I know many people think that the virus is China's fault, I don't want to debate whether it's right or wrong, but something like china_dress, double_bun are culture symbols rather than political things, that's why I feel those "corona-chan" arts like post #3804126 are racism and post #3829018 is not. By the way, if there's a picture showned a personificated virus with hammer and sickle on its cloth or wears PLA's type 65 uniform, I also won't think it's racism but a normal satire art.

Did you just want to voice your opinion or...?

Unbreakable said:

Did you just want to voice your opinion or...?

Just explainning, I tagged racism on those corona-chan arts then others removed and post me a message, told me I can open a thread in the forum.
P.S.: As a non-native English-speaker, my dictions may not so precisely, if there's any misunderstanding, sorry for that.

It's just a character who is usually depicted wearing their hair in a double bun and wearing a china dress. Yes, these are references to China, on account of the fact that this is where the virus originated and initially spread from. It's not anything more than that. Nothing racist about it.

If there were a post made indicating that, say, all Chinese people are carriers of the virus, then sure. But none of these posts are doing that.

Racism is for depictions of racist comments or behavior, such as in post #499184. It's not intended for things that someone might feel is offensive, tags are meant to be objective descriptors, what is and isn't offensive is subjective.

Corona-chan might be insensitive to some, but there's nothing inherently racist about her. It would be a different story if she were given slant eyes and buck teeth.

I have no counter arguments here.
I think these images are pretty distasteful and at least require the racism tag because it's a clear personification of stereotypes.
For reference, Trump calling in the "Chinese virus" isn't all that wrong but having the whole Chinese culture associated with it, kinda is.

I think its fine.

blindVigil said:

Corona-chan might be insensitive to some, but there's nothing inherently racist about her. It would be a different story if she were given slant eyes and buck teeth.

Agree with this. She's got a chinese theme because the virus originated in china. We even have an european version now, post #3830918.

Stereotypes aren’t inherently racist; it depends on how they’re used. Putting the personification of a virus that had its initial epidemic center in China in a Chinese dress is not racist, IMO. Throwing in established memes (like You are already dead) isn’t inherently racist either; it’s just what the Internet does for lulz all day, every day.

Also what nonamethanks said. I live in Europe and I don’t mind Corona-chan wearing a European-themed dress at all. Neither do I mind the extra-burn with the toilet paper. Actually, that gave me a good chuckle.

Maybe the thing is on the depiction being generally insensitive rather than specifically racist? Just trying to guess this thread out.

By that I mean that maybe they're mislabelling it as racism when maybe people just feel general discomfort and offense because instead of stereotyping Chinese people and their practices, it seems to be more about glorifying* a virus that can kill hoards of people by the hour similar to Ebola-chan by personifying it into a "cute" anime-styled character. Maybe they're confusing racism with that, maybe.

*that's not the right word to use I think since it sounds way too strong, so forgive me.

blindVigil said:

Racism is for depictions of racist comments or behavior, such as in post #499184. It's not intended for things that someone might feel is offensive, tags are meant to be objective descriptors, what is and isn't offensive is subjective.

This. Whether an image itself could be considered racist or not is something we don't need to get into. I can already see the shitshorm that would erupt if people started fighting over whether those Nessa whitewashing posts should be tagged as racist or not.

Lacrimosa said:

I think these images are pretty distasteful and at least require the racism tag because it's a clear personification of stereotypes.

A national costume is not the same thing as a stereotype. If Corona-chan were drawn as a manipulative sexual opportunist or slavishly devoted to her elders, then that would be a cultural stereotype. But simply wearing a traditional outfit? Not really.

If drawing a character in a folk costume to indicate their national origin is all it takes to get the racism tag, then there are hundreds of other posts that should get the same treatment. All the ones with German shipgirls wearing dirndls or D.Va wearing hanbok, for instance.

iridescent_slime said:

A national costume is not the same thing as a stereotype. If Corona-chan were drawn as a manipulative sexual opportunist or slavishly devoted to her elders, then that would be a cultural stereotype. But simply wearing a traditional outfit? Not really.

If drawing a character in a folk costume to indicate their national origin is all it takes to get the racism tag, then there are hundreds of other posts that should get the same treatment. All the ones with German shipgirls wearing dirndls or D.Va wearing hanbok, for instance.

I don't know why you bring shipgirls into the mix. I don't think them being associated with KanColle (which is about ships fighting "monsters" to keep it simple) is something racist or similar. That comparison doesn't work at all.
This here is associating a country in form of stereotypical stuff (dress, hairstyle) to a harmful thing (virus) that kills people.
That's where I start considering it not being just a joke anymore, even though I don't think artists have harmful intentions. It's just really, really poor taste at best.

Lacrimosa said:

I don't know why you bring shipgirls into the mix. I don't think them being associated with KanColle (which is about ships fighting "monsters" to keep it simple) is something racist or similar. That comparison doesn't work at all.

That's the whole point. Dressing characters up in traditional costumes isn't racism.

This here is associating a country in form of stereotypical stuff (dress, hairstyle) to a harmful thing (virus) that kills people.

So when Chinese traditional dress is used to personify something else from China, like Chinese food, or Chinese technology, that's fine, but when the thing of Chinese origin being personified is a virus, suddenly it becomes a problem? This doesn't make any sense.

Lacrimosa said:

I don't think artists have harmful intentions. It's just really, really poor taste at best.

A Covid..-Virus shaped chinese person in a chinese dress would be racism, kinda like post #3545218. But a person, dressed in a chinese dress, mentioning the covid..-virus isn´t racism at all, as it´s just a reference to the origin of the virus in this case. It could an abstract statment whatsoever. I think we shouldn´t tag stuff like that as racism, just as you said: It´s just a really poor taste at best.