Since the outbreak of SARS, many have been avoiding the Chinese community, and some say discrimination is at work. But those who avoid are not against the Chinese, but the virus. Calling the avoidance a case of discrimination may be nothing more than a convenient way to make sense of the behaviour.

Many Chinese themselves avoid going to Chinese restaurants, malls, Chinatown, or anywhere else that usually attracts crowds, where the spread of viruses occurs rapidly. SARS has already infected a fair number of people. When one of my Chinese friends said her mom was returning from Hong Kong, another Chinese friend bluntly replied, “Don‘t expect me to see you in the next ten days.”

Is that discrimination? My friend‘s mom has may or may not be sick. Does it make sense to avoid her and my friend? I think so, for the duration of this outbreak.

In a congested city like Hong Kong, people do their best to avoid close contact with strangers so as not to be new victims of the disease. But we don t call this discrimination, because it’s hard to talk about discrimination when you’re all the same colour. Here in the GTA, as soon as Caucasians avoid Chinese-run places, for instance, their apparent difference in ethnicity quickly prompts many to interpret the avoidance as discriminatory behaviour. We grab at the term so swiftly because it seems so fitting in the scenario.

A Chinese co-worker at the coffee shop where I work said customers were paying by dropping coins from mid-air, rather than handing them to her. What if these customers had been doing that before SARS? You don’t notice something until you start looking for it. I didn’t even know that there was suspected discrimination until I heard about it in the news.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien ate at a Chinese restaurant in the East end and declared that some people are scared when there is no reason to be. I appreciate our PM’s goodwill to eliminate what may be perceived discrimination by exercising model behaviour, but is it really the issue?

What’s wrong with avoiding a mysterious virus so long as it doesn t make you paranoid about everything Chinese from now until the end of time?

Don’t get me wrong. It bothers me to know some Chinese are avoided because they’re Chinese. It also upsets me to hear my parents are currently getting the look from non-Asians when they go into Price Choppers. Casting weird glances is excessive, but keeping distance for practical reasons is not. It certainly shouldn t be confused with discrimination.

The Chinese are not avoided because of their ethnicity, only because their ethnicity functions as an identifier that they could be infectious. Unless you know these people personally, it’s impossible to tell whether they’ve recently returned from high-risk regions, or are uninfected individuals. We just need to keep in mind this identifier will expire once the epidemic is over.