President Trump continues to defend the rhetoric he used in the notorious press conference--which will likely go down in history--on March 18, 2020, where he referred to COVID-19 as "the Chinese Virus"; however, the President also says that "We have to protect our Asian Americans," referencing an earlier Tweet.
Unrelated to the famed press conference and the President's tweets, the FBI office in Houston, TX, released an intelligence report saying that their concern--their assumption, even--is that many Americans will associate the Coronavirus with the Asian community, and hate crimes against said community will occur. The FBI has not referenced President Trump in their report.
The report also tells of a disturbing event that occured in Midland, TX: "...three Asian American family members, including a 2-year-old and 6-year-old, were stabbed … The suspect indicated that he stabbed the family because he thought the family was Chinese, and infecting people with the coronavirus."
Now is when we must ask ourselves: what kind of country and world do we want to be? Are we going to give in to fear, paranoia, and ignorance, and add unnecessary bloodshed to an already post-apocalyptic-esque landscape? Will we regress, de-evolve, to the wild, most basic form of man who is only motivated by the id, that part of our psyche that is driven only by base needs?
No. Surely we are better than that. Surely we are better than animals who are stirred only by a dark and primal self.
We are all citizens of this world; not just a citizen of the U.S, or the UK, or India, or Africa, or China. We are much bigger than "the West" and "the East"; bigger than "the North" and "the South." We must take a look at ourselves. How do we want to remember this time, and the time after we come through the other side of COVID-19? What stories do we want to tell our children, and grandchildren?
How do we want History to look upon us?
We have the power to write the story here. Let's make it one of victory, community, and humanitarianism; not one that is written in blood, bitterness, and anarchy.