We write to register our alarm at hearing widespread national references to COVID-19, or the global coronavirus pandemic of 2019 and (now) 2020, as the “foreign virus,” the “Chinese virus,” or the “Wuhan virus.” Not only is such rhetoric false, it is also dangerous. Loneliness and fear are intrinsic risks of any public health crisis under the best of circumstances. Medical nativism just escalates all the risk of isolation and anxiety our Chinese students might face.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have determined that COVID-19 (a name deliberately conferred precisely in order to avoid a geographic place-name for the virus) is a global pandemic. The US Federal Government — including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. State Department — officially states that it seeks international cooperation with other governments in combating and containing COVID-19 and will provide funding to international organizations involved in efforts to respond to the pandemic. Yet politicians and pundits, echoing irresponsible fear-mongers, seem intent on causing geopolitical and geoeconomic instability, not to mention hatred, xenophobia and racial antipathy, by stirring up archaic, stereotypical and racist ideas about “Yellow Peril.”
We denounce that divisive rhetoric and we counter with these truths: viruses know no borders; viruses have no nationalities; a global pandemic requires a global public health response, one that is humane and grounded in humanist ideals about our shared humanity on planet earth. Rather than a nationalistic response, we urge that we globally unite our efforts toward finding a cure or vaccine, administering and expediting testing and aiding those so afflicted by this pandemic.
To our institution, Miami University, to our President Gregory Crawford, to our Provost Jason Osborne, and to our Governor Mike DeWine, we thank you all for your proactive efforts to “flatten the curve” of COVID-19 in the state of Ohio. A few times over recent weeks, we have been encouraged by people to reach out to our Chinese students in support.
To our students, to Ohioans, to US citizens, but also, equally and passionately, to the global community, we affirm that this racist rhetoric is wrong, harmful and lamentable. We affirm, finally, that globalization—our interconnectedness, our public health, our common futures—depends also (and vitally) on global compassion and an impassioned denunciation to the regressive and dangerous barriers (racial, national, religious and other) that threaten to divide us and endanger us.
Faculty and Staff, Global and Intercultural Studies Department
Jana Braziel, Western College Endowed Professor
Sheila Croucher, University Distinguished Professor
Rodney D. Coates, Professor
José Amador, Associate Professor
Damon Scott, Assistant Professor
Elena Jackson Albarrán, Associate Professor
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Sandra Garner, Associate Professor
Polly L. Heinkel, Administrative Assistant
Basak Durgun, Visiting Assistant Professor
Elizabeth J. Stigler, Visiting Assistant Professor
Martha Sapiro, Program Associate
Lisa McLaughlin, Associate Professor
Walt Vanderbush, Associate Professor
Juan Carlos L. Albarrán, Senior Lecturer
Naaborle Sackeyfio, Assistant Professor
Kate Dannies, Assistant Professor
Carl Dahlman, Professor
Charles Stevens, Associate Teaching Professor
Dilchoda Berdieva, Lecturer
Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, Associate Teaching Professor
Jennifer Cohen, Assistant Professor
Marguerite S. Shaffer, Professor
Stanley W. Toops, Associate Professor
Dan DiPiero, Visiting Assistant Professor
Winona Landis, Visiting Assistant Professor
Mark Allen Peterson, Professor
Madelyn Detloff, Professor
Shelly Jarrett Bromberg, Associate Professor
Zeynep Aydogdu, Visiting Assistant Professor
H. Louise Davis, Associate Professor
Tammy L. Brown, Associate Professor
SIGNATURES OF SUPPORT
Patricia Gallagher Newberry, associate lecturer, Journalism Program
David Sholle, Associate Professor
Hongmei Li, Associate Professor of Strategic Communication
Cathy Wagner, AAUP Chapter President
Mack Hagood, Blayney Associate Professor, Comparative Media Studies
Vincent M. Artman, Visiting Assistant Professor of International Studies and Fellow at the Havighurst Center for Russian & Post-Soviet Studies
Katie Day Good, Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication
Heidi McKee, Professor, Professional Writing, English
TaraShea Nesbit, English
James Bielo
Dana Cox
Michele Navakas, Associate Professor of English
Stephen Norris, Professor of History
Irena Kola, American Culture and English Program
Stefanie Dunning, Associate Professor of English
Margaret Luongo, Associate Professor of English, Director of Creative Writing
Larysa Bobrova, Assistant Teaching Professor, English Department, and Coordinator of the ELLWC
Jason Palmeri, Associate Professor of English
Yuridia Ramírez, Assistant Professor of Global and Intercultural Studies
Venita Kelley, Visiting Assistant Professor
Kirk Boyle, Associate Professor of English, University of North Carolina Asheville
George Potter, Assistant Professor of English and Affiliated Faculty in International Studies, Valparaiso University
Susan Coffin, Administrative Assistant (MJF Dept.)
Joznne Gula. Visiting Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication
Madhu Sinha, Lecturer, Interdisciplinary and Communication Studies
Shannon Rose Riley, Professor & Chair, Humanities Department, San José State University
Suzanne Harper, Professor of Mathematics
Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, Associate Professor of Theatre
Edith Lui, ASG Secretary for Academic Affairs
Louis DeBiasio, Associate Professor of Mathematics
Jennifer Flory Edwards, Visiting Instructor, American Culture and English Program
Janice Kinghorn, Associate Professor
Carol Olausen, Program Director, American Culture & English
Todd Edwards, Professor, Department of Teacher Education
Ann Rypstra, Distinguished Professor of Biology
Stan Corkin, Professor of Film Studies, University of Cincinnati
Rosemary Pennington, Media, Journalism & Film
Cathie Grimm
Caryn E. Neumann, Associate Teaching Prof, Interdisciplinary and Communication Studies
Michelle Buchberger, Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary and Communication Studies
Pepper Stetler, Associate Professor of Art and Architecture History
Trevor Root, Graduate Student, English
Kurt Olausen, Academic Advisor
Theresa Kulbaga, Associate Professor of English
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