The Centers for Disease Control warned America Tuesday that coronavirus will likely hit our country hard. This news comes after weeks of the media telling us that the flu is worse than the virus.
Now that the virus is clearly a bigger threat than the flu, liberals have decided to worry about the spread of something far worse than a deadly disease. Racism.
Dozens of articles have appeared to denounce Westerners wanting to ban Chinese travel to their countries. To liberals (and Chinese officials), it’s unthinkable to keep out people who may carry the virus. In their opinion, the real tragedy would not be thousands of Westerners dying but rather giving up on globalism and mass immigration in response to a deadly global pandemic.
One easy response to the outbreak is to close the borders to Chinese nationals. Russia did this after the virus began to spread and it has only experienced two cases of the disease. Both of the coronavirus carriers were Chinese who now reportedly have recovered. Several other countries, including Australia and New Zealand, also have imposed travel bans on China. But Western journalists say the bans are a very bad idea.
The Guardian shrieks this response leads to “xenophobia and racism,” so we must avoid it.
The New Republic declares “racist, right-wing isolationism favored by the Trump administration is as bad an answer to the coronavirus as it is to the climate crisis.”
The Economist bemoaned how the coronavirus “spreads racism” and more should be done to combat these prejudices.
Leftists and Chinese activists in Australia and New Zealand have demanded those countries lift the ban. They say the ban is a “racial panic” and discriminates against the Chinese community. “While we recognise the need to prioritise public health and safety, this travel ban is an unreasonable and unempathetic response,” New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations president Isabella Lenihan-Ikin said in a press statement. “It fails to consider the impact on international students and staff travelling from or through China, in light of minimal public health risk.”
The experts say coronavirus is not a minimal public health risk and dramatic efforts must be deployed to stem it. But New Zealand leftists think it’s far worse to inconvenience international students.
Left-wing journalists seem more focused on how to stop the epidemic of racial stereotypes.
The Columbia Journalism Review lamented all the “racist tropes” fostered by coronavirus. The austere institution interviewed scholars who specialize in Chinese studies to advance their formulation of rules about how the media should cover the crisis. Chinese political communication scholar Maria Repnikova, who is not a health expert, said outlets shouldn’t even show Chinese people in their coverage.
“[T]he scene itself, without the people, would show the isolation and sadness and fear, without sparking so much racism,” she told CJR. CJR’s analysis also warned journalists to not speculate about whether Chinese dietary habits or inadequate hygiene led to the outbreak.
NBC News published an article about the way college students and professors are angry at their universities’ responses to coronavirus. No, it’s not because the schools are failing to contain the disease. The schools are apparently failing to contain racism.
“The proliferation of anti-Asian images and comments, in association with fears over coronavirus, show that while colleges and universities are sites of learning, they are also places where misinformation and racism can spread all too quickly,” University of Maryland professor Janelle Wong says.
Some American colleges easily could become disease epicenters due to the high number of students from affected areas. But the most important task facing the university is to ensure no student makes rude remarks.
The South China Morning Post, which is alleged to have ties to Chinese authorities, published an op-ed saying the Chinese should not be surprised by the alleged rise in racism. According to the op-ed, the West is inherently racist toward Chinese people. The proof is in the West’s travel bans of Chinese nationals. The op-ed also claims a Wall Street Journal column saying China is the “real sick man of Asia” is a sign of the West’s anti-Chinese racism. The column concludes that the West enjoys China’s suffering.
There are no really good arguments against a travel ban. There is no reason to bet on travelers from affected areas to be totally free of the virus. The only counterargument is that we must support open borders at all costs. The Left is more committed to this principle than to protecting their fellow countrymen.
Globalists think that open borders make the world a better and safer place. Coronavirus shows the exact opposite. Open borders can kill.
Western leaders need to learn this before it’s too late.