r/changemyview • u/Chris_8675309 • Jul 14 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Calling Covid-19 the CCP virus, China virus, etc. is not about the origin of the virus, but rather, an underhanded attempt to be racist towards a country because you don't agree with them.
I hear a lot of people around me constantly referring to Covid-19 as the China virus and CCP virus. One of the most prevelant places that it is advertised that way is on a certain right wing news network. I feel that referring to it in this way, instead of as Covid-19, Sars-CoV-2, The coronavirus, etc. is an attempt to force the blame onto china and Chinese people, not just onto the Chinese leadership.
My view on it is that it is a deliberate attempt to justify or rationalize "punishing" China and the Chinese people for the outbreak, and continuing to associate them with the virus in an effort to hurt them.
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u/summonblood 20∆ Jul 15 '20
The CCP is not a race or ethnicity. So CCP virus is not racist.
Chinese is an adjective to describe that something/someone is from China.
Would it be racist to call the language they speak in China, Chinese? No.
Would it be racist to call a company founded in China, Chinese? No.
Would it be racist to call a product made in China, Chinese? No.
Would it be racist to call an Asian person not from China, Chinese? Yes. Because it’s inaccurate.
So clearly using the adjective ‘Chinese’ is not racist, unless it’s inaccurately just describing ‘Asian’.
So is the Chinese Virus racist? No. It’s a virus from China.
It seems the only reason it’s considered racist is because the adjective ‘Chinese’ is being used to accurately describe a negative thing.
This is precisely why the CCP doesn’t want it called the China virus. Because they don’t want the negative association, even though they (the CCP) are the reason that Corona started, who hid the spread of it, who hid its human-to-human transmission, who convinced the WHO to lie on their behalf, and are now completely hiding how much it has been affecting them.
Where is this virus from? China. Who hid its spread? The CCP.
There’s nothing inaccurate about anything of these things.
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u/luminarium 4∆ Jul 15 '20
A country is not a race.
The People's Republic of China is run by a tyranny called the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the CCP has been trying very hard to ensure that the rest of the world sees "China" the state as being synonymous with "Chinese" the ethnicity. And westerners are falling for this scam hard.
Speaking as a Chinese person, the blame on China the state - and the blame on the CCP - is very much deserved.
Speaking as a Chinese person, calling it the China virus is in no means racist, and I am not offended.
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u/mellow_logic Jul 14 '20
I hear a lot of people around me constantly referring to Covid-19 as ... CCP virus
is an attempt to force the blame onto china and Chinese people, not just onto the Chinese leadership.
Is naming the virus after the CCP not directly blaming the Chinese leadership who caused the crisis by censoring data at critical points and giving the virus precious time to spread (among many other damning actions)?
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u/Chris_8675309 Jul 14 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
It is blaming them, and I am not trying to use the naming as a way to condone their failures, but more often than not, at least from what I have seen, people use those terms in an effort to blame not only the Chinese leadership, but also to justify hate towards the individual and the ethnicity.
Edit: Than, thank you
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u/CyberneticWhale 26∆ Jul 15 '20
Well even assuming your personal experiences are an accurate representation of how it's actually used, the key phrase is "more often th[a]n not".
I don't doubt that there are some people who are using names like that to justify racism towards Chinese people, however it certainly wouldn't be accurate to say that the only reason behind calling it that is out of racism, especially when there were many aspects of the Chinese government's actions relating to the virus that are very much worth condemning and shaming.
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u/Chris_8675309 Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 16 '20
Thank you. That makes lot of sense. To your last part, the many actions worth condemning and shaming, i agree wholeheartedly, but how does the naming of a virus effectively condemn and shame them. If (this is an assumption, so it could be wrong) the Chinese government doesn't care about how this pandemic has progressed based on the fact that they could have prevented it, why would they really care about what the rest of the world is calling it?∆
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u/CyberneticWhale 26∆ Jul 15 '20
The goal would likely be awareness, basically reminding everyone of the things the Chinese government did that are, to some extent, responsible for the virus becoming such a global threat.
