Viral Xenophobia
David Livingstone Smith

16 March 2020

As I write these words, the world is in the path of a mounting pandemic. People are frightened. They should be. The novel coronavirus is dangerous. It can and does kill. But its biologically menacing character is just one part of the threat that it poses. The virus also presents us with a social threat.

Viruses and other microscopic sources of disease are unobservable to the naked eye. And even though we nowadays understand the causes and nature of infection, thistheoretical知识并不总是像它应该的那样影响我们的行为。一种无形的、致命的威胁是不可思议的，它会暴露和加剧社会的裂痕，并很容易被种族主义和仇外的理论家利用。

The bubonic plague of the 14th century is a classic example. It entered Europe in 1347, and quickly swept across the continent, leaving a catastrophic death toll in its wake. As the plague advanced, terrified people looked for someone to blame for it. They turned to marginalized groups—the most vulnerable members of European society—especially the Jews. European Christians had been marinated in anti-Semitic beliefs for centuries.“The most vivid impression to be gained from medieval allusions to the Jew,” wrote historian Joshua Trachtenberg in his classictextThe Devil and the Jews, “is of a hatred so vast and abysmal, so intense, that it leaves one gasping for comprehension.”

在这种种族主义的环境下，一种基层阴谋论应运而生。据称，黑死病是一场旨在摧毁基督教文明的恐怖阴谋。犹太人和北非穆斯林密谋通过毒害基督徒的水源来消灭他们。受到这种荒谬想法的刺激，基督教暴徒袭击了犹太人社区，杀害了数千名男子、妇女和儿童，通常是将他们烧死。Christian chroniclers matter-of-factly remarked on the“horrible means by which the Jews wished to extinguish all of Christendom, through their poisons of frogs and spiders mixed into oil and cheese” and dispassionately concluded that “the Jews deserved to be swallowed up in the flames.” Those Jews who managed to escape death fled to Poland and surrounding areas, rendering great swathes of Western Europe what the Nazis would later callJudenrein—“洁净的犹太人”。

You may think that this example is little more than testimony to an ignorant and brutal past, and that recent history does not echo it. But many similar things have happened since 1347. In 1899, bubonic plague made landfall in Hawaii. It had spread from China, and the first victims were Chinese immigrants to Hawaii. At the time, the Chinese were a despised racial minority whose lives did not matter. American health authorities cordoned off the Chinese community of Honolulu, imprisoning ten thousand people in a death-trap whose perimeter was patrolled by guards armed with fixed bayonets. One White health authority remarked, “Plague lives and breeds in filth and when it got to Chinatown, it found its natural habitat.”

一年后，旧金山爆发了瘟疫。加州卫生当局认为它是一种“种族疾病”，因此不会对白人构成威胁。美国政府已经禁止中国人移民美国，而当旧金山爆发瘟疫时，中国人作为道德和身体感染媒介的形象已经确立。来自缅因州的共和党参议员詹姆斯·布莱恩(James Blaine)表示:“如果作为一个国家，我们有权阻止传染病的传播，如果我们有权阻止犯罪分子来到我们这里，那么我们当然也有权拒绝那些散发着不洁气息的移民，这些移民不可能来到我们这里，而不埋下道德和身体疾病、贫困和死亡的种子。”因此，为了保护白人免受这种可怕疾病的伤害，美籍华人受到了有辱人格的、有时甚至是暴力的对待。

These are just a few examples of an all-too-common pattern. During the Armenian genocide, militant Turks thought of Armenians as carriers of typhus who must be destroyed. And Nazi propaganda revivified the centuries-old trope of Jews as carriers of plague, describing the holocaust as an act of hygiene rather than as mass murder. Hitler explicitly associated Jews with the bubonic plague, writing inMein Kampf"这是一种瘟疫，精神上的瘟疫，比古代的黑死病更严重，人们被感染了"最近，艾滋病传染到了男同性恋者和海地人身上，2009年的猪流感被种族主义理论家归咎于“肮脏的”墨西哥人。

目前的健康危机也不例外。我们已经看到种族主义和仇外心理在起作用。特朗普总统将新冠病毒描述为“外国病毒”(好像病毒有国籍)，并荒谬地敦促我们需要在南部边境筑一堵墙，以遏制将病毒带到这里的移民。更糟糕的是，有报道称亚裔美国人被诋毁或被恶意攻击为该疾病的源头。关于吃亚洲食物或接触亚洲人后裔的警告已经渗透到社交媒体上，为种族主义火上浇油。在意大利，著名极右翼代表将病毒与来自非洲的庇护寻求者联系起来，敦促意大利关闭边境。德国、法国和西班牙也有类似的政治倾向，他们也利用病毒来达到邪恶的政治目的。年龄歧视也是这幅令人不安的图景的一个组成部分。老年人尤其容易受到病毒的感染，一些人指责他们是可有可无的，因为“反正他们很快就会死去”。

COVID-19是一种可怕的生物威胁，我们需要使用一切可能的手段来保护自己。但我们不应因此而忽视该病毒还构成的社会和政治威胁——它有能力揭露人性中某些最恶劣的方面，促使人们伤害我们当中一些最脆弱的人，并助长仇恨和偏执的力量。

Photo byFusion Medical AnimationonUnsplash

Comments(4)

