One might think the first rule of leading a presidential diversity coalition would be to not use racial slurs, but apparently that’s not a requirement when it comes to folks working for Donald Trump.
During a Saturday interview with Tiffany Cross on MSNBC, Bruce Levell, the executive director of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, referred to coronavirus as the “China virus.”
“We as the country, Tiffany, have done a marvelous job and a wonderful job combatting this China virus that has taken over our economy,” Levell said, conveniently ignoring America’s sky-high infection rate and death toll.
Cross quickly cut off Levell and pointed out how utterly insane it is for the man running minority outreach for Trump to be on national television using racist phrases.
“You lead the diversity coalition and you’re using these racist terms like the China virus,” Cross said. “This is COVID-19.”
“That’s ridiculous and you know that,” she added. “And somebody leading the diversity coalition, that’s clearly offensive to the Asian American members of this community. It seems like an easy thing to not do that, as the head of the diversity coalition.”
Video:
The leader of Trump’s diversity coalition gets called out for using a racist term to describe coronavirus. #ctl #p2 #amjoy pic.twitter.com/QXuunzOiiz
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) July 25, 2020
Experts agree that ‘China virus’ is racist and inappropriate
Outrage over Donald Trump’s frequent use of racial slurs to describe coronavirus is not just coming from left-wing circles. Experts also agree that these phrases are offensive.
As I wrote back in March, folks in the medical field – and even Trump’s CDC director – called terms like ‘Wuhan Virus’ and ‘China Virus’ racist and inaccurate.
According to Yale’s Marietta Vazquez, “This behavior, and the stigma associated with referring to an illness in a way that deliberately creates unconscious (or conscious) bias, can keep people from getting care they may desperately need to get better and prevent others from getting sick.”
The president, of course, doesn’t care what experts say. He certainly doesn’t care about hurting the minority community.
Donald Trump used race baiting to eke out an electoral victory in 2016, and he’s hoping to replicate that in 2020.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.