Narratives about Africa as dark, depraved, and diseased justified the exploitation of African land and people. Today, these narratives may still have a hold on people’s fears about disease. We test this in three (pre-COVID-19) experiments (N = 1,803). Across studies, we find that participants report greater worry about a pandemic originating in Africa (vs. elsewhere). In turn, they report greater support for travel bans and for loosening abortion restrictions. We then document these narratives in an archival study of newspaper articles of the 2015–2016 Zika pandemic (N = 1,475). We find that articles were more negative—for example, they included more death-related words—if they mentioned Africa. Finally, we replicate the experimental results within the COVID-19 context, using a representative sample (N = 1,200). Taken together, the studies make clear that reactions to pandemics are biased, and in a way consistent with historical narratives about race and Africa.

关于非洲黑暗、堕落和病态的叙述证明了对非洲土地和人民的剥削是正当的。今天，这些叙述可能仍然影响着人们对疾病的恐惧。我们在三个（COVID-19 之前）实验中对此进行了测试（N = 1,803）。在所有研究中，我们发现参与者对起源于非洲的大流行（与其他地方相比）表示更大的担忧。反过来，他们报告了对旅行禁令和放宽堕胎限制的更大支持。然后，我们在对 2015-2016 年寨卡大流行（N= 1,475)。我们发现，如果文章提到非洲，它们会更加消极——例如，它们包含更多与死亡相关的词。最后，我们使用代表性样本 ( N = 1,200) 在 COVID-19 环境中复制了实验结果。总之，这些研究清楚地表明，对流行病的反应是有偏见的，并且在某种程度上与关于种族和非洲的历史叙述一致。