Alleged Anti-Asian Incidents Allegedly Related To Wuhan Coronavirus: Still Not A Sufficient Defense Of Political Correctness
Of course many such reports are always made up and/or exaggerated, either by the people allegedly involved, or by the invariably-progressive and commonly-activist reporters, or both.
Furthermore, we don't know what the background rate of such incidents is.
Furtherfurthermore, it's a big country, and we can be sure that the background rate is not 0.
And, of course: of the subset of these incidents that might be caused by something about the pandemic, it's unlikely that it's informal names for the thing that are responsible. Rather: it's the fact that the virus is from China. Contrary to the PC obsession with the anti-rectification of names: it's the facts, stupid. No amount of political correctness will alter those facts. Though concealing and obscuring facts is the aim of PC.
I'm not a fan of calling it 'the Chinese virus', preferring its (informally) proper, natural, original and optimally-informative name: 'Wuhan coronavirus' or 'Wuhan virus.' Even 'Wuhan flu' is fine--I expect that's what we'll all settle on because it's nice and short and close enough for government work.
In a huge country with its share of idiots, criminals, racists and psychos, such incidents--like all sorts of unpleasant incidents--will happen. We all ought to pitch in to stop them and retaliate against the perpetrators. But they aren't typically caused by mere words. Idiots who are looking for reasons to hassle people are going to seize on the Chinese origin of this thing regardless of what we call it. And such incidents should be treated like any law-enforcement issue, not by abandoning plain talk for PC circumlocutions.
And, of course, if the mindlessly progressive media hadn't made an issue of this, it, well, probably wouldn't have been an issue. Like everyone else, they tended to call it something like 'Wuhan coronavirus'...until they saw an opportunity to exercise some wokeness and score points against Trump. Wokeness has become a kind of hobby on the left--progressives are downright eager to do some of it, and will leap to it on the thinnest pretext.
If we'd have stuck with the original, natural locution, and if they'd not mindlessly and unjustly accused us all of racism, Trump probably wouldn't have upped the stakes with 'Chinese virus.' Now the two extremes--'Chinese virus' on the one side and z0mg it's racist to admit this is from China on the other. This is now a major battle in the war between PC and truth, accuracy, plain speech and the American way...and we shouldn't give in. It's a typical progressive speculate about possible harm to (invariably a few) innocents; but, of course, they don't even attempt to tally up the harm done by the PC plague--wildly false and irresponsible accusations of racism, concealing and bending the truth, confusion of important issues, wasted time and energy. The false/irresponsible accusations of racism alone do enormous harm. And to allow such false/irresponsible accusations to win out here is to make them more likely elsewhere.
I'll say it again: many issues are difficult. And many are important. And it's important that we use our time and energy to think hard about them. Political correctness does nothing but harm, confusing issues, suppressing honest discussion, obscuring facts. It needs to be beaten back at every point. Facts and open discussion do, sometimes, have unpleasant consequences. Those have to be dealt with...but in the ordinary ways, not by fallacious reasoning and PC obfuscation. Sweeping away the stupid claims lets us get down to the serious business of thinking about the real, difficult issues we face.
[And, of course, none of this is to mention that the Chicoms lied about the virus, thus helping to inflict it on the world and kill no one knows how many people, nor that they are lying about it again and claiming that we made it and inflicted it on them. Under those conditions especially, it's good to make it clear that the virus originated in China. That's in no way inconsistent with reminding any morons who might be listening that that in no way means that all people of Asian heritage have it, nor any such thing.]
Furthermore, we don't know what the background rate of such incidents is.
Furtherfurthermore, it's a big country, and we can be sure that the background rate is not 0.
And, of course: of the subset of these incidents that might be caused by something about the pandemic, it's unlikely that it's informal names for the thing that are responsible. Rather: it's the fact that the virus is from China. Contrary to the PC obsession with the anti-rectification of names: it's the facts, stupid. No amount of political correctness will alter those facts. Though concealing and obscuring facts is the aim of PC.
I'm not a fan of calling it 'the Chinese virus', preferring its (informally) proper, natural, original and optimally-informative name: 'Wuhan coronavirus' or 'Wuhan virus.' Even 'Wuhan flu' is fine--I expect that's what we'll all settle on because it's nice and short and close enough for government work.
In a huge country with its share of idiots, criminals, racists and psychos, such incidents--like all sorts of unpleasant incidents--will happen. We all ought to pitch in to stop them and retaliate against the perpetrators. But they aren't typically caused by mere words. Idiots who are looking for reasons to hassle people are going to seize on the Chinese origin of this thing regardless of what we call it. And such incidents should be treated like any law-enforcement issue, not by abandoning plain talk for PC circumlocutions.
And, of course, if the mindlessly progressive media hadn't made an issue of this, it, well, probably wouldn't have been an issue. Like everyone else, they tended to call it something like 'Wuhan coronavirus'...until they saw an opportunity to exercise some wokeness and score points against Trump. Wokeness has become a kind of hobby on the left--progressives are downright eager to do some of it, and will leap to it on the thinnest pretext.
If we'd have stuck with the original, natural locution, and if they'd not mindlessly and unjustly accused us all of racism, Trump probably wouldn't have upped the stakes with 'Chinese virus.' Now the two extremes--'Chinese virus' on the one side and z0mg it's racist to admit this is from China on the other. This is now a major battle in the war between PC and truth, accuracy, plain speech and the American way...and we shouldn't give in. It's a typical progressive speculate about possible harm to (invariably a few) innocents; but, of course, they don't even attempt to tally up the harm done by the PC plague--wildly false and irresponsible accusations of racism, concealing and bending the truth, confusion of important issues, wasted time and energy. The false/irresponsible accusations of racism alone do enormous harm. And to allow such false/irresponsible accusations to win out here is to make them more likely elsewhere.
I'll say it again: many issues are difficult. And many are important. And it's important that we use our time and energy to think hard about them. Political correctness does nothing but harm, confusing issues, suppressing honest discussion, obscuring facts. It needs to be beaten back at every point. Facts and open discussion do, sometimes, have unpleasant consequences. Those have to be dealt with...but in the ordinary ways, not by fallacious reasoning and PC obfuscation. Sweeping away the stupid claims lets us get down to the serious business of thinking about the real, difficult issues we face.
[And, of course, none of this is to mention that the Chicoms lied about the virus, thus helping to inflict it on the world and kill no one knows how many people, nor that they are lying about it again and claiming that we made it and inflicted it on them. Under those conditions especially, it's good to make it clear that the virus originated in China. That's in no way inconsistent with reminding any morons who might be listening that that in no way means that all people of Asian heritage have it, nor any such thing.]
posted by Winston Smith at
7:30 AM
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