Melbourne Man Uses Hammer To Tear Down Sign That Said Covid-19 Was 'Made In China'

A Melbourne man has gone to town on a sign that's been dubbed 'racist'.

The Glen Waverley bloke noticed the banner attached to a pole outside a home that said the coronavirus pandemic was 'made in China'.

It's a tired trope used by people all over the world since the beginning of last year suggesting China created Covid-19 in a lab or something similar.

The sentiment has resulted in a rise in anti-Asian sentiments in the Western world.

But this bloke in Melbourne wasn't going to sit back and let someone display their ignorant views.

So, he grabbed an electric saw and a hammer and hacked at it on the pole until it was in pieces on the ground.

The man filmed the whole thing and said to the camera: "A friend told me someone posted a sign insulting Chinese people - saying coronavirus is from China. We have to remove it."

He's uploaded the clip to TikTok, where people have congratulated the man for sticking it to the racists.

One user wrote: "I would literally do the same thing."

Another added: "Can't believe this is happening in 2021. Hope the cowards responsible for this are held accountable."

A third said: "No matter where [the virus] is from, it shouldn't lead to racism - that's never forgivable."

While some people might think the sign is innocuous and shouldn't have any attention paid to it, others say it's representative of how a minority of Australians think, which is problematic.

The Lowy Institute conducted a landmark survey and found nearly one in five Chinese Australians had experienced physical racist assaults during the pandemic.

In addition to that, The Scanlon report into social cohesion revealed there was a 'heightened negative sentiment towards Chinese nationals' over 2020 and 2021 and that was attributed to Covid-19 originating from China.

While a whopping 84 per cent of people who responded to that report said multiculturalism was a good thing for Australia, that number quickly dived when a specific region was mentioned.

There were 44 per cent of respondents who said they had 'very negative' or 'somewhat negative' feelings towards Chinese Australians.

That figure was at just 13 per cent back in 2013, showing a near three-fold jump in negative attitudes.

Topics: Australia

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie