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March 17, 2020 - Straight White American Jesus
06:12
SWAJ Daily: Trump's COVID Dog-Whistle and Christian Nationalism, Elections in Ohio, and Space Force!

On today's daily dispatch, Brad discusses why Trump labeling COVID-19 the "Chinese virus" is part of a long lineage of anti-Asian xenophobia and part of the Christian nationalism held by his supporters (4:00). He discusses a new piece on Christian nationalism and anti-immigrant ideology by Samuel Perry. Brad also touches on how Trump tried to buy the rights to a vaccine from a German company (11:45), the fight over the Democratic primary election in Ohio, where the governor canceled voting today (15:40), and the fact that we don't have a pandemic response committee, but we do have SPACE FORCE! (18:17) Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163 SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Time Text
Axis Mundy Hello!
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus Daily.
This is Tuesday, March 17th.
My name is Brad Onishi, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Skidmore College, and as we are doing this week, I'm providing sort of daily dispatches.
I know many of you are at home.
Some of you are at home with Children who are not in school and I know you're trying to corral them.
I know others of you are coping with just upset schedules and disrupted lives and potentially sick loved ones.
We wish you all the best as we try to kind of make our way through this scenario.
And so, as I said yesterday, just want to provide some commentary and thoughts every day.
And hopefully this will provide you something to listen to while you clean the house or do the dishes or walk your dog or whatever may be.
First thing I want to talk about is this.
Yesterday, President Trump gave a press conference and many noted his sort of sober tone and his willingness to discuss the coronavirus as something serious that needs to be heeded in terms of the public health crisis that it is.
Beyond the fact that some continue to give Trump credit for being quote-unquote presidential in these moments, it was very clear that off-camera he had some different tactics up his sleeve.
So he tweeted early Well, actually, late last night, early for some of you, early in the morning, but late last night for others, quote, the United States will be powerfully supporting those industries like airlines and others that are particularly affected by the Chinese virus.
We will be stronger than ever before.
In a later tweet, he said, some are being hit hard by the Chinese virus.
Some are being hit practically not at all.
Mike Pompeo in the past has called it the Wuhan virus.
I mentioned last week that Paul Gosar also used a term related to China to talk about the virus.
This has garnered a lot of responses.
One of them has come from China.
And so the spokesman for the foreign ministry, Geng Shuang, said that the U.S.
needs to correct its mistake and stop its groundless accusations against China.
There's the official Xinhua news agency that also responded to Trump's words writing that using racist and xenophobic names to cast blame for the outbreak on other countries can only reveal politicians irresponsibility and incompetence which will intensify virus fears.
Now, some of you may be thinking, well, that's coming from China and, you know, that's to be expected.
But this is from a reporter, Wei Zhe Jiang, who works for CBS, and she tweeted this.
Just recently.
This morning, a White House official referred to coronavirus as the Kung Flu to my face.
Makes me wonder what they're calling it behind my back.
So this is from a Chinese-American who is reporting from the White House, and people are saying to her face that this is the Kung Flu.
Now, why is this significant?
Well, it's significant for a number of reasons, and I've mentioned this last week, but I want to just go over a couple things that I said and then offer some new commentary.
There's a history of linking immigrants, especially Asian immigrants, to hordes, infestations, vermin, and the like.
There's a history of linking particularly Chinese people to characteristics such as uncleanliness or unsanitary eating or living.
And if you have the time and You're at home with more time to watch Netflix than normal, I would say go watch the show Ugly Delicious by David Chang.
And in Season 1, Episode 7, he details how Chinese food not only became Americanized, but how it was given the stigma of being low class, of being dirty, cheap, and full of MSG.
Chang outlines in the episode how there's just as much or more MSG and chips and other snack foods that a lot of people eat than as there is in common Chinese dishes served around the country.
And he shows why Chinese Americans and their food have been framed as contaminated.
And this is just a long trope and something I've talked about for a long time that, you know, Asian Americans are often treated as the model minority.
Until they aren't, right?
And as soon as one needs to kind of use a racist card or trope against them, those are already at hand.
And we see that here.
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