Gang Chen, Shenzhen College of Intl. Education

The coronavirus outbreak around the globe is more or less resembling a Shakespearean melodrama, traumatic, yet, heartwarming as it brings people closer in a skeptical way, given the prior situation in which people were drifting apart in this increasingly individualistic world.

During the lockdown, never had people embraced so tightly together, balcony concerts in Italy, light shows from millions of people holding phones in communities in Wuhan, and so on. Also can we see that countless of campaigns were speaking out for the disadvantaged in the pandemic, and campaigns against domestic violence, gender inequity, and racism.

Why had these campaigns been given more weight particularly during the pandemic? Because it reveals brutal problems within the society.

We see the bright side of it, but the undercurrent of problems derived and aggregated within the pandemic had long been filtered from public eyes. According to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, by early April, it was established that Black people across the United States were dying from the disease at about twice the rate of white people. The circumstance is pretty much the same in Latino and Native American communities. Apparently the country calling itself “the land of the free” doesn’t give equality to all races with the same likelihood of infection, nor did the healthcare system treat everyone as equals, simply demonstrated by how the poor even struggle to pay for a test.

The polarization between the rich and the poor has reached new heights amidst the outbreak, as has domestic violence. Some high- and middle-income countries, such as Australia, France, Germany, South Africa, and the United States, have reported significant increases in reports of domestic violence since the COVID-19 outbreak, with women profoundly being the larger number of victims.

While all the social movements and regressive conservative ideas blend in fiercely in this large social context, and with the premise of society’s goals advancing, we should note that it is not the virus that discriminates, it is the world that does.

The article is trimmed for the newspaper version. Please refer to the Shenzhen Daily app for the full story.

(The author is a top winner at the “Embers & Ignited Hearts” writing contest co-organized by Spotlight Initiative and Shenzhen Daily.)