SARS and accusations of racial discrimination

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With news of the 2002-2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which evidently originated in China and spread from Asia to North America, many have become worried that there may be accusations and racial discrimination against Asians in general.

Some members of some Chinese ethnic communities in some Canadian cities have expressed concern that SARS might lead or has led to racial discrimination and stereotyping. The media in the US and Canada has reported on this topic extensively, although there is no evidence so far of any major racial backlash. Ming Tat Cheung, president of the Toronto Chinese Cultural Centre, said Chinese and non-Chinese shoppers were staying away from the city's normally bustling Chinatowns, and sales were down by up to 70 percent. No indication was given as to what percentage of shoppers are normally Chinese, thus it is impossible to confirm the accusation. A columnist in the Toronto National Post, Christie Blatchford, who lives in Toronto's central Chinatown, noted that shoppers in her neighbourhood were predominantly Asian, so that a reduction in trade on the order of 70% is difficult to attribute to racist actions by non-Asians. A Reuters report on April 16 noted that Torontonians were avoiding any large assemblies of people.

Ming Tat Cheung also claimed that non-Asians had addressed SARS-related racial slurs to Chinese. Reports of SARS-related racist slurs directed at Chinese have appeared in the Canadian press, but they have been few and unattested (including those alleged by Ming Tat Cheung). Although no doubt at least some racial slurs have been addressed to Chinese in Toronto, there has so far been no evidence of any racial effects above the level of personal insult. For example, non-Asian parents have not withdrawn their children from school to avoid exposure to Chinese classmates, nor has there been agitation for restrictions on Chinese visitors and immigrants.

Some of the excitement in the media began when the Ontario Community & Social Services minister John Baird coughed during a media scrum and reporters jocularly accused him of trying to give them SARS. Minister Baird replied "I enjoyed my trip to Asia." Indignant reaction to this remark came chiefly from Opposition politicians; at the time a provincial election was expected soon in Ontario.

What stereotyping there has been in Canada seems to have been of possible carriers rather than of racial groups. An article in the London, Ontario Free Press on April 13, 2003 described the shunning of a white family in a small Western Ontario town because the mother and one of her daughters had recently visited Singapore.

Canadian health officials have made a statement, saying that "even though the origin of SARS is in the Far East, it is very much something that is affecting everybody. For (hostility) to be directed toward the Asian community is obviously very disturbing." The Canadian prime minister and other notables, in Toronto on April 10 for the funeral of the retired Catholic archbishop of Toronto, made a point of inviting the press to a lunch they held at a Chinese restaurant.