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Coronavirus Update From New York City: March 18, 2021

It is only appropriate that I start my post tonight by talking about the recent shootings that happened in three Atlanta-area spas.

While there are still investigations into the exact motive(s) of the shooter, the fact that six of the eight people killed were Asian women is striking. It is especially striking in light of the wave of anti-Asian hate crimes that has happened in this country in the past year. While the shooter himself blames the shooting on his sex addiction (an addiction he “wanted to eliminate”) and not on anti-Asian hate, I would not be surprised if the perpetrator had an unconscious anti-Asian bias. Regardless of whether anti-Asian bias was a factor in these shootings, we are overdue for a reckoning on how scapegoating people of Asian descent during COVID has led to a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes.

I do have some positive news to report this week, which is that my parents have received their second vaccine doses! They received their second doses yesterday, so they should now be fully vaccinated. They do have some side effects, but side effects that beat having COVID. There is obviously some question as to how long the vaccine doses last, but for now, at least they are fully vaccinated.

There is also some question as to when exactly I will be vaccinated or when exactly my brother will be vaccinated. Everyone should be eligible for the vaccines by May 1st, per President Biden, but just because everyone will be eligible for a vaccine doesn’t mean that everyone will be able to get a vaccine. We shall see. What I will say, though, is that as soon as I can get a vaccine, I will want to get one.

It’s rather ironic that their second vaccinations are coming nearly one year after my first COVID update post–a post that had a downbeat attitude at the time because my city was in danger of running out of medical supplies. It’s nice that this post can be at least somewhat more upbeat on the public health front

That’s not to say that everything is rosy, for the test positivity rate stubbornly remains just above 10%–a rate it’s been at for the past few weeks, it feels like. I’m hoping that it’s a number that will go down again as more people get vaccinated, but for now, the test positivity numbers are stubborn. It’s a number that reminds me that while I hope for some degree of normality to come back, there’s work to do in preventing the spread of this before we get back to normal, even if it is a modified normal.

Additionally, nearly 30% of hospital beds total and over half of ICU beds at the hospital closest to where I live are occupied with COVID patients–numbers that are still considered high to extreme stress from COVID, albeit not quite as much stress as the hospital felt a few weeks ago.

Before I close this post, I want to issue a call to action to all of my readers. The call to action is that, once you receive your vaccines, let others know that you have received them, with the intention of communicating to others that the vaccines are safe. There is still some vaccine hesitancy around, and I think it is important to address that hesitancy in the circles we’re in, to the best of our abilities.

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What Are…the Four Waves of Feminism?

The word “feminism” itself tends not to be viewed as social justice jargon, albeit it’s often misunderstood. Feminism is sometimes misunderstood as a sort of “bra-burning/destroy-all-men” mentality.

However, that is far from the truth. On this Women’s History Month in the United States, I think it is important to distance ourselves from that false narrative about feminism.

The reality is that feminism is the advocacy for women to have equal rights to men. So no, it does not involve hating or destroying men.

However, what is sometimes less understood is the different phases of advocacy for women over the years in the United States, also known as the four waves of feminism. It’s also less understood why it’s so important to understand those waves, and why it’s also so important to think beyond the second wave of feminism.

These phases of advocacy for women, also known as “waves of feminism,” are divided as such:

The first wave of feminism is typically regarded as the phase of advocacy that focused on greater women’s involvement in American government, particularly the right to vote. It is worth noting, though, that the focus on the greater involvement of women focused on white women, not on women of color. This phase went from about 1848 (the year of the Seneca Falls Convention, a women’s rights convention where the right to vote became a major issue) to the ratification of the women’s right to vote in the United States (also known as the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution) in 1920.

The second wave of feminism said that it was not enough for women to have the right to vote, but that it was also important to advocate for social, political, and economic equality for women. This phase of feminism went from the 1960s to about the early 1990s (approximately). Betty Friedan’s book, titled The Feminine Mystique, has often been credited with starting this second wave of feminism. This wave of feminism also included advocacy for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, which was designed for people in the United States to have equal legal rights regardless of sex.

However, the second wave of feminism was criticized for predominantly advocating for middle class white women, while leaving behind poor women, women of color, women in the LGBTQ+ community, women with disabilities, and women from other marginalized groups. This criticism led to the third wave of feminism, which placed emphasis on advocating not just for economically upwardly mobile white women, but women who were also marginalized for other facets of their identity. In this wave of feminism, which many say started in the early 1990s and ended around 2012 (though I think this wave is in many ways still present today),[1] there was a lot of emphasis on intersectional feminism—advocacy for the equal rights of women that takes into account how that advocacy should address the inequalities of women who experience overlapping and intersecting forms of discrimination in addition to discrimination for being a woman (example: discrimination for being an immigrant and a woman). 

