“It is tough. Most days you don’t mind and you shake it off, but sometimes you get those comments … and you think, ‘My God, what more can we do?’ ” said Christine Wang, mobile food chair and board advisor for Pantry Plus More (DP-04-17-20).
The comments Wang refers to are the insults and slurs hurled at her while she and her son shop for the groceries that fill Pantry Plus More’s 400 weekly boxes, feed hundreds of Monongalia County students. Those comments go something like, “Go home, chinks,” and “This is all your fault.”
Let us repeat that. A volunteer who devotes her time and energy — even spending her own money — to ensure our students are fed has been accosted in public because she is Asian American.
Thank the powers that be that Christine Wang is an angel who continues her work despite the harassment, because most of us would throw our hands up, say it isn’t worth it and walk away. Few people would continue to give so selflessly of their time, money and energy when the very community they serve turns around and metaphorically spits on them.
So what’s Wang going to do? She’s going to get a sign for her shopping cart that reads, “Pantry Plus More” so people will know she’s serving the community. But she shouldn’t have to do that. She shouldn’t have to use her status as a volunteer as a shield against bigotry and hate.
Wang isn’t the only one who has experienced such racism since the coronavirus came to the U.S., and West Virginia isn’t the only state where this foul behavior is on display.
From March 19 to April 2, the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council received 1,135 reports of Asian Americans being harassed. Mind you, that number only reflects reports — not the actual number of incidents. Asian Americans across the U.S. have been spit on or coughed on, called racial slurs or told they have the coronavirus because of their heritage, been denied access to businesses or sent home from work, among a host of other grievances.
Why? What does harassing Asian Americans accomplish? It can’t protect you from the coronavirus. It can’t make COVID-19 magically disappear. It can’t make the economy suddenly resurge and your 401K regain all its losses.
Even though certain individuals — the president among them — insist on calling the coronavirus the “China virus,” COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate. Viruses don’t care about age or ethnicity, wealth or political affiliations. In fact, less than 6% of reported coronavirus cases where race is known are people of Asian descent, according to the CDC. In almost 60% of cases where race is known, the patients are white and in almost 34%, the patients are black.
What racism and harassment can do are hurt people. Our neighbors. Our families. Our essential workers and the heroes in the medical field fighting on the front line. Our volunteers caring for the community.
This pandemic has been hard on all of us. But scapegoating Asian Americans won’t make it any easier. Racism can only contribute to our problems; it can’t be part of the solution.
Morgantown Area News
'Friday, November 15, 2024'
