Can a Malay be racist against other Malays? Can an Indian be racist against other Indians? Apparently so!
If you're a member of a minority denying that discrimination and Chinese privilege exist in society, it's not really your honest opinion. Instead, you have been brainwashed to think everybody can be equally successful and enjoy the same opportunities. Your mind is controlled!
At least, this is what Singaporean left-wingers have come up with to shut down minority voices who have opinions contrary to their twisted beliefs.
There are no points for guessing which entitled millionaire Indian wrote this - clearly in reference to Amrin Amin's comments shutting down complainers on his wall, calling them "snowflakes".
So, what is internalised racism? Here's another quote from the article:
“Internalised racism is usually where a minority or minoritised person not only accepts the negative stereotypes society has of their community, but also embraces the majority’s world view of its own superiority and minority inferiority,” says Kenneth Paul Tan, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.
“To gain the acceptance of the majority who disparage them, internalised racists will want to become like the majority, and will challenge fellow minority people who stand up against racism.”
So, you see, by this definition, it turns out Amrin Amin must be a traitor to the Malay community, who has spent years sucking up to the Chinese to escape oppression.
Yeah, this is what some people really believe.
If you think everyone has equal chances in Singapore, you have a colonised mind! You have been dominated and subjugated by the Chinese majority to serve its interests!
Can you even imagine something more wicked and heinous?
Can you imagine something more bigoted and racist for anyone to claim that members of any minority have no agency and can have no opinions of their own? And if they happen to disagree with you, it simply means they have been brainwashed by the majority to further its discrimination of their own people?
But there's more. By denying Amrin Amin personal agency, Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh has committed an act of dehumanization.
He's not treating him as an equal human being who simply has a different opinion but a flawed, sick, blind member of a minority whose brain has been hijacked by the ruthless Chinese majority to help it oppress the Malay population - and now needs an enlightened cat-loving saviour from Pasir Ris!
Yes, a millionaire Indian who has, to my knowledge, never done a peep for the country is telling a working-class Malay ex-MP, who has spent more than 15 years serving the community, that his opinion is irrelevant, discriminates Malays and is an example of internalised racism and survivorship bias - as if other Malays somehow lived destitute on society's margins.
Amrin Amin, whose father juggled two jobs as a taxi driver and a technician, living in a typical HDB apartment that millions of fellow Singaporeans inhabit, is being lectured by a guy who only moved out of his parents' sprawling $40 million bungalow at age 40.
The former MP is still the party's representative in Sengkang, having started in PAP grassroots in 2004 and gradually worked his way up to winning a seat in 2011. Besides running the Town Council with party peers, he served as Parliamentary Secretary in MOH and MOHA.
For ca. 10 years, he has directly served the community and the country after securing the mandate from the people, only narrowly losing it in 2020 - largely due to Jamus Lim's good TV appearance.
Meanwhile, his millionaire Indian critic collected public and private donations for a road trip across India and China, ostensibly to write a book about it which was due in 2015.
It's 2021, and there isn't even a draft of it, let alone a publisher, and in the latest online interview, Sudhir claimed he wants to go back to both countries again before he finishes it...
So, yeah, one guy spent a decade working for the people of Singapore, subjecting himself to their judgment, and the other is about to spend a decade trying to write an account of a road trip he did on donated money.
But hey, he knows ALL about Singapore! So much so that he dismisses opinions of a Malay as unrepresentative of the community, even though he's not a part of it himself.
And I'm sorry, but what does a 44-year-old bloke, who only started washing his clothes again recently, with a family consisting of two cats, living in a space fit for a 4-5 pax household, know about any community in Singapore? About the lives of regular people? What about the chances they may or may not have in life and how much of it is due to some systemic oppression?
His own immigrant parents came to Singapore and made it big decades ago, despite the supposed bias against minorities. Is that the Chinese privilege in action?
His family abandoned their home country, abandoned Malaysia and out of all destinations, picked Singapore - where they have led very successful lives. And now their son is railing about how oppressive it is? SERIOUSLY!?
Sudhir, if you’re reading this, do the world a favour, don't let Facebook distract you from your work and FINISH at least one thing that you started before you start passing judgment on people, communities they represent and the entire country.
Start with the small things - like something you yourself pledged to do SIX YEARS ago. Even quite average people would have done at least two PhDs in the time you take to write a diary of a travel adventure. So much for being a "writer".
