Public Health Lessons from the Past: Scapegoating
Crises such as the COVID-19 global pandemic can lead societies to blame others for their misfortunes, often a group of people from a racial, ethnic and/or religious minority [1]. This is known as scapegoating [1]. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Asian Canadians have been victimised as scapegoats, increasingly becoming targets of violent anti-Asian attacks. Since the virus originated in China, many believe that the entire Asian diaspora is to be blamed for the pandemic [2-5]. There is much work to be done to mitigate scapegoating, largely by addressing the social determinants of health (SDoH) to increase the overall health of minority communities. By addressing the SDoH that many Asian Canadian immigrants must unfairly deal with, we can begin to combat scapegoating.
Scapegoating occurs when an individual or a group of people are blamed for negative outcomes in a society [1]. This phenomenon occurs because society at large tends to seek out simplistic responses to negative outcomes by blaming minority groups or vulnerable individuals instead of examining cultural, societal & governmental institutions. In the case of COVID-19, many political leaders and news outlets began directing the blame towards the Asian diaspora. The former President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, referred to the virus as the ‘China Virus’ and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to the virus as ‘Wuhan virus’ [6]. This legitimized the prejudice many already felt towards Asians, which led to an increase in hate crimes towards Asian immigrants, in places such as: Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States [3,4].
[Scapegoating] occurs because society at large tends to seek out simplistic responses to negative outcomes by blaming minority groups or vulnerable individuals instead of examining cultural, societal & governmental institutions
According to Statistics Canada, Asian Canadians have reported facing increased violence and harassment because of their racial or ethnic background during COVID-19 [3]. Many of those surveyed who identify as Chinese and/or Korean reported a perceived increase in harassment or attacks [3,4]. In Vancouver, hate crimes against Asian Canadians rose 878% in 2020 [7]. In March of last year, Yuanyuan Zhu, a Chinese-American citizen, recounted how a man spat on her after shouting an expletive about China when she was walking to the gym [5]. In another incident, this time in the United Kingdom, Singaporean law student Jonathan Mok was brutally beaten by four youths on the night of February 24th, 2020 [8]. Between March 10th 2021 to February 28th 2021 there were 1150 cases of anti-Asian racist attacks reported in Canada [9]. 40% of these attacks occurred in Ontario [9]. Moreover in Canada, 11% of the racist attacks contained physical assaults and 10% of the attacks contained some form of assault, such as being coughed on or spat on [9]. As such, scapegoating can be considered to be a parallel pandemic that must be fought along with COVID-19 by combatting racist stereotypes that lead to misinformation.
The scapegoating occurring is one of the SDoH affecting Asian immigrants' lives. SDoH are the intersecting non-medical factors that impact one’s health and life, such as socioeconomic status, food security, housing, education, social inclusion, and working conditions [10]. When examining the SDoH that shape the lives of Asian immigrants, we can see various factors at play. One main factor is the lack of social inclusion that Asian immigrants face due to being seen as the ‘other’ [11]. Therefore, Asian immigrants are not viewed as part of ‘Canadian’ society. Another key social determinant impacting Asians is working conditions. Seeing as many Asian immigrants work in low-paying service sector jobs that are public-facing, they are often at higher risk for being attacked and facing hostilities such as racial profiling [12 & 13]. It also means that they must leave their homes to go to work thus, increasing their risk of contracting COVID-19 [14, 15]. The primary reason for the over-representation is that many of these service sector jobs are often considered ‘low-skilled’ and therefore these jobs are not very well-paying [9]. The fact that these service sector jobs are not well-paying leads to many Asian immigrants being of low-socioeconomic status and often living in shared spaces which in turn puts them at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 but also unable to socially distance [12, 14, 15]. Many of the service sector jobs involve dealing with the public, leading Asian immigrants to be at risk of being physically attacked which can also lead to contracting COVID-19 [9]. These social determinants of health directly impact the lives of Asian immigrants and contribute to Asians continuously being marginalized and being viewed as the ‘other’ in society.
