better world.
Let’s cure it.
Together.