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Anti-Asian Racism Is A Climate Issue: Climate Disinfo And White Supremacy Are Intertwined [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-05-31
On May 6 in Allen, Texas, a neo-Nazi white supremacist drove 30 miles to murder eight people and injure seven. Seven out of eight fatalities were people of color and half were Asian , and the shooter’s social media posts specifically included anti-Asian slurs . This shooting was a racist terror attack that demonstrates the real-world dangers of online white supremacist rhetoric. Climate advocates should take note, because there is a disturbing and significant overlap between online climate disinformation and anti-Asian hate speech.
First of all, numerous climate disinformers are also white supremacists who frequently spew anti-Asian rhetoric.
For example, full-time climate disinformer Alex Epstein is a self-described “ outspoken global warming affirmer ” who thinks that climate change is a good thing , and he is also a white supremacist who has falsely claimed that “Locke, Aristotle, and Newton have had no equivalents in Africa or Asia, and the advancements in those areas have been almost exclusively due to Western influence.” Former Big Tobacco lawyer Steve Milloy , now of the climate change-denying Heartland Institute , is a hard-line denier who claims climate change and air pollution deaths are scams, frequently uses the derogatory term “Chicom,” and believes that both the 2017 white nationalist riots in Charlottesville and the Jan. 6 insurrection are hoaxes. To name a more well-known example, Elon Musk allowed climate misinformation to explode on Twitter, shared a neo-Nazi quote , and suggested that the Allen, Texas shooting was a “ psyop .” Need we go on?
In addition to this actor-based overlap, numerous climate disinformation narratives frequently rely on false claims about China, which results in real-world consequences for Asian people in the US.
The Great Reset , Agenda 21 , and Agenda 2030 climate-related conspiracy theories often spur claims that the COVID pandemic was planned by China . Also, the conservative campaign against environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment considerations frequently relies on fearmongering about China’s social credit system taking over the US. Last but not least, the 15-minute cities climate conspiracy theory includes claims that China has already implemented some dystopian version of the mundane urban planning concept .
This anti-China climate disinformation fuels not only Sinophobic bigotry but also anti-Asian racism more generally. Recent research from multiple different sources, including The Asian American Foundation , Stop AAPI Hate , and Columbia University , reaffirms the fact that Asian people in the US continue to face intense discrimination . Constant China-bashing online and in Congress increases anti-Asian hate because violent racists will commit hate crimes regardless of their victims’ actual backgrounds. As Frank Wu, President of Queens College, City University of New York, told the Los Angeles Times last month, “this is about whether or not you have an Asian face.”
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/31/2172423/-Anti-Asian-Racism-Is-A-Climate-Issue-Climate-Disinfo-And-White-Supremacy-Are-Intertwined
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