Serhan and McLaughlin’s essay, “The Other Problematic Outbreak” largely connects to the concepts and ideas of David Foster Wallace in “This is Water”. Serhan and McLaughlin’s essay centers around the idea that people became racist and prejudiced against Asians during the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak. They stated how ““if you are seen to be Asian,” Wong told us, “even if you are not coughing or displaying symptoms, people naturally walk away from you”” (4). David Foster Wallace talks largely about how people should not be so quick to judge others and instead need to focus on the idea of what they could be going through. By essentially taking a step back to try and understand that no particular group of people is to blame for the pandemic, then others would not be able to justify the ridiculous prejudice put forth when the pandemic began.
When discussing further examples of similar situations to the Covid-19 travel ban, Sehan and McLaughlin talked about how “still, some media outlets and U.S. leaders continue to refer to the disease as the “Wuhan virus” (4). This statement resonates significant;y with both Konnikova and Chen’s essays as they discuss the ways in which media can twist words to have different meanings. By continuing to use these terms in a way to blame the virus on a particular group of people, the media only fueled the fire of hatred that was beginning to spread. Konnikova and Chen both explore the impact that social media has on the actions of people all over the world, and blasting harmful headlines such as these during a time of extreme upset was a direct attack on innocent people.
