I have been both horrified and puzzled by the steep upsurge in the verbal and physical assaults on Chinese Americans. Who would behave in this way, and why? I suppose the attacks are due to terrified stupidity and enabled malice, terrified stupidity, because fools in fear of COVID19 lash out at those whom the King of Fools has told them are responsible, enabled malice, because violence-prone, envious, resentful people are always quick to take advantage of any imagined license given them by persons in authority.

Let me end with Mark Twain’s observations on the Chinese and White-Chinese relations in his memoir Roughing It. He writes of the Chinese and the treatment they received in his time.

“They are a kindly disposed, well-meaning race, and are respected and well treated by the upper classes, all over the Pacific coast. No Californian gentleman or lady ever abuses a Chinaman, under any circumstances, an explanation that seems to be much needed in the East. Only the scum of the population do it – they and their children; they, and, naturally and consistently, the policemen and politicians, likewise, for these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as elsewhere in America.”