Joel Dinerstein

writer & professor
race, music & cool

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White Supremacy and the #ChineseVirus

May 30, 2020

A disease has spread to all human populations for the first time in human history.

President Trump’s continual attacks on China have a racial component encoded in his use of the phrase, “the Chinese Virus.” In fact, the hashtag #ChineseVirus is still used twice a minute by his Twitter followers. I wrote this piece on Medium.com to focus on how racism works for the president within a global context.

Joel Dinerstein is the author of three books on cool, including the first history of the concept (The Origins of Cool in Postwar America), the first major exhibit of cool icons (American Cool), and a corporate history, Coach: A Story of NY Cool. My TED Talk, entitled "Why Cool Matters," can be found on YouTube. I am also the author of the award-winning Swinging the Machine, a theory of swing-era jazz and technology, and Jazz: A Quick Immersion, a short history and listening guide.

I am a cultural historian and Professor of English at Tulane University, and hold a Ph.D in American Studies from the University of Texas @ Austin.

In 2014, I curated the exhibit American Cool at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. American Cool featured 100 cool icons and 100 photographs, and it was based on my historical research.