Scapegoating Asian Canadians for the pandemic perpetuates racist stereotypes, and also instils systemic violence against them. One such racist stereotype is that Asians are ‘unclean’ [11]. The stereotype that Asians are ‘unclean’ originates from the fact that Asian immigrants in North America were forced to live in desolate conditions in the area of ‘Chinatown’ in many cities such as Toronto and San Francisco [11]. Chinatown in many of these cities lacked proper infrastructure and funding, therefore, making many of the homes but also buildings in those areas a risk to human health [11]. The lack of proper infrastructure and living conditions then led to many white nativists living in Canada and the United States to construct the stereotype that Asians were somehow ‘unclean’ because of the conditions they were forced to live in [11]. These stereotypes were also echoed by the governor of Veneto, a region of Italy, who claimed that those of Chinese heritage ‘eat mice alive’ [6]. Such statements perpetuated the narrative that because the virus came from China, the entire Asian diaspora is to blame.
Scapegoating Asian Canadians for the pandemic perpetuates racist stereotypes, and also instils systemic violence against them
Sadly, scapegoating has also been prevalent in the past during infectious disease outbreaks as a way to deflect from societal failures. An instance that depicts how scapegoating is used to inflict blame onto the ‘other’ is the Yellow Fever outbreak in Gibraltar in the early 19th century [16]. During this outbreak, Jewish immigrants were singled out by British health authorities who had control over Gibraltar as the sole ‘cause’ of the Yellow Fever outbreak, causing painful, unnecessary ostracization [16]. This occurred even though the Yellow Fever outbreak emerged as a result of various sociobiological factors, such as a virgin soil population, crowded housing, and stagnant water that would attract the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is the vector for Yellow Fever [16]. Another example of minorities being scapegoated for an infectious disease pandemic is when Asian Americans were blamed for a tuberculosis outbreak in San Francisco in the early 20th century [11]. But, contrary to the scapegoating, Asian Americans were primarily affected because of the squalor conditions in which many of them were living [11]. Asian Americans living in San Francisco’s Chinatown at the time had small, poorly ventilated homes that often had mold and were not properly sanitized [11, 17]. Moreover, due to discriminatory housing practices, these immigrants could not buy homes outside of Chinatown [11]. As such, their homes made it easy for tuberculosis infections to develop and spread rapidly within their communities [11, 17]. Both of these examples show disease outbreaks often arise from how society is structured. These exact patterns of scapegoating minorities can be seen today during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unfortunately, our elected leaders have not learned from the past. It is evident that the social determinants of COVID-19 are not being properly addressed and once again people continue to perpetuate racist stereotypes, commit hate crimes, and scapegoat Asian immigrants for the pandemic. To adequately address the current pandemic, elected leaders must implement social and economic policies that would be beneficial to many essential workers, such as paid sick leave, which would have a positive impact on the Asian immigrants living in Ontario that are also essential workers and disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 [15, 19, 20]. For example, by implementing paid sick leaves many essential workers would be able to stay home and recover, not infect fellow co-workers or become financially compromised by taking time off from work [19, 20]. Another example would be to address the lack of proper ventilation, especially in affordable housing units [21]. By addressing both issues through social policy, the potential negative health outcomes will not materialize. To adequately address the scapegoating and racism Asian Canadians have been facing is to directly tackle misinformation but also holding those who perpetuate racism, violence, and misinformation accountable. By doing so, we can adequately address the societal change that is necessary to progress.
Evidently, scapegoating is something that was present historically and still persists till today. Sadly, its negative repercussions have yet to be fully acknowledged by society at large. By scapegoating Asian Canadians, we are not only making the same mistakes from past disease outbreaks but continuing a cycle of systemic violence. In doing so, there is a negative ripple effect on the SDoH and health outcomes that Asian Canadians experience. We must begin to reframe our approach to this current pandemic, not as something merely biological, but also look at society’s pathological scapegoating to examine why public health policies have inadequately addressed these issues.
Cindy Ferreira Vieira is a recent graduate from the University of Toronto having studied Evolutionary Anthropology & Health Studies (Policy Stream). She hopes to pursue a Master's in Public Health. Cindy would like to explore the global health topics of Social Epidemiology, Digital Health & Global Accessibility.
References:
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