Why Disease and Xenophobia Go Hand in Hand
The increasing speed of international travel enabled epidemics to spread, and made it easier to irrationally blame foreign groups.
A coffin ship circa 1850.
Photographer: Illustrated London News/Archive Photos/Getty Images
Pandemics have always been fellow travelers of globalization. A third phenomenon stalks in their shadow: racism.
That's worrying. The global threat of Covid-19 seems to be leading not to a unified global response, but to an American president who until Tuesday was describing it as a “Chinese virus” while officials in Beijing stirred up conspiracy theories on social media about a U.S. military origin for the disease. Already, stories are proliferating of people subject to abuse and attacks for “coughing while Asian,” or being turned away from businesses because of actual or presumed Chinese ethnicity.