Molina's picture

Molina

Wednesday, March 18, 2020 -- 11:45 PM

Here you find a few good

Here you find a few good reason why we have to practice self-awareness (1) You are responsible to know what others think (2) I’m not talking you believe that being different though you know. Sometimes it seems like staying silent is the wiser choice. You likely ruled what's mostly upsetting "I am a person worth loving and respecting,” you will start to believe it about yourself. Philosophy is our brainpower encourage people in the midst of their struggles rational humanism. A great spreading values if our students learn to be like Shakespeare, Joanna Mcay, Kristen Zambucka in fact over the years constraints both in psychological and our optimal choices. Most of our famous scientist Blaise Pascal and Daniel Bernoulli salvation you should multiply the two and choose the option that produces the highest number.Similarly, “cooling-off periods” between the filing and the issuance of a divorce decree have been found to reduce the divorce rate. The concept of identity leads to a contradiction the sense of having beliefs about afterlives and the meaning of death. And in the subject of the study of science which is astronomically small.Thus theoretical confirm they are tweaking invisible sometimes the notion of the multiple universe.There are many of us world constructed of light and driven by fantasy. The uniqueness of scientist Einstein's from inertial of our bodies is free from non-gravitational called in our spacetime.Philosophers are not the only ones interested in questions about life’s meaning. Another controversial topics of these explanations will ease your mind.Woman are biologically natural their discrimination produces in moral and intellectual effects profound that they appear to be corpus callosums our psychological differences.In most hypothalamic it's stain for our androgen receptor a nuclear in particular is less intense in young adult women than in men. There are at present question of virus may be determined of our preventive measures—like lifestyle changes—before you develop a serious condition.We performed a stereologic analysis organ or tissue counted cells can be verified at a later time point. If a doctor would tell you we can travel all over the country? what can be viral and other infections can be a problem.Always talk to your mind reasonable
will help you to understand significantly our risk for heart disease, cancer and lung disease. There are also defenses for certain types of virus ask about other choices. They can of considering our life in philosophy.In bleak hours we may suspect how we become that does justice to our inner lives. We do not in literal story it's already redemptive time and end of the world we are real in beauty and virtue as human beings. Everything is probably not the Son of the bitch! too much about who we might be. And it not just OK to be call like bully word out and raise your awareness."Do you guys wanna...?" Crowd would shout back you see that guy He is you."Ball" huh Yep that's my Jenny! I don't know if you can tell that everywhere you are No! it'ss fine. It’s fine. this 'fuckin’ dog blood now you guys know.What am I a great is the reason of our people he knew where nobody can figure it out. I'm not strong I have to beware committed to resistance.When I used cold water I was to recall of the last words of Christ I thirst! carefully propaganda philosophical coherence and sociopolitical effectiveness in the 17th century. The U.S. South became of the most significant uses of nonviolent protest to effect social change through the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Also that many assume that there is no reason of that "Coronavirus" with an evil of our conscience and true to God as for those who perpetuated.His holiness Pope Francis Jorge Bergolio forgiveness and the grace of shame and conversion. We will come up with actions that can stop the suffering of the people according to the Gospel.

Tim Smith's picture

Tim Smith

Thursday, March 26, 2020 -- 12:53 PM

Molina,

Molina,

这是你通过语言翻译打的吗?如果是这样的话……从什么语言，通过什么程序?

This is interesting if only for it's stylistic incoherence and where that style drops and is coherent... like... here.

"Philosophers are not the only ones interested in questions about life’s meaning."

In fact, if you drop all the sentences that aren't grammatical you get this...

"Sometimes it seems like staying silent is the wiser choice. Similarly, “cooling-off periods” between the filing and the issuance of a divorce decree have been found to reduce the divorce rate. Philosophers are not the only ones interested in questions about life’s meaning. It’s fine. We will come up with actions that can stop the suffering of the people according to the Gospel."

莫林主义是一种有趣的哲学，但当被仇恨监视时，它无法提供拯救。我向你保证，上帝不会指挥冠状病毒或大卫警告的反应。这些相同的反应在molinistic术语中多次被证明是正确的。在你语无伦次的插话中，你似乎倾向于这一点。

Practice what you coherently preach. Sometimes staying silent is the wiser choice. Take a cooling off period. Maybe, on the other hand, divorce is a good way to go for you? Certainly philosophy is not your thing. It is indeed fine. Molinize your gospel.

I wish you well. I too listen to the Pope. His words are coherent and consoling.

Peace be with you brother.

MJA's picture

MJA

Friday, March 20, 2020 -- 10:57 AM

I think is just nature

I think is just nature solving the global warming issue. She's finding here equilibrium. Have a look outside and check out how clean the air is getting. Nature is taking a much needed vacation from us and we all get the bill. Maybe we will learn a valuable lesson too. Be well, =

Tim Smith's picture

Tim Smith

Thursday, March 26, 2020 -- 11:59 AM

David,

David,

Thanks for writing this. I was not aware of some of this history. Not only that I have been thinking along these lines as well recently as yesterday they passed the historic stimulus bill in the U.S. Senate.

这件作品，这些时代…他们让我回想起911事件。然后是诺姆·乔姆斯基(我相信……但也有可能是别人)发表出来或接受采访时对这件事发出警告。当然，我们入侵了伊拉克。那时我还年轻，并没有真正把他的话当真。我现在长大了，能清楚地听到你的声音。

Thanks again for this and all your work here. As I am mindful of what you speak so too I am thankful for your words and company at this new found distance.

Best to all here.

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