I’ve had many discussions on race, and learnt a lot from them. One of the things I’ve realised is that some people are very sensitive to any suggestion that they might be racist. Over the years, I’ve also learnt that this is a serious charge, because it alleges that people have acted in ways that are unjust and unkind. So these days I make a distinction between ‘racism’ and ‘ethnocentrism’. This is my own distinction, however, and I’m aware that other people have their own definitions (some scholars, for example, use ‘racism’ to mean prejudice against biological traits—like dark skin or certain facial features—whereas ‘ethnocentrism’ is prejudice against perceived cultural traits.) For my own typology, ‘racism’ occurs when the members of another race are perceived as inferior to one’s own race and therefore deserve to be demeaned and discriminated against. These statements to me are racist: - All Malays are job-hoppers and lazy. - All Indians are drunkards and smelly. - All Chinese are gamblers and materialistic. - Malay children are terrorists in training. - Malay people are too poor to afford their own weddings. ‘Ethnocentrism’ however, is when one’s worldview is such that one considers one’s culture to be the norm. These statements to me are ethnocentric, or in the case of Singapore, Sinocentric: - We must nurture bilingual elites who are proficient in both Mandarin and English to act as a bridge between Asia and the West (because ‘Asia’ does not mean ‘China’ or ‘East Asia’). - Asian beauties have porcelain skin, soft features and almond eyes (see above). - Signs must be in English and Mandarin to cater to the different language groups in Singapore (this assumes that while non-Chinese are expected to be bilingual, it is sufficient for Mandarin-speakers to be monolingual). - Singapore is a Confucian society. - All Singaporeans are kiasu. - Singapore is an immigrant society (in spite of the fact that many Malays consider Singapore part of the Malay archipelago and therefore do not see themselves as possessing migrant histories). - You can’t call yourself a true-blue Singaporean if you don’t know the best places to get bak kut teh. - All Singaporeans of my generation grew up knowing the tune to the (some Channel 8 programme) theme song. The solution to racism is a simple one: treat everyone equally, regardless of race. And I do believe that I have many friends who are committed to this. The remedy for ethnocentrism though encourages us to go a little further—it involves recognising our privilege (one of which is the taken-for-granted privilege to speak for ‘all Singaporeans’) and that we stop evaluating other cultures based on the primacy of our own.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 20:47:18 +0000
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