COLUMN: Why did Sean Spicer’s xenophobia go ignored on social media?


On March 11, Indian American education worker Shree Chauhan posted a video to Twitter in which she can be heard interrogating Press Secretary Sean Spicer at a Washington, D.C. Apple Store. The video, which sparked national interest only briefly before fading back into the Washington news cycle, depicts Spicer awkwardly trying to evade Chauhan as she presses him: “How does it feel to work for a fascist?” and “Have you committed treason, too, just like the president?”

At one point, Spicer turns to Chauhan, who is from New York, and thinly smiles. “Such a great country that allows you to be here,” he tells her.

As an Asian American growing up in Ohio it was a sentiment I felt and heard everywhere: at school, at restaurants, going to the mall with my family on weekends. One of the first ways I was made to realize my race was a classmate asking me, when we were both four years old, “Zoe, are you adopted?”

If you are yellow or brown in this country, society instills in you from childhood a deep and pervasive alienation that cannot easily be shaken off. It is the overwhelming sense that you must not be native-born, that you do not belong to this country and that this country does not belong to you.

And now, with Trump’s travel ban and the hostile, xenophobic and distinctly un-American uproar it conjures, that feeling is expanding. Marked by violence and death, the stakes are rising. Seemingly innocuous comments by anyone — but especially by the  United States press secretary — should not go ignored by the public.

Thus, I cannot fathom why the video was not shared more widely, why it did not appear to go viral on social media and why there was no outrage over Spicer’s statements. In light of the recent spate of violence directed toward people of  SouthAsian descent Spicer’s comment is unconscionable. Saturday Night Live and Melissa McCarthy, in all her charisma and boisterousness, made a habit of mocking Spicer, but now it is time to contend with him as someone dangerous, reckless and hateful.

The election changed everything, of course, but the theory I still somewhat believe is that prejudice is rooted deep. There are people who make conscious decisions to perpetuate prejudice, but in everyone, racism and sexism and stereotypes are conditioned into instinct. Growing up in this broken modern world, you cannot avoid it. Education, empathy and friendships with people of different backgrounds can change these instincts — but not when an individual sets himself or herself averse to change. Not when people put blame on immigrants and tell brown Americans to leave the country and label every news outlet that holds the president accountable as fake and corrupt.

When people do make conscious choices to shame and belittle and scapegoat minorities, it moves beyond the bounds of fixable, rectifiable prejudice and into the categorization of hate. And what Spicer said to Chauhan in the Apple Store two Saturdays ago was hate. It was a deliberate action to offend and denigrate the citizenship of an American with whom it is his job to communicate.

It didn’t matter whether Spicer knew he was being recorded or not — he didn’t care. In order to push back the woman trying to hold him accountable, he insulted her race and made assumptions about her nationality. This is intolerable from anyone, but especially from the mouthpiece for the White House.

Make no mistake, this is the same vein of hatred that recently killed Srinivas Kuchibhotla and wounded Alok Madasani at a Kansas bar, that shot Deep Rai outside his own home. Asian Americans — along with several minority groups — are currently being targeted in this country by people who subscribe to President Donald Trump’s vitriolic xenophobia, and Spicer knows this. He knows it and he doesn’t care — and what’s more, he chooses to perpetuate it. That is something I am willing to neither forgive nor forget.

Spicer does not deserve my respect because he is a racist. He’s a racist who knows the drastic consequences of his own words, and still he spouts them anyway. He is culpable, dangerous, and — as Chauhan’s video demonstrates — extraordinarily reckless. He has access to the most powerful podium in American politics, but he does not care where his words land or who they flatten. Spicer does not care.

But here’s the thing. The public does.

Zoe Cheng is a sophomore majoring in writing for screen and television. Her column, “Cross Section,” runs every other Tuesday.

3 replies
  1. Benjamin Roberts
    Benjamin Roberts says:

    Brief history lesson for young people in college who may not have been paying attention in high school: Our very young nation was founded by western Europeans who were largely white (and Christian Deists, for that matter). It should come as no surprise therefore that people in America as well as from around the world, tend to view the average American as someone of white European descent, with judeo-Christian values. These are ethinic and racial realities, not racist realities. Even the very term “minority” affirms this fact. Certainly our nation’s racial makeup has changed through the years through immigration, and acquisition of lands, particularly out West in territory formerly occupied by Mexico. Legal immigration is welcomed, and will continue to change the “look” of our nation, but there is nothing racist, wrong or even unnatural about wanting to preserve the “values” of America. Immigrants from decades ago integrated and assimilated into American culture; Immigrants today are less likely to do so, often segregating themselves. Mr. Spicer was correct in reminding the hostile Marxist who confronted him that she does indeed live in a great country that protects her right to speak out against government, policy and public officials.

  2. Lunderful
    Lunderful says:

    Your grammar needs work. Your days need filling with meaningful tasking. Your opinions need a foundation of clarity. You need an intellectual spanking.

  3. Thekatman
    Thekatman says:

    My god you’re one emotionally messed up kid. You’re so off base on your racist comments that if this were a baseball game you would be tagged out before touching first base. There reason that attack against Spicer was not more newsworthy than it was is because the Trump hater that run the media spin this hateful attack against Spicer into some things g positive for the Left, even if making it up. You have made up a situation that has no bearing in fact. But then again, you’re a self obsessed late teenager who thinks you know everything. Guess what? You are a college student. You don’t know real life and won’t for many years after graduation. Using your Asian heritage as a crutch to profess your own bias against others is disgusting. I’m sure you were raised better than that.

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