Coronavirus: there’s nothing funny about racism, Chinese-American stand-up Joe Wong says
- Donald Trump may have called time on the ‘Chinese virus’ comments, but scientist turned comedian says xenophobia towards Asian people remains a deep-seated problem in the US
- ‘Asian slurs are pretty well received at live comedy shows. It’s so exhausting to fight it every time it happens,’ he says
Joe Wong, who moved to the United States in the 1990s and completed a doctorate in biochemistry at Rice University in Texas in 2000 before moving on to a successful career in comedy, said that Trump’s repeated use of terms like “Chinese virus” was fairly typical of the prevailing attitude in the country.
“When I talk about racism against AsAms [Asian-American], people’s attitude is ‘Not you too!’ Anti-Asian racism is not even acknowledged as a thing,” he said on Twitter.
“Asian slurs are pretty well received at live comedy shows. It’s so exhausting to fight it every time it happens.”
After a rise in the number of reports of physical and verbal attacks on Asian-Americans, Trump spoke out at a coronavirus task force news conference at the White House on Monday.