What Food-Related Racism Coronavirus

When the U.S. news media ramped up its coverage of coronavirus—a deadly virus with an unknown origin that causes respiratory problems—racist comments and jokes about Chinese food increased as well. People across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter began sharing out-of-context videos of Asian people eating animals that aren’t typically eaten in the West in an effort to link them to the outbreak. One video, which was quickly turned into racist memes, features a Chinese woman named Wang Mengyun eating a bat. Though the video was shot in Palau, an island in Micronesia, and the initial outbreak began in Wuhan, the Daily Mail called the video “revolting” and claimed it was linked in some way to coronavirus. Other prominent publications have also attempted to link coronavirus to Wuhan’s meat markets. The New York Times fixated on the “unusual fare,” such as hedgehods and snakes, that’s sold. The Guardian, on the other hand, wondered why Chinese people opt to follow familiar food habits instead of shopping at Walmart, providing disparaging descriptions of the markets while describing the Walmart as “sterile and clean.” And in an article for Foreign Policy, Justin Ling reported on a U.S.-born conspiracy theory that Chinese scientists engineered coronavirus as a form of bioterrorism. Though the theory is obviously false, right-wing politicians and writers are still spreading these racist ideas about Eastern cultures to garner the support and momentum needed to justify discriminatory policies. Claiming Chinese meat markets are connected to a disease that has resulted in the deaths of more than 600 people has real-life consequences for Asian people in the West: Business owners in Toronto’s Chinatown are experiencing an unusual quietude and loss of profits, and parents who live in Canadian cities with large Chinese populations circulated a petition to ban students who recently traveled to China from attending school. Chinese restaurants in the United Kingdom are reporting 50 percent less reservations and Asian people are being harassed by people who believe they’re carrying the coronavirus. A widely criticized Instagram post from the University of California, Berkeley’s health services office offered a graphic that listed fear and xenophobic behavior toward Asian students as a “common reaction” to coronavirus alongside “anxiety, worry, panic, and feeling helpless.” Xenophobic ideas about Asian people and the food we consume have been making the rounds on social media as racists capitalize on fear and stress of the unknown to mark Asian people as other, unclean, and dangerous. Edward Said’s 1978 book Orientalism posits that the West imagines the East as dirty, regressive, and dangerous in order to uphold itself as superior in comparison. As Jenny G. Zhang wrote in a recent article for Eater, “…fearmongering and callously using rhetoric that suggests that Chinese people…deserve this outbreak as some kind of payback for ‘barbarian’ customs is, at its core, blatant prejudice.” American cultural hegemony is reflected in the way Americans react to people eating foods they don’t find “socially permissible.” When many Asians were immigrating to America in the 1800s, the New York Times spread the idea that Chinese people eat ‘strange’ foods, including rats; now, videos of Asian people eating mice have been widely shared with racist comments as part of the current online discussion about coronavirus. “Throughout Asia, the practice of eating dog has been a locus point regarding generational differences, class mobility, and the seriousness of Western scrutiny,” writes Soleil Ho (a former Bitch contributor) in a 2018 article for Taste. “The truth is, those who embrace the practice have always been a minority.” Nineteenth century U.S. Senator James G. Blaine, an early supporter of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, was known to disparage Chinese food. When then-Philippines Governor General William Howard Taft wanted to introduce the Philippines to Americans in a way that justified U.S. imperialism and colonialism, he added a “Philippines Exposition” to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair that featured dog meat being grilled. This distorted display helped Americans justify the “civilizing effect” of America on the Philippines; of course, Taft went on to become U.S. president. Like clockwork, far-right lawmakers in Australia have begun questioning if Chinese immigrants should be temporarily banned from entering the country.