Covid-19 is the correct name.

We call it Coronavirus.

We’ve seen the meme’s and heard the jokes:

“I’ll have a Coronavirus with a twist of Lyme disease.”

Ok that’s almost funny, and in such a serious time humor is necessary to get us through this.

But lets not confuse humor with something else.

There’s other names for this that aren’t so funny.

Recently I came across a post on social media by a ‘friend’, a gay comedian who lives in Fort Lauderdale. He is pretty well known for his schtick and for showing his ass to get a laugh. I tried but never really thought he was that funny. Some in the gay community would call him hot, he checks a lot of boxes: bald, beard, muscular, hairy.
And according to him, funny. In this post he referred to the virus as the ‘ching-chong’ virus.

Another social media post by a gay couple sporting self-made face shields to protect themselves from the ‘kung flu’.

And we’ve all heard about Trump calling it the ‘Chinese Virus’.

Chinese virus.
Ching-chong virus.
Kung flu.

These aren’t funny. These are racist. Pure and simple.
If you disagree, you are wrong.

Unless you are a Trump supporter then maybe you find them funny which absolutely validates your ignorance.

Hearing this from Trump doesn’t surprise me. Trump is a bully. We all know that. His supporters ignore it but it’s been a prevalent piece of his presidential history, his life for that matter.

But the other two, coming from the gay community… come on?!

I would have found this disgusting no matter what but coming from my brethren who have been bullied and coming from the community that has been put down, beat down, beaten up and called every name in the book and cried about it and asked for equality in every way and taken that all the way to the Supreme Court…

What the fuck people!

DO NOT tell me you just wanted to get a laugh. I suppose that might be true but guess what? You’re not funny.
You may get people going to your show but it’s more because you’re a ‘big sexy bear’ and you’re gay and you’re a comedian and there aren’t a lot of those (I guess). And you pack the house in Ptown every year during bear week but guess what? People can only go to the Crown and Anchor so many nights before they just need something different to do! “Okay lets check it out before we go to A-house”. Shrug.

Don’t expect to sell out this year.

And Kung-Flu? Really?

There was a lot of backlash in the comments that those offended were overly sensitive.

Indeed we live in a world where it has been drilled into our heads to be politically correct and to be sensitive to the feelings of others. To the point where people say, and sometimes rightly so:

“Man, can’t you take a joke?”

I can take a joke. I’ve been the butt of many jokes! And not just from my kids.

I can handle it because I’m thick skinned and I can laugh at myself when I do stupid stuff.

But I wasn’t bullied.

I wasn’t beaten up.

I wasn’t called fag by other kids in high school.

I was targeted and called names by people after I came out in my 40’s if I was walking in Boston’s south end or through Chelsea or anywhere I may be holding hands with the guy in my life. So I get it. To a degree, I’ve never been really harassed or bullied or beaten up but I have a LOT of friends who did.

I just can’t get over this. We as a culture in society get so loud and proud for who we are. We fight for LGBTQ+ rights. We go to the pride events. We wave the flag, we kiss in public, we show no shame.

And we make such a constant fuss for anyone and ourselves when we see injustice in our community. As we should.
As we ALL should!

But then we get people like this within our own community who are doing this kind of shit that we are trying to get people to stop doing to us. Who are you to make such comments about another segment of society? And if I see you marching for equal rights after hurling racial comments I’m calling you out on the spot. All of you.

And it’s not just these jokes, we all have heard of stories in the news of Chinese being beaten because ‘they brought the virus here’. There’s NO excuse for this.

I’m white. So I’ve never been the target of racism. I can’t imagine how that even feels.
But I know what it looks like and it doesn’t look anything like human decency.

And that’s what I’m calling for here.

There’s been such a decline in society of human decency and courtesy and just simple acts of kindness that it is deeply disturbing.

Once this whole things settles down who knows where we will be at in terms of maintaining social distance or not performing simple acts like holding the door for others. I hope we don’t lose courtesy acts like that. I know I won’t.

Making jokes about the coronavirus that belittle any other segment of society doesn’t do anything to highlight your manhood, in fact it shows the worst shade of it possible. It shows your ignorance and masculinity and ignorance to not go together.

I feel strongly about this and I am not being overly sensitive, these people are idiots and assholes and this is not time for that.

If you don’t agree that’s your right but in my book that makes you ignorant as well and if you want to call me out, bitch me out, comment on this blog and call me whatever, please feel free, you won’t change my mind.

I’m not throwing shade here, I’m casting light on ignorance.