In an interview with Huffington Post, a Japanese Australian TV host spoke out about Coronavirus racism anxiety.
Kumi Taguchi, who hosts ABC’s Cuppa With Kumi said she fears being racially targeted due to her Japanese heritage.
“A couple of weeks ago I started thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, will I get targeted?’” She said. “I had anxiety about how I looked and if I’m in the supermarket buying toilet paper, am I going to get targeted?”
The 45-year-old added that she felt more vulnerable wearing a face mask.
“I definitely had that anxiety, especially if I had a face mask on,” she said. “I felt like I could be the target of something.”
Taguchi then criticised Trump for using the term ‘Chinese virus’ to describe Covid-19.
Although President Trump has since stated that the virus is “not the fault of Asian Americans”, he came under fire for repeatedly referring to the virus as “Chinese”.
At one point, the president even went as far as saying Asian Americans “would 100% agree” with calling the Coronavirus “The Chinese Virus”.
“I’ve got to say, I think it would be quite frightening for people and then it doesn’t help that leadership [in inverted commas] in the US stirs up this rhetoric of the Chinese virus and stuff like that,” she said.
However, the news host went on to say that she hopes racism is limited to just a few perpetrators.
“My rational brain knows that racism is hopefully a small section of society and we can say ignorance or all that kind of stuff,” she said.
“But the emotional side of it is still as a 44 year old – and I’m quite comfortable in my skin and confident in who I am – there will still be situations where I just go, ‘I wonder if I would be treated this way.
In related news, an Australian mother was seen unleashing a Coronavirus-related racist tirade at a group of Asians.
