Noah Khan
Abstract
The present paper examines the phenomenon of anti-Asian racism in the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications on the structure of trust. Drawing on studies completed after the pandemic began, anti-Asian racism is viewed across multiple technological structures. The paper begins with late 1800’s U.S.A., examining race-based exclusion laws, drawing the present pandemic in relation to depict the ways in which the evolution of technology has changed the very way trust is structured. Studies on technological phenomena such as bots and social media anonymity are consulted to demonstrate the structural turn in the network of trust to one of blurred parties. The disadvantages of this network, finding form in various social media, are explored through multiple studies on the effects on Asian American mental health and the increase in the Asian/White mental health gap. Examination of such a network, wherein anonymous hate can exist in large quantities, suggests that dis/trust is becoming universalized in that a victim of hate can no longer identify between whom their trust has been broken, leading to general anxiety, fear, and depression. Implications are then drawn to examine the ways in which technological change effects conceptual change. After a conceptual analysis of connection through a technological lens, the present paper concludes with suggestions for how we might ethically engage with a network of trust such as the one presented. As individuals, there is great impetus created to publicly express counter-hate without anonymity, so that networks of trust can be mapped for victims.