Why is everything about race?
Rambling ruminations on the state of racial polarisation in Malaysia.
Scott Ng, Free Malaysia Today
I’ve been writing for FMT for a while now and, whether you agree with me or not, I always appreciate comments that are well thought out. It’s humbling that people should give weight to my ramblings.
I have had my fair share of criticism. Sometimes, I admit, it is hard to swallow. But sometimes it makes me learn to be a better writer. Sometimes it makes me laugh in my IKEA chair. This happened recently when someone called me the “new Ridhuan Tee” although it should have offended me.
But some comments on a recent article got me a little worried. I wrote about how Singapore authorities can be more oppressive than their Malaysian counterparts in the use of their version of the Sedition Act.
Some readers were cynical, and that is good because you always have to question what you read instead of simply accepting anything a faceless entity such as myself has to say.
But some of you wondered if I was actually Chinese. Now, this has happened before, especially when I expressed a negative opinion of the DAP or anyone from the party, as if my race obligated me to blindly support any party.
It made me think, “What does this have to do with my race? Does this discount me from having an opinion on Singapore and its almost dystopian society? Why does it mean that if I criticise Singapore, I must not be Chinese?”
I will be the first to tell you that I am horrible at being a Chinese. I can’t speak any dialect and my Chinese vocabulary is restricted to food and the occasional expletive, much to the amusement of my friends. I am horrible at saving money and my bookshelf is in a state of beautiful organised chaos. I also have next to no interest in gambling, although alcohol is something of a more than occasional indulgence.
Does all this make me any less Chinese than any other Malaysian Chinese? I believe not. Chinese blood flows in my veins and Chinese culture is my heritage. So, why then would my race come into question? And, really, why does that even matter?
Well, I think I have some answers. Racial polarisation has become so prevalent now that everything must be viewed through a racial lens before it makes sense to anyone. It has seeped through the cracks and even as we obsess about how everyone is racist to everyone, we become racists ourselves.
Being a racist doesn’t just entail holding the belief that some races are superior or inferior to others. Being racist is part of a schemata within the subconscious that places a hierarchy among the races with implied roles and preferences particular to each race. Sounds familiar? We dress it up as stereotypes, but it carries into the territory of casual racism.
As my colleague Fa once said, we are all racists of some sort, if you think about it.
