Jonathan J. Mize's Blog: Jonathan's Political Analysis

The Oddity That is ‘Xenophobia’

To be completely fair, we don’t ever see Mexican people holding up signs saying “My ethnicity is not a food”; and we don’t ever see Irish people waving banners that say “My ethnicity is not a cute little leprechaun logo”, do we?

Of all the isms and phobias that the modern left stockpiles, “xenophobia” is likely the most subtle and perplexing one. All it means is “the fear of outsiders or foreigners”, but it has been transformed into a cover-all to use in any scenario in which international dynamics are discussed and debated.

The most recent example of the splattering of this lefty phobia is in connection with Trump’s calling of COVID-19 the “Chinese virus”. Somehow, referring to the geographic origin of a virus is now considered racist and “xenophobic”. This is complete and utter lunacy.

In response to the so-called injustice resulting from such “xenophobic” exploitation of people of Chinese or other Asian descent, we have the following recent article on Teen Vogue: “We’re Quaranteens Against Xenophobia, a Youth Coalition Standing Against Anti- Asian Sentiments”. This is propaganda at its finest. And it is directed towards the youth of America. Just take a look at the first couple of paragraphs:

Already-struggling businesses vandalized in Chinatowns across the United States. A racist tweet from a Brazilian politician claiming that COVID-19 is part of China’s “plan for world domination.” The homes of Japanese families in Germany, covered in broken raw eggs thrown by pedestrians.

These incidents are part of a long and growing list of anti-Asian xenophobia that has intensified since COVID-19 began to spread outside the borders of mainland China. This is a curve that needs to be flattened, too.

I think we need to remind these folks of the statistics. In 2018, out of the 328.2 million people in the United States, there were only 4,047 reported single-bias race/ethnicity hate crimes. This includes victims of all races. And a large majority of these cases, no doubt, involved other minorities than Asians. That’s just the facts.

Look, we’re not hating on Asian citizens; we’re simply trying to keep things in context here.
I have no doubt that various incidents have occurred against Asian Americans due to COVID-19’s origin, but I realize that—in terms of all the current problems in America, from urban poverty to teen pregnancy—we have far more pressing things to worry about.