In the recent escalation of anti-Asian violence, there are important immediate causes and then more enduring societal ones.
In March 2020, I wrote in Raw Story: “The greatest risk factor of disease and death is not being considered, and that is Donald Trump. If he continues in this presidency, he is on course for having three main effects: First, he will make a deadly pandemic much worse. Second, he will stoke divisions between ‘believers’ and ‘unbelievers’ in his alternative reality. And third, he will vastly augment suffering, which he will … direct into widespread violence … by calling the novel coronavirus ‘Chinese virus,’ simultaneously deflecting blame and creating new targets for attack.”
As his presidency continued full-term, without repudiation or any reckoning for the violence he has incited, Asian-Americans have become victimized. Mental health professionals have since the beginning warned of his psychological dangerousness, among which is his tendency to project his own unacceptable actions onto others, as he did when he scapegoated Asians through derogatory phrases such as, “Chinese virus” and “Kung flu.” Continue reading.