Holy shit, a Singaporean mod! A+++ Anyways, hi Singaporean mod, fellow SG kid here. Just wondering, you know how some Singaporean kids are unknowingly racist, and they go, "oh but SG is a multi cultural society, I can say that.". Would you think their racism stems more from ignorance and the lack of proper civics and moral education?
Oh my gosh, hi!!! I’m excited! Finally, a question I can answer!
I think it’s a combination of things. First, education, or rather, what we’re taught in schools is a problem. The national narrative of “we’ve achieved racial harmony” isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s taught during civics class as though there isn’t any room for growth. We shouldn’t dismiss how far our society has come, but to act as though it’s perfect creates this mentality that all is well, we’ve come past all those dark days, and that current actions could never be racist.
The second thing is there’s a lot of ignorance because minority voices are not being heard. It’s not some big conspiracy, but for example when I read articles in ST about racism in Singapore, it’s uncomfortable to see that these are written by Chinese - there isn’t a balance of voices from all the major ethnic groups, which means the opinions of Malays and Indians are not there. Or to use another example, on Racial Harmony Day we usually have a discussion in class on racism and why it’s bad, right? When I was 16, my teacher was Malay, and he got the class to have a very frank discussion on racism. It was uncomfortable, but it brought to light a lot of things that people are not aware of. In contrast, this year, my Chinese teacher basically kept shutting down me and my Indian friend when we tried to raise points that the situation wasn’t perfect. Obviously, not all Chinese or Malay teachers would do the same - but the fact is that during these Civics lessons, not all students are really learning anything about racism and how it feels to be a minority currently. And this leads to people not thinking that there could still be racism in Singapore.
Finally, there’s the problem of a lack of integration. Things are still divided racially - self-help groups, daycares, orphanages, schools. So, someone who has been in a SAP school would have interacted probably only with Chinese. It’s not their fault, but people are the product of their environment, so some naturally are not going to be aware. So, people being unknowingly racist and/or then dismissing it, are basically a product of these factors.