On differing perspectives

All I've seen of Wuhan are the images from the news, and all I know of wet markets comes from childhood experiences of a similar place whose current form is nothing like it was. Speaking for myself, I don't see that place as anything backward, any more than I see the places in which I spent my early years as backward, especially compared with the way I saw those places last.

What I see is a reminder of just what those in power will do to protect an image of legitimacy when freed from constraint, to the point where dissent can be silenced through mass social coercion or outright physical force.

Attacks against Asians in the States are inexcusable, but they're pinpricks in comparison to what has already been, and is still being, done by one government against its neighbors; and that government, in my view, is counting on concerted cultural, financial, and military clout to cause others to back down. I'll grant there's something to learn from what that government's capable of doing for its own citizens in this situation, but once again, if that's what it's capable of doing to its own citizens, whose well-being is a bigger factor in its legitimacy than the people outside its borders, the impression that there's more stick than carrot in this equation is all the more reason for me to keep eyes on this.

I'm not a fan of that equine behavior (Stateside or elsewhere), but should I have to face that crap-tastic mess because of my ethnicity or by leaving my previous posts up, I also know that that kind of mess is nothing compared to what others have already faced. Considering the effects of such language are worse than the effects of, say, 10-ish% donations from purse sales, I will concede to the use of COVID-19 from here on out - one samosa, I can handle.

Besides, on the rhetoric front, it looks as if come si dice "your turn" is the next phrase to learn. (In Hindi as well, now? Really making a case for passing up samosas, aren't you?)