Covid-19 and Anti-Asian Violence

COVID-19 AND ANTI-ASIAN VIOLENCE
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COVID-19 and Anti-Asian Violence
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with immense changes in society as it has affected the core of the global society. At the onset of the pandemic, it became clear how society attacks itself/ its people and how people respond to these attacks. According to Tisdell (2020), the pandemic affected social development because it led to the abandonment of neighborhoods and the isolation of certain social groups. For instance, neighborhoods such as Chinatown were abandoned and isolated by other community members of different racial backgrounds because of the belief that the Asian community was the carrier of the COVID-19 virus. The pandemic bled hatred and discrimination against certain communities. There was increased violence as a result. However, the pandemic is not the root of all these issues; it only exacerbated them and brought them to the surface. This paper aims at describing and analyzing the effects of COVID-19 on global social development and politics with a special focus on its role in anti-Asian violence using photographic archives/images as the research method.
COVID-19 and its Effect on Global Social Development and Politics
At the onset, COVID-19 affected everyone indiscriminately in the sense that any person could become infected and spread it to other people unknowingly. According to Pawar (2020, p.16), the disease was indiscriminate in the sense that it spread and affected people everywhere, regardless of their social, economic, or racial class. However, it also discriminated against people based on gender, socio-economic class, and race. The discrimination was also widespread and in a global capacity. For instance, in the US, COVID-19 contributed to rising racism against Asians and further exacerbated protests in the African-American community against racism. In Australia, Aboriginal people protested against racial discrimination and the death of their community members in prisons during the pandemic (Pawar, 2020). The fear and uncertainty brought about by COVID-19 disrupted social order and people were angry and confused, unable to process their emotions about the pandemic and how it would affect them.
As Dionne and Turkmen (2020, p.2) indicate, political leaders and citizens around the world were looking for a source to blame for the pandemic and as a result, there was a rise in the global politics of “othering.” The politics around the pandemic became more about blame and less about finding solutions, especially at the onset of the pandemic. In addition, there were social and political consequences associated with the pandemic. For instance, the pandemic enhanced tensions between minority and dominant groups in different countries as the dominant groups supported the isolation of minority groups. Dionne and Turkmen (2020, p.23) indicate that in Spain, Spaniards advocated for the quarantining of Chinese travelers because they associated all Chinese with COVID-19. There was increased suspicion towards people of Asian origin and also increase xenophobia in different parts of the world. On a political and policy leve...