There's been a lot of talk recently about race and religion, and all these discussions are understandable since there's been so much going on. I'm sure I don't need to refresh anyone's memory because it's all pretty recent and still in the forefront of most of our minds and social media pages.
I just decided to sort of weigh in with my own experiences.
Obviously, I first need to acknowledge that I'm a Chinese person in Singapore and I'm aware of my privilege. However, it has become extremely disturbing and deeply disconcerting that some of my fellow Chinese Singaporeans are unable to even come to terms with their own privilege and what racism in Singapore looks like.
Some of them seem to be in disbelief, still ignorant that there's racism in Singapore. Others somehow decide to play the victim and become defensive, claiming that Chinese people can also be at the receiving end of racism in Singapore.
To me, it is not at all shocking that racism exists in Singapore. It has always existed. The shocking thing is how people are blind towards their own prejudice.
The other shocking thing is how some Singaporean Chinese people simply do not understand that the issue here is about how minority races are being treated, and therefore as a Chinese person, we are part of the majority and we shouldn't be jumping in to play victim when we are the oppressors. Just no. To be completely honest, it just makes us look foolish.
My concern with the issue is how Chinese Singaporeans appear to be uneducated when it comes to matters of race and religion. Sure, Singaporeans are supposedly highly educated. We have high PISA scores and whatnot. But whoa, when it comes to race and privilege, some Chinese Singaporeans appear to know nothing and are trapped in their own bubble of privilege. When others try to poke at it with reasonable, logical arguments, these Chinese Singaporeans are afraid that their bubble might burst and their privileges disappear and so they act out.
It is revolting, akin to pampered children lashing out at parents who have spoiled them.
So why are these Chinese Singaporeans uneducated? To me, it is because when we go to school, we aren't taught about what race and religion truly is.
Here's my experience.
When I was a kid, I went to a SAP school. Everyone there was a Chinese person. As a kid, I was "colourblind" and could not tell the different races apart. (I know that the term "colourblind" is not a great term to use when discussing racism because it can be used by people who do not wish to discuss racism and confront their bias, but I'm just telling you that hey, I was a dumb kid, alright?)
Then came Racial Harmony Day. In my primary school and in most schools, we'd dress up in ethnic costumes, learn about different cultures through games, songs, and food. I don't remember much about it, but I do remember learning about the three different races: Chinese, Malays and Indians. I remember being taught that Malays wear tudungs and Indians wear saris.
I also remember a rich Chinese schoolmate of mine who came to school wearing an expensive-looking sari from Little India to show off.
Thankfully, I did not do well enough for PSLE and managed to go to a neighbourhood school. I think that, above all else, saved me from becoming an ignorant Chinese Singaporean.
When I was at this neighbourhood secondary school, I was somehow still placed in an all-Chinese class despite the fact that there were Malay and Indian kids in my cohort this time. This didn't matter, because we were all forced to join a CCA, and there were two Malay girls who were in my CCA. (I told them that they were my first Malay friends and in hindsight, I've learnt that that's another dumb thing to say even if it's true)
We, the ignorant Chinese people, had a lot of questions for them, especially when they were fasting. They were happy to oblige and taught us about their culture.
There was an incident in secondary school that stuck with me. One of my CCA seniors is a dark-skinned Chinese person. She hung out with another senior, who's an Indian. She told us that when the two of them were taking public transport, some mean Chinese ladies said offensive things about them in Mandarin, thinking that my seniors couldn't understand. So my seniors glared at them and started speaking in Mandarin too, much to their shock, and they awkwardly moved away.
In my teenage mind this was extremely cool. I knew that my Chinese senior could speak Malay as well, and my Indian senior could speak Mandarin. It was a classic "Don't judge someone by the colour of their skin" story and I loved it. I loved how the Chinese person stood up for her friend and stood up against racism.
However, this story alone also shows that if you are a minority with dark skin, you'll be discriminated against. And minorities have to pick up some Mandarin in order to survive, while Chinese people can get by without worrying about language barriers.
After 14 years of being surrounded by Chinese classmates, I was finally put in a class with Malays and Indians. However, there was still one class in our cohort that consisted of only Chinese people, and that was the best class. Everyone there took triple science.
My class was the second best class because only half of us took triple science. And perhaps for timetabling purposes, students who took other Mother Tongue languages (i.e. students of other races) were put in the same class. However, again in hindsight, this is troubling. It can be seen as a microcosm of what's wrong in Singapore: that minorities are being treated as second-class citizens and will always be seen as second best.
