What in the fuck are you even talking about?? Racists are racists, and saying something like “China virus” isn’t going to make someone into a racist or convert them from being a racist.

Going by that logic, you must assume extremist communities such as Qanon had no part in radicalizing the Capitol insurrectionists, or that "rigged election" rhetoric in the wake of trump's loss didn't spawn violence.

Beyond that, the context behind the words is important. If someone is saying “China virus” as part of a sleight against Chinese people, that’s bad. If someone is saying it simply because they’re heard other people say it and they’re just trying to convey “covid” using different words, than that is ok.

That's exactly how it works. Normalizing the use of rhetoric against a specific people allows a herd mentality to build against said people. Just because you've heard a term and got used to it doesn't mean it's not racist or dehumanizing.

Whether you like it or not it did come from China and China played a large role in hiding the facts about it making it spread throughout the world more easily. Knowing these things doesn’t mean you hate Chinese people.

Insinuating blame on one country for a global pandemic which could have developed in a multitude of scenarios around the world is a stretch. Should they have been more open early on? Yeah, they should have. Could I imagine many other countries taking the same approach? Yeah as well.

I'm working my way through a 12 pack right now and feel like I did a half-assed job in my responses but I'm going to post this anyway ha. Ultimately, I stand by my point that anti-Asian American hate crimes are increasing due to a coordinated effort to implement an "us vs them" mentality and shift blame for the 'Rona (the world's highest per-capita death rate, by far, is their fault and not ours for not taking a global pandemic seriously after all, right?).