The New York Times invariably provides guilty liberal spin to any crisis, including the coronavirus pandemic. Tuesday’s front page featured “Spit On, Yelled At, Attacked: Chinese-Americans Fear for Their Safety -- As bigots blame them for the coronavirus and President Trump labels it the ‘Chinese virus’ many Chinese-Americans say they are terrified of what could come next.”
Reporters Sabrina Tavernise and Richard Oppel Jr. led off with an awful anecdote about a Chinese-American woman being screamed at and spat on
As the coronavirus upends American life, Chinese-Americans face a double threat. Not only are they grappling like everyone else with how to avoid the virus itself, they are also contending with growing racism in the form of verbal and physical attacks. Other Asian-Americans -- with families from Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar and other places -- are facing threats, too, lumped together with Chinese-Americans by a bigotry that does not know the difference.
The Times is always on the lookout for vague and anecdotal instances of bigotry among Americans in times of national crisis (click “expand,” emphasis added):
In interviews over the past week, nearly two dozen Asian-Americans across the country said they were afraid -- to go grocery shopping, to travel alone on subways or buses, to let their children go outside. Many described being yelled at in public -- a sudden spasm of hate that is reminiscent of the kind faced by American Muslims and other Arabs and South Asians after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But unlike in 2001, when President George W. Bush urged tolerance of American Muslims, this time President Trump is using language that Asian-Americans say is inciting racist attacks.
Mr. Trump and his Republican allies are intent on calling the coronavirus “the Chinese virus,” rejecting the World Health Organization’s guidance against using geographic locations when naming illnesses, since past names have provoked a backlash.
(....)
Mr. Du said he posted on Facebook that “this is the darkest day in my 20-plus years of life in the United States,” referring to Mr. Trump’s doubling down on use of the term.
While no firm numbers exist yet, Asian-American advocacy groups and researchers say there has been a surge of verbal and physical assaults reported in newspapers and to tip lines.
A Tuesday editorial also lectured in an attempt to limit the spread of the fact that the virus originated in China: “Call It ‘Coronavirus’” (emphasis added):
Here we are in 2020, with Asians being assailed across the United States and around the world as purported sources of the “Chinese flu,” the “Wuhan coronavirus” or simply the “foreign virus.” Once again, a mysterious, fast-spreading and sometimes lethal disease is exacerbating racism and hatred....it is possible to hold the Chinese government accountable for its handling of the crisis and its spread of misinformation without maligning a nation of more than 1.3 billion people or the people of Chinese decent [sic] who make their homes in nations around the world.
A shame The Times can’t grasp the difference either.
