What We Can Learn About Racism From The Swine Flu Scare: Analysis

Front-page images of Mexican soldiers wearing surgical masks and armed with machine guns; 71 healthy Mexican citizens quarantined for two weeks in a Hong Kong hotel; a congresswoman from New York declaring that the border with Mexico should be "immediately and completely closed;" countries like Argentina and Cuba banning travel to Mexico; an Israeli-led campaign to change the name of the mysterious disease from swine flu to "Mexican flu."

And then, at long last, news from Mexico's Health Minister, José Angel Cordova declared that the death toll of the swine flu had been "less than feared." The dreaded H1N1 virus, that had originally been blamed for over 170 deaths in Mexico had killed only 50 -- giving it a mortality rate comparable with that of the regular flu.

Now that the panic about the H1N1 virus has subsided, perhaps it's time to examine the alarm it triggered. The overwrought response by the media and the governments of various countries not only amounted to a public relations crisis for Mexico (which has already lost an estimated two billion dollars in tourism revenue), it also reeked of racism.

I'm in no place to rebuke other nations for their actions; but, Americans, ask yourself this: if the outbreak had occurred in Canada, rather than Mexico, would we have been as frightened? If the people it infected were white (rather than brown) and comfortingly middle class (rather than poor, and lacking health care), would the world have felt as threatened? And what U.S. lawmaker would dare to request -- or even consider viable -- an immediate and complete closure of the Canadian border?

The answer, inevitably, is no and none. Because we lack precedent for discriminating against Canada, the keepers of our collective consciousness (i.e., the government and the media) would be unable to evoke stereotypes when addressing an outbreak in that country. To wit: if Americans didn't stereotype Mexico as a lawless and violent place, the image of machine-gun toting police in surgical masks -- a fearsome sight, to be sure -- would never have appeared on the Washington Post's front page. And without the preexisting debate about building a wall to stem illegal immigration, the useless measure of closing the border would never have been floated.

Finally, if Americans didn't fundamentally doubt the ability of the Mexican government to manage crises -- an unfounded concern that resulted from the media blitz surrounding the drug war and from the Joint Forces Command's February declaration that Mexico could become a failed state -- we would never would have assumed that 17 deaths could explode into a global pandemic.

Prejudice against Mexico and its citizens is pervasive in the United States. Americans are happy enough to party on its pristine beaches and show-off the colorful textiles they haggled for in touristy Oaxaca markets -- but 30 percent of us think that illegal Mexicans currently working in the U.S. should simply leave (immediately and completely); and 52 percent supported the 2008 effort to construct a 700-mile-long fence along the border. As a caller who voiced his opinion to a CNN panel about swine flu recently summarized: "We should build that wall -- it'll keep out the drugs and the disease."

As Mexican revolutionary Porfirio Díaz once famously said: poor Mexico -- so far from God, so close to the United States.

If we can learn anything from this flu scare -- and why wouldn't we want to salvage something from the debacle? -- it's that Americans are profoundly prejudiced against Mexico. And we're either unaware or unashamed of our bias. But to be sure, if our southern neighbor were France or England, we would never have employed such insulting vocabulary and imagery to discuss the virus. Call it racism, classism, xenophobia, or whatever other 'ism' you fancy -- it's most likely that our reaction derived from a nasty combination of all those societal ills. To his credit, President Barack Obama avoided such pitfalls by exhorting calm and referring to the virus exclusively as H1N1. But shame on the media for exploiting Americans' racism to create hype, and shame on us for eating it up.

Catesby Holmes is an Assistant Editor at Travel + Leisure magazine

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Comments

[tomasedison]

HATE radio loves this stuff - its nothing but fresh meat for their "entertainers" to feed to their weak-minded audiences. Sad but true. In europe they don't have hate radio because its outlawed.

[Factchecker2]

Catesby,

I am sickened by the putrid sentiments expressed in the MSNBC article to which you linked. Prejudiced people like that use ANY ammunition to support their prejudice, and an outbreak that starts in Mexico was ammunition to them. I hope it didn't help them recruit new people to their grotesque world of anti-Latino and anti-immigrant prejudice.

We do part company about one thing: In your note to me, you wrote, "But the difference, to me, is not the fact that we saw hysteria in both cases--because of course hysteria is just what we do so well. It's the tone that the hysteria took that's problematic."

I do not think the public became hysterical during SARS, and I do not think they are hysterical now. "Interest groups" like the racists in that article "used" the current situation to fan the flames on behalf of their awful cause; that is just what activists always do. It is a strategy, not hysteria.

I do not think the main-stream media coverage has been hysterical or over-wrought either. They mostly reported the fairly nuanced statements of experts. (Headline writers -- another story!) The huge number of articles and broadcasts on one topic contributes to a sense of frenzy.

But everyone I know was going about their normal business. One person told a reporter that for a few days they were talking about swine flu instead of about Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton. Not hysterical, just briefly fascinated.

