It’s incredible to me that people are either blind or too soft to not understand the difference between a country and culture that are homogeneous and a country and culture that isn’t. Let’s break down a few countries on the pandemic front.
Taiwan: 95% Chinese, a Chinese culture that favors the common instead of the individual, masks being part of the culture for decades. No shit they only have 7 deaths.
Hong Kong: 92% Chinese, a Chinese culture that favors the common instead of the individual, masks being part of the culture for decades. No shit they only have 7 deaths.
Spain: 88% Spaniard, a Spanish culture that likes to not give a fuck. Result: they caught up with the rest of Europe in a few weeks (one of the fastest infection rate due to the fact that Spaniards didn’t care about staying at home). BUT, Spain being still quite homogenous, their gnarly lockdown was very much followed and very successful. Deaths have been going down.
US: First of all, we’re talking about one order of magnitude more people than the three previous countries. That’s not nothing to go from 23 million to 328 million folks. Then we have 73% White Americans. That’s the biggest group in the US and the smallest majority –by far– compared to the 95% Chinese, 92% Chinese and 88% Spaniard. The second biggest group is Black Americans followed by Asian Americans. Latinos are right there too.
It’s heterogeneous as fuck. Interests are divergent. There’s like 50 different cultures just in Los Angeles. Add the fact that all those demographics are in constant friction over everything means that *no one* feels accountable for the COMMON.
That’s the BASIS. Then, of course, top it all with the current US administration and their clowns, social media to stir it all up and yes, everyone goes back to their individual beliefs and well… The pandemic goes harder.
Isn’t it obvious? It’s not bad information: people know that masks and staying at home are effective measures, it’s working everywhere and around the world. It’s not necessarily bad policies and governance: in Florida yes, but in California, not really. They shut down things early and everything.
It’s just that many people, individuals don’t care (how many videos of people wilding out?). Individuals also have to go to work to pay rent. It’s way less an issue if at all in Taiwan, Hong Kong or Spain where the government stepped up and helped its population far more than in the US. Because they all agree on helping basically everyone sharing one culture and one language. The big advantage of an homogeneous setting.
I love the fact that America is that heterogeneous. That’s what makes it interesting and different. It makes it harder to deal with issues like a global pandemic, true. And we could do much better for sure (cancel rent you cowards). But that’s part of the deal to me.
What concerns me with all this talk is seeing some white folks salivating at homogeneous countries while they think they’re being attacked by Black Lives Matter. That’s no good.