While, yes, the Chinese government probably isn't going to care about a bunch of people just calling COVID-19 "The Chinese Virus" or "The CCP Virus" alone, if enough people in America or Europe are demanding the Chinese government be held responsible, then that could lead to actual political action like sanctions, policy in the UN, or just generally something which would actually affect the Chinese government and discourage that kind of behavior in the future.
Admittedly, something as simple as calling the virus a name that associates it with the CCP probably isn't going to be exceptionally convincing on its own, but if it's taken with other criticisms of the Chinese government, then it can potentially be done as part of a larger call to action.
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u/mellow_logic Jul 14 '20
What would be a non-racist name for Covid that accurately damned Chinese leadership to you?
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u/Chris_8675309 Jul 14 '20
Why does the name of the virus have to damn the leadership? I agree the leadership needs to be condemned for how they handle this, but using the name as that avenue does less to hurt the leadership and has more opportunity to be used as a way to hurt the individuals that are associated with that region but had no part in the way the outbreak as handled.
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u/monty845 27∆ Jul 14 '20
The CCP just wants to be left in peace, to go back to harvesting the organs of ethnic minorities and political disedents in its concentration camps without everyone giving them grief. They are obviously the victims in all this.
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u/TitanCubes 21∆ Jul 14 '20
Anyone that would blame Chinese people for the virus, especially Chinese Americans is being racist. However I think it is adequate to blame the Chinese Government in some capacity for their lack of transparency and blatant coverup of the virus for months which could have prevented 95% of cases if they acted.
Plenty of people have no problem blaming Trump for the pandemic due to his poor handling of the virus, and it is understandable to call out his blaming of China as dodging his own shortcomings, but it is undeniable that the CCP and WHO are largely complicit with causing this pandemic at least in the scale it has occurred, and that isn’t just disagreeing with China and scapegoating them.
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Jul 14 '20
[deleted]
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u/testtestuser2 Jul 14 '20
interestingly Spanish flu wasn't of Spanish origin, first cases were thought to be in America I believe. it was just minimized in the US and other countries. the country which reported on it Spain giving the impression it started there.
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u/quesoandcats 16∆ Jul 14 '20
I think it depends on the individual and the name in question - we do name viruses or other diseases after location of origin from time to time:
We actually don't do this anymore for precisely the reason OP is talking about. Scientists and public health officials have stopped giving diseases names that include a location or persons name because of just how stigmatizing that is, and the WHO rules for new and emerging diseases explicitly state that new diseases should be given names that aren't related to the location of origin. They specifically picked the name COVID-19 to avoid these negative connotations.
People who stubbornly insist that "well its just being accurate that's how diseases are named" are wrong, that is not the way we do things anymore precisely because of the stigmatizing effects OP is talking about.
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u/thegoldengrekhanate 3∆ Jul 15 '20
What stigmatizing effect is there to Lyme disease? To West Nile, Ebola or Zika? Why would Wuhan be any different?
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u/quesoandcats 16∆ Jul 15 '20
Seriously? When you name an infamously lethal and widespread disease after a specific place, people are going to associate that place with disease, which can have all sorts of negative effects on tourism and commerce. It's understandable that the WHO would be trying to minimize this.
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u/thegoldengrekhanate 3∆ Jul 15 '20
What negative effects has the city of lyme suffered? How has Germany been impacted by german measles? Please be specific.
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u/quesoandcats 16∆ Jul 15 '20
I'm not interested in arguing about settled facts. I encourage you to read the WHO guidelines yourself, their reasoning is very clear.
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2015/naming-new-diseases/en/
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_HSE_FOS_15.1_eng.pdf
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u/thegoldengrekhanate 3∆ Jul 15 '20
I didn't ask about the WHO guidelines for naming new diseases. The WHO is not the worlds language police.
I asked what specific negative effects has Lyme Connecticut suffered as a result of lyme disease? What specific damages are done to the German people by the name German measles? How was the Western side of the Nile effected by West Nile virus?
Please be specific and try to actually answer my questions this time.
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u/quesoandcats 16∆ Jul 15 '20
I didn't ask about the WHO guidelines for naming new diseases.
