Sunday, June 20, 2021

Why is it a Privilege to let you Shit on Me?

 One of the funniest things about the incident involving a racist lecturer accosting an interracial couple, was the fact that there were actually people who had sympathy for the “racist lecturer.” While the majority where rightly sympathetic to the couple for being accosted, I came across enough people who felt that it was wrong of the couple film the incident and to make it go viral because they would be endangering the man’s livelihood. One of the most interesting postings on the matter came from a Facebook friend who posted something that looked like a cheap shot at making the victim look like the conspirator:

 


 

This was interestingly just one of the strangest posts on the subject. When my previous pieces on the subject were picked up by Tremeritus, I actually had two comments from people trying to explain to me why the racist lecturer was justified to do what he did:

 



I guess, if I were to read these sentiments correctly, the old lecturer was correct because he was expressing his feelings against a dangerous trend that would ruin the core tenants of Singapore – namely the fact that we have a Chinese majority, running the place with the help of a few white expatriates. If I am to read these basic sentiments, it seems that Singapore’s Chinese majority is feeling under threat in the same way that America’s White Majority felt – hence the rise of Trump.

Unfortunately, these sentiments towards the ethnic minority communities in Singapore are not limited to my online interactions. One of my former juniors from my last agencyjob had to deal with someone who refused to understand why Malay and Indian communities got upset over “brownface” and “blackface” things when the Chinese and Caucasians don’t get upset over “Yellow Face” and “White Face” things. It is after all an obvious fact that Malays are generally brown, Indians (specifically Tamils) are black, Chinese are yellow and Caucasians are white. A copy of the exchange can be found bellow:

 



The point that many of us in the ethnic majority forget is not the fact that certain races are usually a certain skin tone but the context in which they are used. What people forget is the fact that in Singapore Caucasians are a privileged minority and the Chinese are the dominant group, both numerically and economically. These two groups are the ones with the power. Hence, they can afford to be magnanimous and no one is really going to mock the Chinese and the Caucasians.

It’s different for the other two groups. Let’s put it crudely, making of Indians for being dark is almost a given in Singapore. So much so that when two rappers complained about a Chinese comedian putting on a “blackface,” the Indian Minister for home affairs and a Malay Member of Parliament attacked the Indian rappers for having the audacity to complain about being offended. Mr. Amrin Amin, who called someone a “Snowflake” for disagreeing with him on what constituted “racist” was very firm that the “stern action” needed to be taken to people who got offended by being on the wrong end of racism:

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/stern-action-needed-in-response-to-preetipls-disturbing-video-amrin-amin-135101478.html

Generally speaking, Singapore’s race relations are pretty good. I’ve argued previously that we’ve not had a “George Floyd” moment and the ensuring race riots. Everyone seems to get along and we’re reminded that unlike our neighbour to the north, we do not have openly discriminatory laws.

However, it appears that our “racial harmony” is based on a very racist understanding – which is the fact that the Chinese will be top dog and the ethnic minorities need to be reminded of their place. Which means, the ethnic minorities need to understand that they better learn to accept skin colour jokes in return for the “good life” granted by the grace of the ethnic majority.

What’s particularly disturbing is the fact that people in positions of power are expressing this attitude. The most disturbing moment came last year when Dr. Tan Wu Meng, a Member of Parliament from the ruling party took issue with something that Mr. Alfian Sa’at, who is ethnic Malay said. The incident can be seen in my posting on the matter:

https://beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com/2020/06/youre-lucky-we-let-you-live.html

Dr. Tan literally said Malays are lucky the Chinese allow them to live in Singapore and somehow Dr. Tan kept his job. If we were serious about “regardless of race,” the ruling party would have hung Dr. Tan out in the press.

I think of my own experiences of being an “ethnic minority.” I lived in a town in Southern England where the number of non-whites could be counted on one hand. The number of ethnic minorities in the town I lived in was pretty much reflected in my boarding house photo:

 


 

For the record, my experiences were pretty good. The colour of my skin was incidental in my relationships with the people I formed. Of course, it did help that I was going to a school where kids came from families that were relatively well educated. It did help that I spoke English as well as the natives and equally important, I was more than willing to have an active part on the ruby pitch in my initial years (which latter declined and I ended up in tubby ice cream land).

However, that’s not say that I never experienced racism. Once in a while you’d get the odd group of punks driving past you yelling “Oi ….Chinky Chinaman.” Ya, sure, it’s just a name but its not exactly fun and games to be on the receiving end of this type of thing. You try and comfort yourself in the knowledge that these are “uneducated” people who will never come to anything much.

When these things happened, the guys I hung out with, were always there to comfort me and I remember people would fight for me. “Don’t be racist to my friend” were words used in my favour.

I became exceedingly aware that I was not an Englishman and I had dreams of wanting never to wear Western cloths outside school uniform. Used to enjoy wearing Bruce Lee cloths. I was told I looked good with a mandarin collar but would probably get beaten up in town.

The message from my home was “learn to use words” rather than your fist and I was “lucky” to live in England, so one should appreciate the good things, and in fairness there good usually outweighed the bad.

So, when it came to “racial identity,” it was very clear to me that I was never going to be a white man nor was it something to desire or aspire to. I didn’t really speak Chinese, except when I went to take away (and I didn’t really like the guy who sold Chinese food but I took comfort in the fact that it was one of the rare occasions I could speak Cantonese rather than English). However, I lived in England, had a good life and more importantly really good mates.

One also learns not to take things to seriously. For me, it was sometimes quite funny to hear how “Chinese people” spoke English or as my mother would say “Kitchy little accents.” However, while I could laugh at certain things, there a reached a point where things did get out of hand:

 


Not my proudest moment. I was an 18-year-old who beat up a 13-year-old kid plus I was known as the captain of the Karate team. So, in a sense, I had reached a low level to resort to violence. However, at that time, I had said I wanted the Mr. Miyagi impressions directed at m to stop and they wouldn’t do it. Telling the teacher (which my Dad was surprised that I didn’t do) would only have made things worse and so I did what I said I would do – I wacked the bugger. I needed to get the message through that I was tired of the Miyagi jokes and needed to make them stop. Unfortunately, while I know what I did was probably wrong, I don’t feel remorse. In fact, I enjoyed reliving that incident and regret not inflicting that extra bit of hurt and that’s 30-years after the incident. A part of me regrets not doing enough hurt for his parents to complain against me and then being able to tell them that this is the price their kid had to pay for going overboard on the Miyagi jokes.

Mentioned this to some of my friends in the dorm. Was told that I did the right thing in sorting out the guy.

I look back at this incident and I wonder how many Indian and Malay guys must wish we in the ethnic majority limit the “dark” jokes. How many times have these jokes gone overboard and yet the Indian chap on the receiving end laughed along because “we” drilled it into his head that it was his privilege to be hanging out with us.

Being a certain pigmentation is a fact of life. It’s not something that should entitle one to privileges nor should it be something that invites you to be a target from everyone else. Education and the right to make a living are not granted by the will of the ethnic majority – they are rights of citizenship. I do believe nobody should take anything too seriously but the joke should not focus on a single person all the time for their pigmentation. We in the ethnic majority need to understand that our friends in the ethnic minority are human and have certain limits that we need to be sensitive to.

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Maira Gall