Opinion: Race had nothing to do with David Dao’s treatment by United Airlines ... but try telling Chinese netizens that
Michael Chugani questions whether there would have been such a backlash had the victim been white or black and says emigrants cannot choose to be Chinese some of the time
This will likely earn me brickbats but I’ll say it anyway. It fits into the political mindset of many Asians, especially mainland Chinese netizens, to paint David Dao’s treatment by United Airlines as another blatant example of American racism. But race had nothing to do with Dao being bumped.
I am Asian and have seen racism upfront in the US, my adopted country. But there is zero evidence United used ethnicity to select Dao as one of four passengers it bumped. Even his own lawyer, Thomas Demetrio, insisted racism was not a factor.
Horrifying images of a bloodied Dao being dragged from the plane sparked instant outrage among mainland Chinese netizens. It made me wonder if they would have reacted with equal rage had they realised right off Dao was not a mainlander but Vietnamese Chinese.
United passengers and Americans were outraged simply because they felt no human being should be treated that way. Dao’s ethnicity didn’t come into play.
But ethnicity came fully into play on the mainland. Again, it made me wonder if there would have been such a backlash had the victim been white or black. There is never any outpouring of fury from Africa whenever cops beat up blacks in the US. The fury comes from the black community and other Americans.