Tweet by Media Pundit Sparks Controversy in Community
On March 16, district Superintendent Alex Cherniss sent an email to the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District community confirming that a student at Palos Verdes High School (PVHS) tested positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19). As this information spread throughout different forms of media such as Twitter, Republican media pundit and author Ann Coulter came across Good Day L.A.’s tweet about this report. She retweeted this post with the following comment: “I cannot help but notice that Palos Verdes High School is 35 percent minority, ‘majority Asian’ and thus more likely to have friends/relatives visiting from China. On the bright side, Palos Verdes High School crushes the state average in math proficiency.”
Much backlash arose in response to Coulter’s comment, with about 200 retweets and a plethora of replies from various individuals. Many criticized and denounced her with comments and hashtags, calling her “an absolutely terrible human being” and a “racist pig.” Although it has been proven that COVID-19 originated from Wuhan, China, according to research conducted by NewScientist, it is unreasonable to put blame on a specific race for the spread of COVID-19, as it is affecting our world globally.
“It is truly unacceptable for national figures like Coulter to primarily focus on the Asian spread of the coronavirus,” junior Ronjini Chatterjee said. “Solely pointing out one entire ethnic group and blaming them for the spread of the coronavirus is intolerable.”
Although there have been cases of COVID-19 from Asian individuals, Coulter generalizing the Asian population for spreading COVID-19 is racist and unwarranted since COVID-19 does not only infect Asian individuals. There have been multiple non-Asian countries that have contributed to this spread. In fact, five days before Coulter had tweeted, the World Health Organization announced the state of a global pandemic, and Coulter should have had the prior knowledge that COVID-19 has been found all over the world. In fact, according to StatNews, there are over 200 different countries and territories worldwide that have been impacted by this virus. Coulter should not use China as a scapegoat for the spread of COVID-19 if the majority of countries contain individuals who have been tested positive for the virus. Her lack of recognition that this is not an Asian, but a global pandemic makes this tweet intolerable.
“A lot of media outlets, namely Coulter, are focused on pinning all Asians for their role in spreading the disease,” sophomore Blake Dee said. “This has resulted in Asian hate crimes across the United States — something that stirs discontent in the hearts of many in the Palos Verdes community.”
Coulter closes her statement stating that PVHS excels in the state’s average math scores. According to Public School Review, for the 2016-17 school year, the most recent data collected, the percentage of students achieving proficiency in Math is 66 percent. This is higher than California’s state average of 38 percent. Although this claim is accurate, Coulter’s tone suggests that this was only a backhanded compliment. With the phrase, “On the bright side,” Coulter tries to cover up her previous discriminatory remarks by complimenting PVHS’s math proficiency level. This sentence in addition to the rest of the tweet is unnecessary and prejudicial.
“There was honestly no point in Ann Coulter’s tweet other than to drive a discriminatory wedge between Asians and other cultures, even if it is [under the guise of being] positive in relation to the ‘math proficiency’ quote,” junior Jeanie Benedict said. “It is important for our community to identify scapegoating and understand that this will not benefit our society in any way or come close to providing a solution for this epidemic.”
