The media's lab leak fiasco

Re:The media's lab leak fiasco by wpietri on Thursday May 27, 2021 @06:48PM (#27309565)

I'm not sure whether it's plausible to non-experts like you or me is a valuable way to categorize it. But the reason to be cautious about it is the potential for violence. Both at an individual level against people perceived as Asian and at a global level of a hot war. A good example here is after 9/11. The US had a rash of violence against people who people thought looked Muslim, like the Sikh gas station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi [1]. We ended up invading not just Afghanistan but Iraq and we still haven't brought all the troops home.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Balbir_Singh_Sodhi

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Re:The media's lab leak fiasco by temp8964 on Thursday May 27, 2021 @07:03PM (#27309689)

You are making very very wrong suggestion now. Because some people can link Chinese government to all Asians, so we can't criticize the Chinese government? Because Chinese government = Chinese people = Chinese Americans = Asian Americans?

I think this kind of automatic linking Chinese government to Chinese / Asian Americans is itself racist.

What you are suggesting is implicitly accepting this racist idea.

To stand against this kind of racist idea, what we should do is to explicitly separate the Chinese government from Chinese people, from Chinese Americans. We should directly call out Xi Jingping the dictator and CCP the dictatorial regime, instead of implying Xi Jingping and CCP own Chinese people and somehow also own Chinese / Asian Americans.

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Re:The media's lab leak fiasco by wpietri on Thursday May 27, 2021 @07:50PM (#27310060)

We can criticize the Chinese government. But if we do we should have facts, not wild speculations.

I agree automatically linking Asian-looking people to the actions of China's government is racist. And there are a lot of racists out there. Given the ongoing spike in anti-Asian hate crimes [1] and online anti-Asian hate tied specifically to coronavirus [2] I think we should be unusually careful about excited speculation.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-c...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/09/twitter...

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Re:The media's lab leak fiasco by temp8964 on Thursday May 27, 2021 @08:15PM (#27310273)

I don't understand your logic. Are you saying if the lab leak theory is proved to be true, then the racists turn out to be more justified racists? The rightful racists? If the lab leak theory is proved to be false, then the racists turn out to be less justified racists? The wrongful racists?

How does criticizing the Chinese government has anything to do with racism? Because we can't give racists ideas to be racists, so we should restrict ourselves in criticizing the authoritarian (actually also racist) regime? Your logic is strangely twisted.

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Re:The media's lab leak fiasco by wpietri on Friday May 28, 2021 @12:02AM (#27311609)

I am not saying any of those things. I am saying that because fact-free speculation about Chinese responsibility for something many were already calling the "china virus" could drive mob violence against Asians, we should be especially careful about it.

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Re:The media's lab leak fiasco by temp8964 on Friday May 28, 2021 @12:21AM (#27311696)

It's called China virus bc it's originated from China. It has nothing to do whether it's lab leak or not at all.

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Re:The media's lab leak fiasco by wpietri on Friday May 28, 2021 @10:36AM (#27315810)

That is not exactly why people are using terms like "china virus" and "kung flu".

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Re:The media's lab leak fiasco by jkhdigital on Thursday May 27, 2021 @08:07PM (#27310195)

The first article you linked states that between 2019-2020 hate crimes against Asians increased dramatically in New York and Los Angeles: from 3 to 28 in the former and from 7 to 15 in the latter.

I think that characterizing this fact as an “ongoing spike in anti-Asian hate crimes” is a breathtakingly broad generalization.

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Re:The media's lab leak fiasco by wpietri on Friday May 28, 2021 @10:37AM (#27315833)

Ok? I don't think it's my job to provide internet randos with infinite links until they're satisfied. If you want more information, feel free to Google. But along the way try to notice whether you proof standard is this high for everything you read, or just when somebody points out racism in action.

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