Police
Even in a pandemic, cops are still, inexcusably, cops.
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan, “Meet the African-American Doctor Who Tests the Homeless for COVID-19. He was Handcuffed by Miami Police,” Democracy Now, April 16, 2020, https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/16/meet_the_african_american_doctor_who
Pandemic
The Telegraph is much too diplomatic with China and with Donald Trump. No one believed the earlier numbers from Wuhan; even if China is now being fully transparent, which I assume no one believes, the data issues[1] that plague other places also plague China.[2] And Trump’s “plan” has no force.[3]
When I caught a Lyft to retrieve my car yesterday, my driver and I were both speaking through masks. Probably neither of us understood the other well. But he was saying something about there not being “very many Chinese” someplace—I presume either the apartment complex where I live or near my mechanic—mostly whites and African-Americans (the latter term is the one he used; I avoid it because some Blacks, especially from the Caribbean, choose other ways of identifying themselves—it’s actually best to ask folks how they self-identify).
It’s a problem I haven’t thought about much. I have heard about bigotry against but haven’t really myself even considered blaming people of Chinese origin for the coronavirus in part because China is a huge country. There are an awful lot of people who weren’t anywhere near Wuhan, including some here in the U.S., and so had absolutely nothing to do with the particular wet markets that are generally blamed for providing this virus a bridge from non-human to human animals. And when it comes to non-human to human animal bridges, the Chinese are very, very far from alone.[4] This is by no means a vegan world and this is yet one more reason it needs to be.
But I’m guessing that such bigotry lies behind that driver’s choice of topic (which probably violates Lyft’s rules).
Natasha Lindstrom, “Gov. Wolf: No specific date for ending covid-19 shutdown, getting ‘back to life as we once knew it,’” TribLive, April 16, 2020, https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/gov-wolf-no-specific-date-for-ending-covid-19-shutdown-getting-back-to-life-as-we-once-knew-it/
Ben Riley-Smith, “Donald Trump launches plan to ‘open up America again’ after coronavirus lockdown,” Telegraph, April 17, 2020, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/16/donald-trump-launches-plan-open-america-coronavirus-lockdown/
Sophia Yan, “China adds nearly 1,300 coronavirus deaths to official Wuhan toll, blaming reporting delays,” Telegraph, April 17, 2020, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/17/china-adds-nearly-1300-coronavirus-deaths-official-wuhan-toll/
- [1]David Benfell, “When ‘good’ news might not be so good,” Not Housebroken, April 2, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/04/02/when-good-news-might-not-be-so-good/; Emma Brown, Beth Reinhard, and Aaron C. Davis, “Coronavirus death toll: Americans are almost certainly dying of covid-19 but being left out of the official count,” Washington Post, April 5, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/coronavirus-death-toll-americans-are-almost-certainly-dying-of-covid-19-but-being-left-out-of-the-official-count/2020/04/05/71d67982-747e-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html; Jennifer Levitz, Mike Cherney, and Daniel Michaels, “U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Passes Italy, Becoming World’s Highest,” Wall Street Journal, April 11, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/health-officials-plead-for-public-to-observe-a-locked-down-easter-11586592822; Yascha Mounk, “This Is Just the Beginning,” Atlantic, March 25, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/national-shutdown-least-bad-option/608683/; Wall Street Journal, “Testing for Coronavirus: What We Know About Covid-19 Tests and Treatment,” April 14, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-has-covid-19-what-we-know-about-tests-for-the-new-coronavirus-11585868185↩
- [2]Sophia Yan, “China adds nearly 1,300 coronavirus deaths to official Wuhan toll, blaming reporting delays,” Telegraph, April 17, 2020, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/17/china-adds-nearly-1300-coronavirus-deaths-official-wuhan-toll/↩
- [3]Ben Riley-Smith, “Donald Trump launches plan to ‘open up America again’ after coronavirus lockdown,” Telegraph, April 17, 2020, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/16/donald-trump-launches-plan-open-america-coronavirus-lockdown/↩
- [4]Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).↩