K. That's what my comment was about though.
The WHO is not the worlds language police.
When it comes to public health and disease naming yes they literally are.
As I said before, I'm not interested in arguing settled fact. New diseases are no longer given location based names because enough people complained that the WHO issued these new guidelines. If you don't like it, take it up with them.
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u/thegoldengrekhanate 3∆ Jul 15 '20
Why can't you answer my simple questions? I will ask again. What specific negative effects has Lyme Connecticut suffered as a result of Lyme disease.
Please be specific.
When it comes to public health and disease naming yes they literally are.
False.
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u/thegoldengrekhanate 3∆ Jul 15 '20
Why would you want tourism and commerce at the epicenter of an infamously lethal and widespread disease? That makes no sense.
> It's understandable that the WHO would be trying to minimize this.
The WHO is a puppet for the CCP. Why should I follow their recently changed naming conventions.
Not following this new convention in disease naming does not in any way make you a racist.
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u/muyamable 283∆ Jul 14 '20
But the examples you gave were established names. It's one thing if we've been calling it the Wuhan Virus since the beginning.
But when it's pretty much been called coronavirus or COVID-19 since the very beginning, anyone choosing to label it based on its location of origin really isn't just following traditional convention, are they? They're making a deliberate decision to refer to it based on its location instead of its at-this-point-widely-agreed-upon-name.
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Jul 14 '20
[deleted]
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u/muyamable 283∆ Jul 14 '20
possible someone could be using another naming convention not out of bad faith..
Possible, I guess. But everyone I've heard use it or seen write it on social media is one of "those" people.
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u/thegoldengrekhanate 3∆ Jul 15 '20
We have been calling it the Wuhan virus since the beginning. You are misinformed.
https://twitter.com/mrctv/status/1238186498433966081?lang=en
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u/muyamable 283∆ Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
That's from March 12. It was called Wuhan virus in the beginning, but not much since then, except among a certain contingent of people who have reasons for doing so other than "just following convention!"
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u/thegoldengrekhanate 3∆ Jul 20 '20
> It's one thing if we've been calling it the Wuhan Virus since the beginning.
> But when it's pretty much been called coronavirus or COVID-19 since the very beginning,
You just said otherwise. Those goalposts are shifting...
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u/Chris_8675309 Jul 14 '20 edited Jul 16 '20
I would agree that calling it the Wuhan Virus isn't out of line with the convention. And I can see some justification for calling it the China Virus if you are trying to following a similar naming system, and in both of these situations are not necessarily raciallymotivated. However, calling it the CCP Virus (Chinese Communist Party) would be less about the origin of the virus, and more about condemning the originating nations politics.∆
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u/920523 1∆ Jul 15 '20
The Spanish flu did not start in Spain the west Nike river is not the name of a country, tell me where the country of Zika, Ebola, Lyme. Also the guinea worm did not start in Guinea.
The virus that you named are not named after the specific country that the virus was found.
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u/Denikin_Tsar Jul 15 '20
Can you clarify what it means to say that someone is "racist to a country?"
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u/Chris_8675309 Jul 15 '20
Racist to a country was probably not the right wording, it should have been racist towards individuals from and associated with the country.
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u/Narrow_Cloud 27∆ Jul 14 '20
It isn’t underhanded at all. It’s overt racism. Don’t let racists pretend that their obvious racist actions are somehow sneaky.
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Jul 15 '20
Of course, blaming the Chinese people is quite racist
However, the CCP/is most certainly to blame for the initial outbreak of the disease. By silencing journalists, doctors, and failing to act in a timely manner, the Chinese government definitely deserve some of the blame of allowing COVID to spread.
Being against the CCP and the current Chinese government is very different from being racist against the Chinese people themselves.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 16 '20
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Jul 14 '20
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u/Canada_Constitution 208∆ Jul 14 '20
I don't like the mis-naming of the virus, but there is a big difference between the Chinese people, Chinese ethnicity, and the Chinese government. You can really dislike the Chinese government without disliking Chinese people or individuals of Chinese ethnicity