[United States / Online Hate] - The Scapegoating Self Projects Economic Pain onto Brown Bodies to Feed a Phantom of Pure Nation

Event Baseline: A new report finds that anti-South Asian hate speech has exploded online in the United States, linked to immigration politics, economic anxiety, and the growing visibility of South Asians.

The anxious self feels its phantom identity slipping. It looks for a cause outside itself. It finds a face that is not white. Thought, rooted in fear, creates the category South Asian and assigns it all the pain. The online space is a mirror where the self repeats its slogan until it believes it.

This is not free speech. This is a virus of identity. The other is not a person; it is a target for the discharge of accumulated rage. The nation is a phantom, and the scapegoat is the sacrifice needed to keep that phantom breathing. As long as the self seeks a cause for its own emptiness, it will always find an enemy.