But I didn't think much about it at the time. I liked going to school and I liked my new class. I was away from my lower secondary school classmates, some of whom were toxic and tended to make racist comments because all of us were Chinese and it didn't matter to them.
When I went home from school, I would tell my mother the things that had happened. In particular, I told her about three Indian boys in class who loved cracking jokes. They made our lessons more bearable by doing so. As I told my mum whatever story it was, she made me realise something that I hadn't realised before due to my uneducated mind: that race and religion were different.
According to my mother, one's a Catholic, the other boy a Muslim, and the last one's a Hindu. She could tell by their names and again, in hindsight, this should've been obvious. But it was a revelation to me when I was younger.
Why was this a revelation though? I have Chinese relatives. Some of them are Christians and some of them are Buddhists. Some, like myself, do not have a religion. I should've known that race and religion were different things. So why was this information considered new and somehow mindblowing? Well, I can point you exactly to what made this so confusing: what I learnt back in primary school during all those Racial Harmony Day assembly talks.
We weren't learning anything meaningful that would have contributed to the strengthening of bonds between the different races. That was how it was packaged on the surface but nope! What did we actually learn? Racial stereotypes. We learnt that Muslims are all Malays. Wrong. We learnt that all Indians were Hindus. Again, wrong.
Fast forward to university. I met an extremely privileged Chinese girl while I was there. She came from a wealthy background and an elite school. Perhaps even multiple elite schools. When I pointed out that something was racist, she said, "Aiya, everything to you is racist lah."
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Suffice to say, we didn't become friends.
Fast forward again to working life. I got a job easily and met my boss, a typical Chinese Singaporean uncle type. He spoke in not so perfect English, and also a little bit of Chinese. This was fine, I thought. His English isn't very good, and since we're both Chinese he spoke to me in a mix of English and Chinese. Nothing wrong with that, I thought.
Then I attended company meetings where people also spoke in Chinese. And it was... fine? But why was it fine? I was curious. Wondering if there were going to be any minorities telling us to "switch to Channel 5" like what usually happened in secondary school, I scanned the room. Everyone understood Chinese. Every single employee there was a Chinese person. Even the person with the darkest skin.
The company also emphasised that you needed to fit in with their culture. But what exactly was the company culture like? Isn't it just Chinese culture? But isn't Singapore a multi-racial society? It was extremely strange to me.
I didn't work there for long. The next company I worked for was very different. It was much more organised and after being trained at headquarters, I was sent to a branch that was closer to my home.
To give some context, I worked for a tuition centre and had to teach English. Our team consisted of a good mix of Chinese, Malays and Indians. We were specially told to speak in English at all times, unless the customer spoke in another language.
The students in particular were confused. They didn't understand why my colleague, who's an Indian lady, could speak Malay. She had to explain to them that she took Malay as her Mother Tongue in school.
The students were also confused because another colleague of mine, who's also an Indian lady, looks fairer and wear a tudung. They thought that she was a Malay. She had to explain to them that she's an Indian Muslim.
I'm glad that my colleagues and I had the chance to explain some of these things to them because they were already becoming more educated than I ever was when I was in primary school and knew nothing about race and religion because our Racial Harmony Day celebrations were inadequate.
Later, two male colleagues joined the team. One's a Malay man who's dating a Chinese woman, and the other a Chinese man dating an Indian woman. No one at the office said anything dumb to show that they frowned upon interracial couples, unlike what happened in the news recently.
Once during a meeting, the front desk staff told us that there was a customer who specifically wanted a Chinese teacher. If I recall correctly, I was the only full-time Chinese tutor working there at that time. Of course, their professional response was that all our teachers are well-trained and so it didn't matter whose class you were in. However, behind closed doors, my instinctive initial response at the meeting was "What the heck? I don't want more students to teach! And what has being Chinese got to do with being a good teacher? I'm not going to speak in Chinese during class what right?"
My joke about being lazy and not wanting more work made my colleagues laugh. Looking back, I was probably the most outraged out of all of them as they were perhaps already used to such racism.
If you've read till this point, you might be thinking: what's the point of sharing these stories?
Well, hopefully by this point, you might have made a few observations.
Firstly, as a Chinese Singaporean, none of these racist incidents were ever directed at me. (Of course, when I was in Australia, I experienced some form of racism, but that's irrelevant to the current discussion about racism in Singapore.) It was incredibly easy for me to look the other way when my classmates made racist jokes. It was incredibly easy for me to get a job at a company full of Chinese people. That's privilege. Many Chinese Singaporeans like myself have also probably never experienced racism or microaggressions in Singapore before. That's privilege too.
As Chinese Singaporeans, we've never had to deal with systemic racism. Ever. And that's privilege.
Secondly, there is a huge problem in how we celebrate Racial Harmony Day. I've asked students about Racial Harmony Day before in recent years and it hasn't changed. They tell me that it's still celebrated the same way in schools: you can go to school dressed in ethnic costumes, and the school just reminds everyone about the 1964 race riots. When I ask them when the riots occurred, most of them couldn't even tell me it was 1964. Because they weren't paying attention.
The students are BORED of the way Racial Harmony Day is celebrated. Why? Because it isn't meaningful at all, and it's the same thing every year.
If Racial Harmony Day has been celebrated the same way a decade ever since I left JC, it means that generations of Chinese Singaporeans not learnt anything about racism in school. They've either had to learn about racism on their own through their minority friends (if they even have any), or look stuff up on the internet to educate themselves. Those who don't bother? They have been stereotyping others and living in their own world. They think that racism doesn't exist just because there aren't any riots.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but a world where racism doesn't exist isn't reality. It's a dream. For years and years, we've just been avoiding the problem instead of seeking a solution.
If I had done well for PSLE and gone to yet another SAP school, I might be living in a bubble of my own too. My racist parents would continue saying racist things to me, and I wouldn't find that problematic like I do now. I would have spent my entire teenagehood continuing to not know anything about racism in Singapore until I became an adult, got a job and said stupid things to my co-workers like, "You're so pretty for an Indian!" Ugh.
So here's my suggestion and it's not mindblowing: change the way Racial Harmony Day is celebrated. Actually teach students about diversity. Get minority voices heard. Talk about racial stereotypes and why they're hurtful. Teach them about what microaggressions are. Encourage them to call others out for making racist comments. Teach them to stand up for what's right instead of simply doing what's convenient.
This is completely doable. As a tutor, I've called students out multiple times for making racist remarks in class. Also, I've seen a lesson on racism before. When I was an intern at a school, I observed an English Literature lesson conducted by a teacher who explained what the word "stereotype" means. Then, the teacher divided the class into groups and told them to write down all the racial stereotypes they have ever heard of before on a large vanguard sheet.
The students did what they were told enthusiastically, but when they had to present these ideas, they realised that it was awkward and embarrassing to share these stereotypes with the rest of the class. They didn't want to be seen as racists nor did they wish to hurt any of their friends. But the teacher needed them to understand what racism is because they were reading and analysing the book "To Kill A Mockingbird" for class.
But why should this only be done during English Literature class? Why should students get to learn about these issues only when reading a book that has to do with racism?
This brings me to by next point. Some keyboard warriors or trolls claim that ideas like "racism" and "white privilege" are imported from "the West" and these ideas are going to mess our society up.
WRONG.
Racism has always existed. Don't act blur. Chinese parents and grandparents have been known to say racist things to impressionable children! Ask any average Chinese person. They wouldn't want to admit it, but they'd know what you're talking about.
Privilege has always existed too. The concept of white privilege doesn't just apply to America, for instance. White privilege has affected basically the entire world in the form of colonialism. The "coloured" people of South Africa were oppressed under the apartheid system. The Aboriginals in Australia are oppressed because of white privilege. White tourists are treated better than non-white tourists in most places.
In Malaysia, Malays are in a privileged position. In Singapore, it's the Chinese. That's the truth that privileged people, including Chinese academics, wish to deny because they are afraid of losing their privileges. They are afraid of rocking the boat, afraid that the tides would turn against them somehow.
I'm not an academic who studies critical race theory. But I'll try to do what's right. And racism is always wrong. So I'll continue calling it out whenever I can.
If you're a Chinese Singaporean who supports racism, then I guess your racist parents and grandparents must be really proud of you. You will never marry someone of a different race. You will continue saying idiotic and hurtful things, then somehow be surprised when people call you out. You might never see the error of your ways even after being fired from your job. You might even end up spying for China, your beloved motherland. But I wonder how you sleep at night with such a wack moral compass.
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