The fourth wave of feminism, which many say started in 2012 and continues today, focuses on online tools, such as blogging and social media, to highlight inequalities that many women face. Through this, we see the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements on social media, the increased blogging about sexism, and personal stories of various forms of sexism that women have faced. 

It’s important to understand these different waves of feminism for a couple of reasons. First, it is good to have at least a working historical knowledge of the different eras of feminist advocacy, regardless of what your feelings on feminism are. Second, it’s generally good to understand what people are talking about when they’re referring to a particular wave of feminism. Finally, it’s especially important to understand the importance of third-wave and fourth-wave feminism, because without that understanding, it is difficult to appreciate the importance of advocating for all women and taking that advocacy to the public sphere.

So, next time you hear about third-wave or fourth-wave feminism, you will know what you’re talking about. If you’re accused of not moving beyond the second wave of feminism, you know that your feminism needs to do a better job of including women who are marginalized for other parts of their identity. And if you hear about the #MeToo movement, you know that you are hearing about the current, and fourth, wave of feminism.

[1] While, by many definitions, we’re into the fourth wave of feminism, the there’s still lots of emphasis on intersectional feminism; in other words, third-wave feminism.

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Coronavirus Update From New York City: March 11, 2021

I just listened to President Biden’s address to the nation on the COVID relief legislation he signed, as well as on the pandemic as a whole. As such, now seems as good a time as any to publish my weekly COVID update.

Ironically, the day I am posting this is also the day last year that I had my last relatively “normal” day in terms of heading to a work office, working at that office, and heading home. The following day, which was Thursday, March 12th, things were changing a lot. And, just a few days later, the whole world around me was getting topsy-turvy.

Since then, a lot of us around the United States and around the world have been through so much pain and loss, through loved ones and friends and friends of friends getting gravely ill or dying of COVID-19. The change of lifestyle has been jarring, but what really gets to me is the number of people who’ve been so severely affected by this pandemic. What also gets to me is the fact that, if we followed the public health guidance as a society, many of those deaths could have been avoided.

Now that I’ve ended my mini-rant on the anniversary of things starting to change, you all might be happy to know that my parents are getting their second COVID vaccines before long! I haven’t gotten my first dose yet, but I’m also much younger than they are and don’t have any conditions or occupations that justify my getting the vaccine at this stage. I’m really happy that my parents will be fully vaccinated soon, though. Hopefully, as more of us get vaccinated, and as enough of us hopefully take the precautions needed, we can maybe get to a “modified normal” before long where we can see family members and close friends. One can only hope.

This is a hope that President Biden shares. He thinks that with enough vaccination and cooperation with public health guidance, we could be able to gather around and celebrate on Independence Day, which is July 4th for my readers from outside the United States. Given the rebellious nature of some individuals and states, I am skeptical as to whether we will actually get there. Perhaps America will prove my skepticism wrong.

The test positivity rate for the virus is at just under 10% in my part of New York City, which is more or less stable compared to where we were last week. That seems to be a microcosm of the larger nationwide trend, which is also indicating that the number of positive cases for the virus has also plateaued from what I have heard. While that plateau is at a much lower level than where we were during the awful holiday season (in terms of number of cases and deaths), we really do need to try and get the infection rate even lower.

With all that being said, what are the memories that you, my readers, have from the first days of COVID (if they aren’t too wounding to share)? Obviously I have a lot of memories (some of which I posted here and some of which I didn’t), but I think it’s important to give voice to the stories of others too.

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Scapegoating Groups During a Crisis is Nothing New

I live in New York City, where in recent weeks there have been some absolutely horrid hate crimes against people of Asian descent. This is happening in a year when hate crimes against people of Asian descent are on the rise, as well.[1] These hate crimes are disgusting and uncalled for, and such hate crimes cannot be condemned strongly enough.

However, it is not enough to condemn the hate crimes. Instead, we should look at the root cause of them: anti-Asian sentiment related to COVID-19. More specifically, anti-Asian sentiment tied to the gravely mistaken idea that since the virus originated in Asia, people who look Asian are the cause of everything wrong with the situation in the United States (and around the world, for that matter) for the past year. Given that gravely mistaken, yet widespread, idea, it is no wonder that so many Asians have been victims of hate crimes in the United States.

