Congressional candidate questions if ‘Kung flu’ is racist, drawing ridicule on Twitter
“So, if ‘Kung flu’ is racist, does that make Bruce Lee and ‘Kung fu’ movies racist? And that song back in the 70s?”
So asked Buzz Patterson, a Republican challenging Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat, in November.
And the Twitter battle was on over Patterson’s use of the phrase coined Saturday by President Donald Trump to describe the coronavirus.
“It is very hard to be the Dumbest Person of the Day on Twitter but you are giving it a solid try,” wrote one tweeter.
Patterson fired back.
“Just wait. @JoeBiden will say something stupid soon. The day is young,” Patterson tweeted. He replied to some other angry comments with a simple “racist.”
And in another instance, Patterson, a retired Air Force pilot and former senior military aide to President Bill Clinton, asked critics: “We could call it the ‘Commie flu.’ Is that better?”
One tweeter noted, “Kung FU and Kung FLU are two different things. If you can’t understand that, you’ve got bigger problems than worrying about whether Bruce Lee’s movies are racist.”
Replied Patterson, “It was a tongue in cheek question. Literally.”
Lee was a big star in the early 1970s, starring in films such as “Fist of Fury” and “Enter the Dragon.” He died at age 32 in 1973.
“Kung Fu Fighting” was a hit song for Carl Douglas in 1972. The TV series “Kung Fu” did not star Lee; David Carradine had the lead role.
Patterson is a conservative running an underdog campaign against Bera, a fourth-term congressman representing a district that includes Sacramento’s eastern and southern suburbs.
President Donald Trump called the coronavirus, which has killed more than 117,000 people in the United States, the “Kung Flu” because of its apparent origins in China. He used the term during his rally in Tulsa Saturday night, saying, “I can name kung flu, I can name 19 different versions of names. Many call it a virus, which it is. Many call it a flu, what difference?”
Monday, White House spokesman Kayleigh McEnany defended Trump, telling reporters “The president does not believe that it is offensive to note that this virus came from China.”
Patterson Monday kept on fighting. “Here’s a critical point that leftists are incapable of grasping: if everything and everybody is ‘racist,’ then nothing is racist. Quit throwing it around because you’re intellectually lazy!” he tweeted.
This story was originally published June 22, 2020 at 3:32 PM.
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