The coronavirus has spread across the globe to the point where it was declared a pandemic, but coronavirus isn’t the only thing that has spread through the US, a wave of racism has as well. 

Before the virus had started rapidly spreading through the country, I started to see many videos in which an Asian American person received racist comments, was beat up, or was refused service because of the misconception that all Asian Americans have the coronavirus.  In one instance, an Asian woman got beat up in a subway station for wearing a facemask.

The attacks kept coming, I have seen so many people post things on their snapchat stories that said things like “Chinese people are nasty as hell,” and I have seen and heard the term “Kung Flu,” which is now a racial slur, way more times than I have wanted.  On top of that, President Trump keeps calling the coronavirus “the Chinese virus”. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and prevention) has literally said that it is inappropriate to call it that. There was also a speculation that the first case was caused by bat soup.  This was confirmed to be false by the CDC. How the first case got sick is still a mystery. 

Being someone who is part Chinese, this was pretty disheartening.  I found it sad that in a time of crisis that affects literally everyone, people were still choosing to hate.

There is no doubt that these are tough times.  But let’s be real for a moment, everyone is in this together.  Coronavirus doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter what race you are, anyone can catch it.  So please, let’s be better than this. Right now isn’t the time to blame anyone for this pandemic.  Right now is a time to be responsible and make sure that everyone is all right, whether it’s young people helping shop for senior citizens or Americans stopping committing anti-asian hate crimes to their fellow Americans, we need to do as much as possible to have one moment of togetherness.  The last thing we need right now is to find a way to ostracize fellow human beings.