Looking at the big picture, though, hate crimes against Asians during COVID-19 is actually the latest manifestation of a problem we seem to run into in the United States time and time again: if certain people of a particular ethnicity or religion are viewed as causing a crisis, then all too often everyone of that ethnicity or religion is scapegoated to the point of hate and violence.

Here are a few examples of this happening in the past century:

  • In World War I, there was an outbreak of anti-German sentiment that targeted German immigrants, German-Americans, and even the German language. There was a great deal of suspicion about the loyalties of anyone German-related during this time period.[2] All of this was the result of Germany being a foe of the United States in that war.
  • In World War II, people of Japanese descent were moved to internment camps by the United States, once again because of questions and doubts over the loyalties of people of Japanese descent.[3] All of this was a result of Japan being a foe of the United States in that war.
  • After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Muslims and Sikhs were frequent targets of hate crimes—Muslims for being perceived as being like the terrorists who attacked the United States on 9/11, and Sikhs for being perceived as being Muslim (because of the turbans Sikh men wear). Some of these crimes happened in my neighborhood in Queens. All of this was the result of a group of Muslims attacking the United States on September 11, 2001.

And now, yet again, people of a particular group are being scapegoated, in the form of people of Asian descent being scapegoated to the point of hate crimes as a result of COVID-19.

Sometimes, history does repeat itself in bad ways.

But what are the implications of the fact that this history does repeat itself in bad ways?

At a personal level, I think it reminds us that this is not a new phenomenon—that of scapegoating groups perceived as being the cause of our problems. It is an issue that has existed for many years, even before many of us were born, and what we see now is the latest manifestation of that old phenomenon.

For policymakers, a start would be to not have rhetoric and/or actions that further fan flames that result in the scapegoating of certain groups. Former President Donald Trump’s calling COVID-19 the “China Virus” could be cited as an example of this problem, but Trump is far from being the only major leader to have made this mistake. For example, the way President Woodrow Wilson spoke unapprovingly of “hyphenated Americans” did not help the cause of German-Americans during World War I,[4] and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Japanese internment camps did not help the cause of Japanese-Americans during World War II. This is not to say that the current situation for people of Asian descent would be perfect if Former President Trump had no “China Virus” rhetoric, but words and/or actions like those certainly do not help. More needs to be done than simply our leadership avoiding the scapegoating themselves, but it’s a start.

Unfortunately, history has repeated itself. However, what we can do is learn from our dealing with hate crimes against people of Asian descent and strive to be better in the future.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/27/972056885/anti-asian-hate-crimes-rise-dramatically-amid-pandemic

[2] https://www.npr.org/2017/04/07/523044253/during-world-war-i-u-s-government-propaganda-erased-german-culture#:~:text=Some%20Germans%20and%20German%2DAmericans%20were%20attacked%20during%20World%20War%20I.,-Courtesy%20of%20Jeffrey&text=The%201910%20census%20counted%20more,longer%2C%20many%20since%20Colonial%20times.

[3] https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation

[4] https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/german/shadows-of-war/

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Coronavirus Update From New York City: March 4, 2021

It is hard to believe that it has nearly been a full year since I published my first post related to COVID on my blog. On March 9, 2020, I published a post explaining why the idea of not going to work when you’re sick is also not doable for many people. It’s hard to believe that one year later, we’re still talking about this pandemic.

The good news is that it does appear that in my neighborhood, COVID numbers are once again going in the right direction. The test positivity rate is at 9.9%, which means that it is below 10% in my neighborhood in over a couple of months. Hopefully the test positivity rate will continue to go down, even as there is concern about the various variants circling around, including this New York variant. Personally, considering that my neighborhood in Queens is a major port of entry for people and diseases alike, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the variants people are expressing concern about have already come through my area.

Deaths also seem to be going down statewide from COVID. During New York State’s secondary peak in late January, the state was averaging close to 200 deaths from the pandemic per day. We are now averaging a little under 120 deaths per day from the pandemic, which is better than we were at, but still a significantly higher rate than where we were at during the summer and fall.

Needless to say, regardless of what certain governors may be (wrongly) doing in lifting certain COVID restrictions, particularly in places where COVID remains a major issue, now is not the time to relax public health measures but instead redouble them. With vaccinations coming at a faster clip now, we are in a position to put a real and hopefully long-lasting dent in this thing. A better future is potentially in sight if we continue doing our parts by masking, practicing social distancing, and limiting gatherings with people outside of our COVID bubbles. Let us not lose sight of that better future.