5 ms·

What is the xenophobia in that? Jokingly calling a virus that originated in China after a martial art that originated in China. That's xenophobic... how?

woodruffw 5y ago
It’s xenophobic for the same reason that any ethnic or national joke can be: it takes an incidental fact (we believe that COVID originated in China) and mixes it into a stereotyped ethnic or national identity (kung fu is from China and Americans think of kung fu when they think of China). Put another way: it takes our laziest view of a ethnicity and uses it to make light of a disease that we think came from there, one that everybody is unhappy about. It doesn’t take much to see the latent xenophobia in that.
- MathCodeLove 5y ago
- ejb999 5y ago
  where were all the offended people when we had the 'spanish flu' or the 'german measles'.
  - barbazoo 5y ago
    While I'm sure they probably were people that got offended by it I like to think that we've grown to be more sensitive to these kinds of issues in the past 100 years to not tolerate present day xenophobia based on past xenophobia. TIL that there were "German measels", in Germany we just called them "measels".
    - morelisp 5y ago
      "German measles" is Röteln, more properly in English rubella (vs. measles / Masern, also often confused with rubella due to some languages using "rubeola" for measles). The name also has nothing to do with Germany; it's a mistranslation of "germanus", cognate to "germane", i.e. a disease "like measles". In other words, it's not German and it's not measles. Hopefully a lesson in using this naming pattern for diseases...
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    What is the point of this comment? We can and should do better than our progenitors. Also, it's worth actually reading up on why we called it the Spanish Flu: our allies in WWI originally called it the "American Flu," but changed it to avoid offending us. Edit: it's also worth nothing that (1) "Kung Flu" is significantly different in content from "Spanish Flu," and (2) it doesn't have to be the case for anyone to be offended for xenophobia to be wrong.
Bud 5y ago
"Jokingly"? The current issue aside, racists and xenophobes basically always attempt to evade responsibility by claiming they were "only joking". Such claims should be tossed in the trash bin where they belong. First, it's not a joke, and it's not funny. Second, they're lying...they didn't intend it as a "joke" and don't really even understand what a "joke" actually is, for the most part. And third, it's not relevant whether it was a joke or not.
- MathCodeLove 5y ago

woodruffw 5y ago

It’s xenophobic for the same reason that any ethnic or national joke can be: it takes an incidental fact (we believe that COVID originated in China) and mixes it into a stereotyped ethnic or national identity (kung fu is from China and Americans think of kung fu when they think of China). Put another way: it takes our laziest view of a ethnicity and uses it to make light of a disease that we think came from there, one that everybody is unhappy about. It doesn’t take much to see the latent xenophobia in that.

MathCodeLove 5y ago
ejb999 5y ago
where were all the offended people when we had the 'spanish flu' or the 'german measles'.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  While I'm sure they probably were people that got offended by it I like to think that we've grown to be more sensitive to these kinds of issues in the past 100 years to not tolerate present day xenophobia based on past xenophobia. TIL that there were "German measels", in Germany we just called them "measels".
  - morelisp 5y ago
    "German measles" is Röteln, more properly in English rubella (vs. measles / Masern, also often confused with rubella due to some languages using "rubeola" for measles). The name also has nothing to do with Germany; it's a mistranslation of "germanus", cognate to "germane", i.e. a disease "like measles". In other words, it's not German and it's not measles. Hopefully a lesson in using this naming pattern for diseases...
- woodruffw 5y ago
  What is the point of this comment? We can and should do better than our progenitors. Also, it's worth actually reading up on why we called it the Spanish Flu: our allies in WWI originally called it the "American Flu," but changed it to avoid offending us. Edit: it's also worth nothing that (1) "Kung Flu" is significantly different in content from "Spanish Flu," and (2) it doesn't have to be the case for anyone to be offended for xenophobia to be wrong.

Bud 5y ago

"Jokingly"? The current issue aside, racists and xenophobes basically always attempt to evade responsibility by claiming they were "only joking". Such claims should be tossed in the trash bin where they belong. First, it's not a joke, and it's not funny. Second, they're lying...they didn't intend it as a "joke" and don't really even understand what a "joke" actually is, for the most part. And third, it's not relevant whether it was a joke or not.

MathCodeLove 5y ago