4 ms·

Saying that a group of people in China made risky decisions and that others are suffering for them is not racist. Not all statements directed towards another c

Saying that a group of people in China made risky decisions and that others are suffering for them is not racist. Not all statements directed towards another culture are racist. Also, many Chinese don't eat bush meat, and no one is criticizing them. It's also not directed specifically towards Chinese; the same criticisms have been leveled at Africans for the same reasons when the same practices caused similar outbreaks, so it's not a specific dislike of Chinese. HIV, lassa fever, SARS, Ebola, and more have been caused by eating bushmeat. That's not racism, that's epidemiology.

crispinb 7y ago
Facts can be used as weapons, sometimes for racist purposes. That's certainly happening here in Australia in relation to this.
soared 7y ago
I'm not debating that food safety could be better in China and other developing nations, but saying we should shut down their markets is a big overstep and fails to understand the cultural significance. If a drug-resistant bacteria started in the US and spread to China they could just as easily say "Those supermarkets in the US need to be shut down" The US is making equally risky decisions, but no one here is clamoring about that. Bush meat is no different than wild-caught meat, yet you use a derogatory term for it simply because it doesn't align with your cultural values. > Even today, the U.S. is far from a paragon of food-safety regulations gone right. The routine use of antibiotics in factory farming has helped create drug-resistant bacteria that cause foodborne illnesses.
rfoo 7y ago
Yes. However a lot of the discussion on this quickly converge to culture difference or misinformation based straw man. At this point they are driven majorly by racism. An example of the former case is people tend to blame others for consuming meat they don't usually do, even if the animals were bred in a farm. Check the controversy around bamboo rats for a more specific example. Example of misinformation: see the controversy around a video showing Chinese woman eating bat soup. Except it is not even filmed in China, it is in Palau and being a tourist thing. The behavior is still questionable and should not be encouraged, but the public reaction on this is almost entirely missing the point. Unfortunately video spreads across language burden, but words don't, it is almost impossible to debunk.
- Retric 7y ago
  Americans of all ethnic groups also regularly eat bush meat also known as wild animals. However, we have outlawed it’s sale due to public heath concerns and possibly some lobbing from the farm industry. So, calling this a cultural or racial issue is very much a straw man argument. PS: If anything it’s the term bush meat that’s confusing the issue. Eating deer, rabbits, quails, and squirrels etc represents real risks to human heath. But, outdoor markets significantly increase these risks in several ways.
  - rfoo 7y ago
    Just try to browse Twitter or Reddit (r/China_Flu) and check where most of such discussion goes before drawing conclusion. Sales of wildlife is illegal in China, I agree the execution is simply bad and unlikely to be improved due to incompetence but this is not where those discussions go. *incompetence: if the law is enforced more strictly, turkey will be banned too because the regulation on what you can sell hasn't been updated for decades and not including much.
Galanwe 7y ago
> China made risky decisions and that others are suffering for them Western people do eat "exotic" meat during special occasions too. In France, for Christmas and New Year's eve, a lot of people will eat boar or roe, which is pretty much not consumed at all during other times of the year. Hell, I have even heard that ostrich and kangaroo were trendy some years ago. We are just more lucky that western "exotic" meat does not carry as much viruses as tropical / equatorial wild animals do.
owl57 7y ago
Farm meat causes its share of trouble, from swine flu to antibiotic resistance. Maybe it's time to go pragmatically vegan, that is, ban eating anything close enough to share pathogens?

crispinb 7y ago

Facts can be used as weapons, sometimes for racist purposes. That's certainly happening here in Australia in relation to this.

soared 7y ago

I'm not debating that food safety could be better in China and other developing nations, but saying we should shut down their markets is a big overstep and fails to understand the cultural significance. If a drug-resistant bacteria started in the US and spread to China they could just as easily say "Those supermarkets in the US need to be shut down" The US is making equally risky decisions, but no one here is clamoring about that. Bush meat is no different than wild-caught meat, yet you use a derogatory term for it simply because it doesn't align with your cultural values. > Even today, the U.S. is far from a paragon of food-safety regulations gone right. The routine use of antibiotics in factory farming has helped create drug-resistant bacteria that cause foodborne illnesses.

rfoo 7y ago

Yes. However a lot of the discussion on this quickly converge to culture difference or misinformation based straw man. At this point they are driven majorly by racism. An example of the former case is people tend to blame others for consuming meat they don't usually do, even if the animals were bred in a farm. Check the controversy around bamboo rats for a more specific example. Example of misinformation: see the controversy around a video showing Chinese woman eating bat soup. Except it is not even filmed in China, it is in Palau and being a tourist thing. The behavior is still questionable and should not be encouraged, but the public reaction on this is almost entirely missing the point. Unfortunately video spreads across language burden, but words don't, it is almost impossible to debunk.

Retric 7y ago
Americans of all ethnic groups also regularly eat bush meat also known as wild animals. However, we have outlawed it’s sale due to public heath concerns and possibly some lobbing from the farm industry. So, calling this a cultural or racial issue is very much a straw man argument. PS: If anything it’s the term bush meat that’s confusing the issue. Eating deer, rabbits, quails, and squirrels etc represents real risks to human heath. But, outdoor markets significantly increase these risks in several ways.
- rfoo 7y ago
  Just try to browse Twitter or Reddit (r/China_Flu) and check where most of such discussion goes before drawing conclusion. Sales of wildlife is illegal in China, I agree the execution is simply bad and unlikely to be improved due to incompetence but this is not where those discussions go. *incompetence: if the law is enforced more strictly, turkey will be banned too because the regulation on what you can sell hasn't been updated for decades and not including much.

Galanwe 7y ago

> China made risky decisions and that others are suffering for them Western people do eat "exotic" meat during special occasions too. In France, for Christmas and New Year's eve, a lot of people will eat boar or roe, which is pretty much not consumed at all during other times of the year. Hell, I have even heard that ostrich and kangaroo were trendy some years ago. We are just more lucky that western "exotic" meat does not carry as much viruses as tropical / equatorial wild animals do.

owl57 7y ago

Farm meat causes its share of trouble, from swine flu to antibiotic resistance. Maybe it's time to go pragmatically vegan, that is, ban eating anything close enough to share pathogens?