Pandemics in an age of political correctness

By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel

CHULA VISTA, California — It is purported the Chinese have a saying: May you live in interesting times.” Although it sounds like something you would expect to hear from Confucius, there is no source in Chinese literature that confirms the origin of this statement. Yet it seems to describe a people who seem to move from one crisis after another.

Yes, regardless of its origin—we are living in interesting times.  This is especially evident when we examine the political arena.

When President Trump referred to the coronavirus, he referred to it several times as “the Chinese Virus.” This led to a barrage of criticisms claiming the President was stigmatizing Chinese Americans and other Asian ethnicities in this country.

Looking at the comment, I thought it reaffirmed Rahm Emanuel’s cynical remark: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Actually, it was not Emanuel who originated this remark, it was Winston Churchill who first said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” When seen through the lens of realpolitik, Nancy Pelosi’s and Joe Biden’s accusation that Trump is a racist is clever—especially in an election year.

Asian Americans in particular have long felt uneasy about their Asian status as perpetual foreigners, endowed with an “outsider status.” As Jews, it is easy for us to relate to many of the negative stereotypes Asian Americans have endured. In communities across the United States, there is a genuine fear that the Chinese living among them need to be quarantined. They are blamed for the pandemic that originated in Wuhan, China. They are singled out—regardless whether the Chinese students living among them have been to China or not. As one critic expressed why we should refer to it as “COVID-19.”

• This is not a ‘Wuhan Virus,’ ‘Chinese Virus’ or ‘Asian Virus,’” it said. “The official name for the disease was deliberately chosen to avoid stigmatization – the ‘co’ stands for Corona, ‘vi’ for virus and ‘d’ for disease, 19 is because the disease emerged in 2019.

The argument goes that this type of conflation between a place and an ethnicity can lead to the racist harassment of people who are perceived to be linked to disease. It also creates the illusion that they are safe because the disease affects the Other.

I get it.

As one friend of mine put it, “How would we like it if someone spoke about the “Jewish Virus?”

But we are living in interesting times; people have to be super sensitive not to say anything that may sound racist or come across as intolerant. This can be seen in other areas of our lives, e.g., comedy. It is significant that Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Dennis Miller, and many others speak about the “death of comedy” that our politically correct culture is promoting. But that is for another topic of discussion.

Naming pandemics after places is actually quite common.

One of the deadliest flu viruses that killed over 50 million people worldwide between 1918-1919 is known as the Spanish Flu. Nobody knows to this day where it originated, but since the Spanish media were the first to bring it to the world’s attention, and the fact the Spanish king contracted it—the name stuck.  On the other hand, the Spanish used to call it the “The French Flu.”

By today’s standards of political correctness that would be the equivalent to blaming the French!

This is pure silliness.

Just because we called it the Spanish flu did not necessarily mean that people across Europe hated the Spaniards because they remained neutral during World War I. No, nobody hated Spaniards. Nor is there any evidence that the names of any of the other diseases inspired “racism or xenophobia” toward races or ethnicities commonly identified with such regions.

Here is how other diseases were named through recent history:  Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS):  A coronavirus outbreak, first reported in Saudi Arabia, in 2012-13; Ebola: a rare and deadly disease named for a river in Zaire, now DRC, in the 1970s. Guinea Worm: Known for centuries under various names, but named for the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa in the 17th century. West Nile virus: A mosquito-borne virus, named for West Nile region of Uganda where it was first isolated in the 1930s. German Measles: Rubella, named not for its origin, but because German physicians were first to identify it in the 19th century. Note that nobody blamed the Germans for introducing this disease. Marburg virus: An Ebola-type hemorrhagic virus named for a town in Germany where an outbreak occurred in a lab in the 1960s. Lassa fever:  A hemorrhagic fever named for a town in Nigeria where it was identified in the 1960s. Hantavirus:  Linked to rodents, some strains can be lethal to humans. Named for the Hantan river in South Korea, where it was isolated in the 1970s.

And the list goes on.

When you look at from this perspective, calling COVID-19 “Chinese Coronavirus” is factually accurate. It originated in China. I suspect the Chinese government is doing its best to change the name of the pandemic for an altogether different but political reason.

Simply put, it is not the Chinese people who are at fault here; nor are the descendants of Asian Americans to blame for the virus. But China’s Communist Party rulers are the ones who are really to blame. Since its outbreak, the Communist Party did its best to cover their tracks. They acted totally irresponsibly in allowing thousands of Chinese nationals to travel throughout the world while obscuring the potential consequences. The Communist Party of China alone are the ones to blame.

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too political correctness exists only in the eye of the beholder.  Wikipedia reportedly is debating whether to rename the Spanish Flu to the “1918 Influenza Pandemic,” a clear reaction to the Chinese Virus/Coronavirus argument.

We need to stop the correctness. Nobody is singling out the Asian people—except for those politicians who wish to take advantage of an opportunity to attack the President.

We would be far wiser to stay focused on ending the pandemic.

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Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista.  He may be contacted via michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com