From the framework section, I chose the excerpt ‘Coronavirus and Yellow Peril’ by Amanda Yee. Amanda Yee is an activist and independent researcher who analyzes the mainstream media’s response to Ebola and ongoing pandemic, COVID-19 as part of the US age old desire for global dominance. The trusted Newspapers and media that we rely on to know the real truth has portrayed Africa as a ‘dark, diseased place’. It makes me think if it repeats the preconceived vision of the Western’s towards the Africans or not ! Now to talk about an article published by The New York Times, where the caption goes,‘This is where you get new and emerging diseases that the human population has never seen before’ points to nothing but eternal discriminatory attitude towards China. They are also demonstrated as diseased and cruel who eat anything that moves. This tactic of media to visualize them through their lenses leads to the US long history of discriminatory attitude towards the immigrants who were always considered to be lower class and diseased individuals.
The second excerpt that I chose is ‘Tired of Being an Asian’ by Alice Tsui who is an Educator and Musician. In this excerpt she expresses her frustrations of being a Asian American at the start of COVID-19 outbreak in the US. She was absolutely disgusted by reading the news of racist attacks on Asian Americans and became the victim herself. She heard rumors of herself being affected with virus in her elementary school. She had to explain to her students that all the news coverage by the media isn’t true and all Asians aren’t carrying the virus. Alice also explains how our education system in NYC has been disrupted due to the uprising cases of COVID. Moreover, she wants to change the perception of mass people on Asian community. To make her desire come true she urges the assistance of people of all races. I decided to give this article a read as I myself witnessed such discrimination on subway and felt bad for the victim.
The third excerpt that I chose is ‘Breathe’ by Salonee Bahman. In this excerpt she introduces us to four different methods of breathing exercises and meditation. To start off any meditation or exercise it is important to sit or lay in a comfortable position. It might be sitting cross legged or hips above our knees or laying on our back etc. I personally do the third exercise, alternate nostril breathing (Nadi Shodhana) when I am anxious. It helps me a lot. To begin, gently press the right nostril closed with your thumb and inhale through left nostril on the count of 4, release your thumb ( keeping left nostril closed) and exhale through right nostril on the count of 6. Now switch sides and repeat the process. Another meditation that we all can try on before going to sleep is sleep meditation. I believe it will definitely release the stress that was built throughout our day and help us to sleep better.
I love how you come “breathe” I think its very important to take some time to rest and relax and center yourself especially amidst all this stress and confusion that the pandemic brings
I have read and thank you for what you have shared, this is what I really like about your post that was at the beginning of the article with ‘Coronavirus and Yellow Peril’ by Amanda Yee. I love it when you talk about the history and the American perspective of Asians or people of color, through Coronavirus we can see more clearly about that. Because there were a lot of bad words for Asians during this sensitive time!
“Coronavirus and Yellow Peril” makes really great points. I think the parallels between the way media/society handled the Ebola virus and COVID-19 are alarming. It is clear that racism isn’t “dead” as some people would seem to believe. Rather, when fear increases or fingers need to be pointed, it rears its head more publicly than ever.
“Tired of Being Asian” resonated with me as well. It’s exhausting to carry this weird, invisible but glaringly obvious label on you all the time. I cannot imagine the weight of being Black in America and the amount of energy it takes to be constantly on guard and on your “best behavior”. I also feel for Tsui since she has even experienced this xenophobia in her workplace, with children no less. I hope she’s able to do the work/influence these children at their impressionable age to change how they’ve been taught to think. It’s heart breaking to think about the fact that young Asian children might be dealing with this similar to the way that young Brown children dealt with islamophobia in the wake of 9/11.