Combating Anti-Asian Sentiment — A Practical Guide for Clinicians [nejm.org]

By James H. Lee, New England Journal of Medicine, June 24, 2021

Since March 2020, Asian Americans have experienced an alarming increase in racial discrimination and racially motivated violence. Commentators have attributed this distressing fact to the blame placed on China for causing the Covid-19 pandemic, given that the virus was initially discovered in Wuhan. Some top U.S. government officials perpetuated this attitude by referring to Covid-19 as the “China Virus” and “Kung Flu.” Because non-Asian people in the United States often conflate Asian subgroups, many people have directed their anti-Chinese sentiment toward people of other Asian heritage. Violence against Asian Americans has persisted at high rates throughout the pandemic, most recently involving the shootings of multiple women, leading to their deaths.

But anti-Asian racism is not limited to the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2003 SARS outbreak was similarly racialized, with Asian-American people depicted as uniquely potent vectors. Indeed, the United States has a long history of anti-Asian racism grounded in xenophobia, even during periods without a new infectious disease burden; such racism affects every age group and plays out across myriad settings. This discrimination has escalated in the face of the continued racialization of Covid-19. Over the past 12 months, 31% of Asian-American people have reported being subjected to slurs or racist jokes, 26% have feared that someone might threaten or physically attack them, and 58% believe that anti-Asian racism has increased since the beginning of the pandemic.

The current growing antiracism movement in the United States has largely centered on anti-Blackness, which has been recognized as embedded in institutions such as law enforcement, the prison–industrial complex, and the health care system. Some scholars theorize that race and racism in the United States operate along a Black/White binary, so that non-Black people of color and the racism they experience are perceived in relation to Blackness and anti-Blackness.

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