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Nia Kaul

The Coronavirus Pandemic - Fault of Our Leaders, Or Our People Involved in it?

The Coronavirus pandemic is something that all people have had to face, no matter where they are from or what their identity is. It has inflicted extreme conflict upon many people's lives, and the majority of us have faced issues that have sparked up because of it.


Some more intense than others.


The United States of America is an extremely diverse country, with people coming from all sorts of ethnic or racial backgrounds. Although the country's name does have the word “United” in it, multiple cases of not so unifying acts of violence have been inflicted by human beings onto other people living in society.


It is no secret that there have been dehumanising cases of violence towards certain racial groups and ethnic minorities for decades now, however the recent Coronavirus pandemic seems to have shone a new light on this issue. This form of discrimination could be more commonly referred to as xenophobia, and since the pandemic, this word has been brought up more and more frequently in the news during the past few months.


What does this say about society and the leaders our very own people elect? Do they realise that some leaders are not as interested in the wellbeing of minorities of their country, rather their economic wellbeing and power, and are they willing to exist with this fact? What does it tell us about the preferences and laws that people wish to see in our very own government? How does this affect people who are actively being discriminated against? Does it inform people to make any kinds of change, or do we choose to turn a blind eye to what has a huge impact on the lives of so many?


Donald Trump, former president of the United States of America, was one of the main catalysts of this racism incited by COVID-19. He has publicly announced and addressed the pandemic as the “Chinese Virus,” which both implicitly and explicitly throws any blame onto the Asian minority instead of taking accountability for his faults of how he handled the pandemic. He did an atrocious job of instilling any effective regulations, resulting in many deaths that could have been prevented. Furthermore, by labelling the pandemic by just one specific country, it casts focus and assigns blame onto these Asian minorities, in particular for this case the Chinese minority, causing them to be discriminated against in society, both physically and economically.


This racist narrative can be observed in smaller scale situations in society, such as the unjust physical and verbal violence to East Asian minorities living in the US. People have been spat on, physically abused and discriminated against because of untruthful and unfair justifications that the pandemic is their fault. What these small-minded individuals fail to comprehend is that the leader of their own country, the one which they elected, failed to take any successful action to limit the virus and regulate gatherings which allowed it to spread further. What doesn’t make sense to me is these individuals are unable to follow such COVID-19 restrictions, and then they are upset that the pandemic is still ongoing and is affecting their day to day lives. What's more is that they take out this anger on Asian minorities who supposedly ‘caused the pandemic,’ who are now fearful to leave their house because of this violence.


One could go on and on and list all of the countless acts of violence, racism, and xenophobia towards these minorities, but what good would that be, if people continue to ignore it anyway and not do anything about it. This is a call for action. This is a call for people to wake up and realise what is going on around them, because sooner or later, this could become an irreversible issue that becomes so marginalised and common in society, that people who are affected will have to live in fear every day, just because of where they are from.


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