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In reply to the discussion: Sen. John Cornyn blames coronavirus outbreak on Chinese culture [View all]Igel
(35,350 posts)Take the consumption of bush meat in Africa, which is (a) a cultural trait and (b) responsible for a couple of Ebola outbreaks, with a hemorrhagic fever or two thrown in for good measure.
It's a bad cultural practice and there was the chance for Ebola to kill not just thousands but millions. It did not. The safe criticism isn't based on culture but based on an irrelevancy, "Some of the bush meat comes from poaching," so we can point to poachers and condemn them. But it's in the same class of cultural practices as Chinese wet markets.
We're careful to point out that bush meat is often provided by poachers, because the attempt was made to say condemning that practice was also racist.
There was no trouble condemning meat eaters for BSE in the '80s, and if 'possum introduced a disease vector we'd have no trouble condemning them. Not every practice specific to a racial or ethnic group is so meritorious that the only reason to condemn it is racism. But "racism" these days is a purity crime, and these are difficult to discuss. In the 1600s if you were accused of being a witch, denial was a confession and to accuse an accuser of being wrong was to defend the witch and be accused of being a witch. It's like being called a heretic in 1500s Europe, say you didn't defame the Prophet in 2010s Pakistan, or defend yourself against being an enemy of the people in 1930s Russia or 1960s China. One accuser is proof enough, defense worsens the crime, and guilt is assumed. Why? It's like having the plague--better to overreact and protect from contamination than to maybe allow the unclean thing to spread its contagion.
Note that by this week's standards, "MERS" is an act of ethnic hatred and to use it is to out yourself as a racist. I mean, really, you're blaming Arabs and Muslims for "MERS"? ("Middle East Respiratory Syndrome" must inherently ascribe intent to produce a pandemic to Middle Easterners as a group, right? Because we don't name things by place. I kid, but if it got picked up the only recourse would be repentance.)