Jacinda Ardern recently said that it is during tough moments where people’s true character comes to the fore. While she meant it as a dig at Scott Morrison, there’s definitely truth behind it. That well-worn phrase stuck out in my mind when I was walking down the street the other night and minding my own business, when three white Australian dudes wandered next to me and muttered “coronavirus” before quickly slinking away.
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Having read and reported on how racism has been ushered back to the forefront in Australia due to the coronavirus outbreak, it was a bit of a shock for it to personally happen to me.
I’ve had idiots mockingly say “ching chong” to me countless times over the years – something I’m sure almost every Asian-Australian and Asian immigrant has encountered – so why is this coronavirus muttering incident grinding my gears so much more?
Some will probably see this as nothing more than some idiots in Australia trying to amuse themselves and their mates with a casual coronavirus joke, to which my response is: Come up with better material because all it does is expose you as an arsehole.
I guess when we consider what’s happened around the world over the last few years, particularly the start of 2020, this muttering of “coronavirus” to me and other Asians is more than just morons trying to show off to their mates with a racist joke.
This isn’t just another example of how racism is still so prevalent in Australia – we’ve known that well before the coronavirus outbreak occurred due how entrenched it is in all rungs of our country. It’s more an eye-opener on how quickly people (and not just those in Australia) turn to racism during a time of crisis.
It’s easier for people to fall into a narrative that best suits their comfort zone and intellect than accept the truth. Given Australia’s history of racism, it shouldn’t be a surprise that people are embracing xenophobic views due to the coronavirus outbreak, especially with all the misinformation going around.
Of course that’s not to generalise all Australians as racist because they’re not. But the fact that I even have to say “but not all Australians are racist” speaks to just how ingrained racism is in our country and how much further we have to go when it comes to tolerance.
There’s a lot to process these days and like my rant on the coronavirus breaking down whatever relationship I had with my mum, I suppose this is my way of working through the disappointing reality that Australia is not as tolerant as I naively thought it was. I put more faith into the country and its people than it deserved and paid a price for it.
It’s just disappointing that after nearly three decades of being a citizen of Australia, the racism problem in our country has not gotten any better and all it took was a strand of coronavirus from China to expose people for who they really are.
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