News
Salon: Fox News host claims coronavirus outbreak was caused by Chinese people "eating raw bats and snakes"
Salon - Fox News host Jesse Watters was roundly criticized for making the racist claim that the coronavirus outbreak was caused by Chinese people “eating raw bats and snakes.”
“Let me tell you why it happened in China: They have these markets where they were eating raw bats and snakes,” Watters said on the Fox News show “The Five” to the vocal protest of co-host Dana Perino. “They are a very hungry people. The Chinese communist government cannot feed the people, and they are desperate. This food is uncooked, it is unsafe and that is why scientists believe that’s where it originated from.”
. . .
Margaret Fung, the executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, told Salon by email that “racist Fox News host Jesse Watters is at it again.” After mentioning his controversial 2016 segment, Fung added that Watters was “invoking false stereotypes about the foods Chinese people eat in order to blame China for the coronavirus. Asian Americans are tired of racist media tirades about a serious public health matter that has nothing to do with race. Bill O’Reilly is gone, and it’s time for Fox to ditch Jesse Watters, too.” . . .