[gavrielle]

Honestly, the idiotocracy can find anything to whine about. If there is prejudice against Latinos, and there certainly is, it has nothing to do with the fear of catching some awful disease and dying a slow and painful death due to illness. I remember when AIDS first showed up. People from New York and San Francisco were shunned in parts of the country for fear they might be carriers of the dread disease because both cities have large gay communities.

Also, the point of renaming the flu virus was to prevent the unnecessary slaughter of pigs the world over by more idiots fearful of catching the illness from animals. Last I heard the Iranians were planning on killing the only porker they had, a wild pig in the zoo! Palestinians were also slaughtering wild pigs in terror, while Egyptian authorities shot the pigs of local Christian farmers. Maybe the choice of calling it the Mexican flu wasn't a good one, but considering we have the Spanish flu and the Hong Kong flu, etc. I suppose they were looking for a catchy title that saved the swine.

Not everything is about national origin. If it is, maybe you should consider that a bad reputation is sometimes well earned. Americans have one for racism and bigotry. Fair enough. But Mexicans have one for playing fast and loose with their neighbors' laws and claiming an entitlement, because they happen to share the same continent with their victims.

[plotinus99]

I beg to differ.

As the novel H1N1 virus began to spread, I looked at the pattern of disease and the consequences. Since I share ancestral genetic roots with many Canadians, but negligible Mexicans, it is completely reasonable to be less worried about a disease that has evidenced a worse outcome in Mexicans.

[Mexitli]

You deserve credit for acknowledging the obvious.

Frankly, I'm disappointed in the so called "Americans." They never seem to learn. They seem incapable of recognizing a negative stereotype and even when they do, it's still funny to laugh at it anyway.

Generation after generation finds it socially acceptable to ridicule Mexico and her people on both sides of the border.

Funny how I seldom (if never at all) run into Asians, Arabs, Europeans, Australians who find it OK to take a cheap shot at Mexico or Mexcanos.

From the friendly landscaper ("Ask A Mexican" logo image) to the cholo (who makes a great prison inmate not just in Hollywood movies, but in real life as well since they are secretly homosexual and like knives) to the president, pre-judged by regurgitated accusations of corruption that are spread without a single bit of evidence.

If it's a Mexican, it will stick. Never mind the facts.

But let's not forget what played a stealthier part in this recent h1n1 hysteria:
Mexican tomatoes, cilantro and jalapenos will give you salmonella. Those stories were passed around first, in the name of health.

How about the U.S. media practicing some mental health?

Mexico's Health Chief Receives Plaudits:
http://aztlanista.com/post/mexicos-health-chief-receives-plaudits

[Catesby Holmes]

Thanks for the comment, and to a certain extent I think you're right: the same official travel advisories that were placed on Mexico were placed on Canada. And I wish I'd addressed that comparison in the piece. But the difference, to me, is not the fact that we saw hysteria in both cases--because of course hysteria is just what we do so well. It's the tone that the hysteria took that's problematic. Just have a look at this article for more proof of the distinctly racist current driving the swine flu discussions: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30467300/

I very much doubt that similarly vitriolic anti-Canadian sentiments were so publicly aired during SARS. This piece isn't really about the stigma that an outbreak can give a country; it's about how a previously-existing stigma colors how we discuss, perceive, and portray the outbreak.

Thanks for reading!

[elangston]

Factchecker2, I think you make a good point in terms of the relative consistency of official responses to various pandemics. However, it's my impression that this article's author is focusing on the less measurable, social response to H1N1. That is, that the fact that the international public perception targets Mexico as the originator of the virus, and therefore a host of ethno-cultural stereotypes come into play. It's more of an analysis of social thought and prejudice than an objection to biased governmental response.

[Factchecker2]

The author wrote: "Ask yourself this: if the outbreak had occurred in Canada, rather than Mexico, would we have been equally as frightened?"

That is a a good question, but the author's answer is profoundly ahistorical.

During the SARS epidemic of 2003, Toronto was the hardest-hit city outside of Asia (harder hit than Singapore, even).

People all over the world canceled their convention and conferences scheduled for Toronto. Tourism took an enormous hit. WHO placed the same kind of travel advisory on Toronto then as it placed on Mexico now -- recommending avoidance of non-essential travel.

Asian countries are currently canceling many tours to the U.S. because we now have the most known -- and most widely-disbursed-- cases of swine-origin H1N1. The tour customers DO want to come to the U.S. -- just not right now, thank you.

What on earth makes you think the reaction is primarily hooked to "prejudice" against Mexico? There is a long history of prejudice in responses to disease outbreaks, and "white" countries are well-represented in that history as the targets of stigma -- both justified and not.

[zblewis]

The article is excellent and sadly true. Most US citizens do not want to face the fact that their own healthcare system is now ranked 37th in the world. The same Andersen Cooper who warned Mexico City residents of their subway, urged New Yorker's to take their own. It seems that the H1N1 outbreak in the borough of Queens represented a foreign outpost to the Manhattanites. If I could delete CNN and Fox news from my cable package, I would. The National Enquirer seems to have a higher journalism standard. I was in Mexico during the "outbreak" and it was lovely. The people were gracious. The most uncivilized experience was LA airport on the way there.