Fuelled…

Original post , March 03,2020

UPDATE: MARCH 17,2021

Racism-fueled violence against Asian Americans continues to spike, with women more than twice as likely to be targeted than men, according to a report from the reporting center Stop AAPI Hate published February 2021. 

Why it matters: Anti-Asian racism escalated after the pandemic began, with people blaming Asian Americans for COVID-19, which was first detected in China. 

  • It follows a long history of anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S., made worse and fuelled last year by former President Trump’s “Chinese virus” rhetoric.

Jeff Wall Mimic 1982

Most of artist Jeff Wall’s street pictures are based on everyday situations that he has witnessed at first hand. He is particularly interested in what he calls ‘micro-gestures’: gestures that seem automatic or compulsive, and which are at the same time emblematic of tensions within society. 

In the work Mimic (1982), the man walking with the woman makes an ambiguous but apparently obscene and racist gesture, holding his upraised middle finger close to the corner of his eye, “slanting” his eye in mockery of the Asian man’s eyes.

Jeff Wall Mimic detail

In 2020 President Donald Trump was photographed reading from notes at a daily coronavirus task force press conference where the word “corona” was crossed out and replaced in his handwriting with “Chinese” to describe COVID-19.

The image appeared as Trump ramped up his description of the coronavirus as a “Chinese virus” as he was questioned about whether he considers the label to be racist.

Donald Trump has referred to the coronavirus as “the Chinese virus”, escalating racially motivated harassment of Asian Americans and deepening the US-China diplomatic spat over the outbreak.

The World Health Organization has advised against terms that link the virus to China or the city of Wuhan, where it was first detected, in order to avoid discrimination or stigmatisation.