Dear members of the Mandel School community,
I am grateful to our Community Innovation Network, including Mark Chupp, James Graulty and Xinyuan Cui, who wrote the below Asian anti-discrimination statement in response to COVID-19. I appreciate their leadership on this critical issue and ask you to join me in echoing their sentiments.
The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University calls all people to take a stand against racism and hate speech aimed at people of Chinese and other Asian descent. The discriminatory commentary and harmful stereotyping around COVID-19 has caused an increase in racial targeting of people of Chinese and other Asian descent. Everyone is susceptible to the virus; an individual cannot be contagious based on their race or national origin. The increase in assaults, harassment and hate crimes against people of Chinese and other Asian descent must be condemned. Please, stand with us and our Chinese and other Asian descent relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbors today, and if you see something, say something. Speak out against negative behaviors, including on social media, and denounce the exclusion of people who pose no more risk than anyone else. The enemy is the COVID-19 virus, not those of Chinese or other Asian descent. Stigma hurts everyone by creating fear or anger towards other people. Racism is a virus that must be stopped.
With appreciation,
Grover C. Gilmore, PhD
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Dean in Applied Social Sciences