Thread by @yaneerbaryam

The Overwhelming Racism Of COVID Coverage

Thailand worked hard and fought back COVID-19 with public health. Instead of seeing that the NYTimes asked if it was something in their blood: "Is there a genetic component in which the immune systems of Thais..

medium.com/indica/the-ove…

..that has insulated this country of 70 million people?”

This is literal racism.

medium.com/indica/the-ove…

Instead of looking what Thai people did, they’re asking if it’s something in their veins. Because Thai people couldn’t possibly just be competent, it must be alchemy. This sort of coverage is awful, and it’s endemic.

yahoo.com/news/strong-bu…

Recently NYPost said: Scientists can’t explain puzzling lack of coronavirus outbreaks in Africa. Well no, they can, it’s standard public health. They have excellent scientists in Africa, you know, if you would ever let them get a visa for conferences.

npr.org/sections/goats…

"This is just racism, and western coverage is almost all like this. They attribute agency to rich/white nations like Germany or New Zealand but luck to anyone poorer or dark. And it’s just not true. ..

Poorer nations have done better than the rich because they had robust public health responses. Because they worked together. Because they reacted early. These are all lessons worth learning, but the west is unable to learn them because they’re simply too racist to see.

Note 👇👇👇

The tweets are quoting from the article by Indi Samarajiva I linked above

medium.com/indica/the-ove…

This is mine:

People blame political factionalism for US ineffectiveness.

Africa invented tribalism. They still worked together to stop this outbreak.

Continuing with the article

"The real story is that ‘developing’ nations have done remarkably better at fighting COVID-19 than the rich and white. The real story starts precisely where the western map ends. Here be dragons. We be dragons..

..The real story is that places like Vietnam and Mongolia have completely kicked COVID-19’s ass..