Ian Buruma’s Visit to City College’s Rifkind Center

Words by Sarah Logan

Ian Buruma, a Paul W. Williams Professor of Journalism and Human Rights at Bard College, spoke at the Rifkind Center on February 18, 2021. The discussion, titled “Nonsense is Contagious: Epidemic and Conspiracy,” included a conversation about the state of America during the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent November election.

Buruma writes for a range of established publications focusing on the areas of politics and culture. His writing can be found in The New York Review of Books (for which he was the editor until September 2018), The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Delivering lectures at educational institutions like Oxford, Princeton, and Harvard, Buruma’s appearance at City College’s Rifkind Center was well received.

During the discussion, he talked heavily about Trump’s effects on the American population. He emphasized the tragic result that the former president’s racism had towards Asian-Americans because of his ignorance and conspiratorial words. “President Trump and some of his allies have made a point of calling the coronavirus a ‘Chinese virus,’ the ‘Wuhan virus’ or, simply, a ‘foreign virus,’” Buruma stated in a New York Times article.

This led to a rise in violence towards Asian-Americans. “Citizens assumed to be of Asian origin have already been attacked-sometimes physically-by people who took Mr. Trump’s words about a ‘Chinese virus literally, as though Covid-19 were a Chinese attack on Americans.” 

Buruma explained that Asian-Americans were targeted for blame because of Trump’s conspiratorial remarks. “A leader who applies chauvinism and prejudice to a frightening disease is not best equipped to deal with a pandemic,” Buruma stated.

“Coronavirus isn’t Chinese or foreign; it is global,” he concluded. “Blaming alien forces, whether in the name of God, or science or simple prejudice, is bound to make things a great deal worse.”