This is perhaps the fullest and most naked manifestation of a phenomenon we see, among other things, on tumblr where people get into fights over non-issues (under the guise of fighting oppression):
Sangeetha Thanapal - Posts
(mirrored for now on Hardwarezone)
"Seeing all these hot takes from ‘woke’ Chinese Singaporeans and some newly ‘woke’ minorities (1/2 of which is just cobbled off me) over racism in Singapore is laughable.
More than that, a lot of you are trying to present yourself as woke while stealing outright from me.
It’s disgusting.
Like that Singapore Chinese woman who made those comics: she’s good at playing woke. She knew how to credit the black woman she learned from (so it’s not an excuse that she didn’t know) but somehow my name escaped her when talking about Chinese Privilege?
How convenient.
Also, Singaporean academics: please refrain from trying to steal everything I write and pass it off as your own. I know it’s hard to make a name for yourselves now that no one cares about your scholarship on multiculturalism/cosmopolitanism/diversity blah blah. A lot of you think you can get away with it because you’re in academia and I don’t have my doctorate (yet) but it’s still theft and I will most definitely report you for plagiarism.
There was supposed to be a conference on Chinese privilege at NTU last year. I get an insulting email ‘inviting’ me to it. You’re inviting me to a conference that wouldn’t exist without me? Are you for real?
And what’s worse: one of the presenters was supposed to be a Chinese man who is presenting a paper on what Chinese privilege is and isn’t.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Let’s get something straight: I’m the only person who gets to decide what Chinese privilege is or isn’t. I’m the only person who should be giving that paper (I mean it is my entire fucking dissertation and work I’m known for) but if not me, at least should have been another minority??
These people are showing they have no idea or understanding of what Chinese privilege even is by allowing a Chinese man to talk about it. They are showing they don’t actually understand my work, because if you did, you would get that minorities having their own voices is a basic, fundamental tenet of it.
You cannot be heirs to my legacy if you seek to use my work in these meaningless ways. Oppressors do not get to decide what oppression is.
Stuff like this is why I zealously guard my work. Stuff like this is why I insist that people properly credit me and my work. It’s because so many people are seeking to dilute it and use it in these problematic ways in order to benefit themselves.
Some Singaporean ‘intellectuals’ have actually tried to say that I don’t own a discourse: every intellectual property argument ever made would disagree. I do fucking own what I created, and you using it without naming me is an act of concentrated erasure.
There’s a serious effort in Singapore to erase me from my own work and to devalue my existence.
We see it in all those people who are using the term but pretend to have never heard of me. Who are profiting off my work and benefitting off it without ever once uttering my name.
I see you.
I’m the originator, the rest of you are contributors— remember that. Come at me and my work with respect, or I’m gonna name and shame every single one of you.
Y’all better understand that I won’t stand for this shit. I won’t let you dilute my work to the point where it’s unrecognizable, where it becomes a cheap, commodified version of what it I envisioned it to be.
And if you’re friends, fans, followers of mine: please call this shit out every time you see it.
Do not allow people to use me while dismissing me."
L'origine de Bert
Showing posts with label sangeetha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sangeetha. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Activist Sangeetha Thanapal issued stern warning for Facebook post that promotes ill will between races
Activist Sangeetha Thanapal issued stern warning for Facebook post that promotes ill will between races
Activist Sangeetha Thanapal, who lives in Melbourne where she is a researcher, was investigated this month when she returned to Singapore on Jan 2.
SINGAPORE - Activist Sangeetha Thanapal, known here for coining the term "Chinese privilege", has been given a stern warning by the police over a Facebook post that promotes feelings of ill will and hostility between races .
The 36-year-old Singaporean, who lives in Melbourne where she is a researcher, was investigated this month when she returned to Singapore on Jan 2, the police confirmed to The Straits Times on Tuesday (Jan 29).
Ms Sangeetha, who has since returned to Melbourne, was investigated for her remarks insinuating that Chinese in Singapore acted in a racist manner towards those of other races.
Her post was prompted by the Hollywood film Crazy Rich Asians.
The movie, touted as a big win for representation of Asian people on screen, was also criticised for a lack of representation of minorities in Singapore, where much of the action is set.
In a Facebook post last April, Ms Sangeetha called Singapore a "terribly racist country" before going on to make a series of claims.
For instance, she wrote that it is constantly reinforced that "only Chinese people" would be able to "save Singapore", while other races are "lazy and violent".
"Her remarks also alleged that the Singapore Government looks down on minority races and have embarked on deliberate policies to favour one race over the others," the police said in their reply.
In the same post, Ms Sangeetha claimed she had to "run away" to Australia after being threatened with sedition for speaking out on race matters.
In consultation with the Attorney-General's Chambers, police issued her a stern warning on Jan 16, "for an offence of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race" under Section 298A of the Penal Code.
Ms Sangeetha has written extensively about what she calls "Chinese privilege" in Singapore.
Akin to "white privilege" in Western countries, it refers to the claim that the majority race is unable to see things from the viewpoints of the minorities.
Attempts to reach her for comment have been unsuccessful.
However, in a Facebook post three days after being warned, Ms Sangeetha wrote that she had "a very traumatising experience" on her return to Singapore.
She said it prompted her to briefly shut down her Facebook page, "as anything we say on the internet is often used against activists".
"Right now, I am recuperating and focusing on other things in my life, but I won't be talking about what happened to me back in Singapore until and unless I know that I can't be threatened by the long arm of the Singapore state again."
In 2015, Ms Sangeetha found herself in a predicament after misrepresenting comments that current Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam had made at a Singapore Press Club talk, where he spoke of a growing polarisation in Malaysia, with mainstream schools "becoming more and more Malay and Islamic".
His point was that trends in their education system made integration among the different races a challenge, with Chinese children attending Chinese-medium schools, and Malays going to mainstream schools.
But in a Facebook post, Ms Sangeetha suggested Mr Shanmugam had made the comments because he considered Malay-Muslims a threat.
Calling Ms Sangeetha's post "inaccurate and seditious", Mr Shanmugam said he had initially intended to make a police report.
But he later decided not to do so after meeting Ms Sangeetha, who took down the post and apologised for her comments.
His decision to drop the matter was not prompted by her apology, Mr Shanmugam later told reporters, but because she did not have the intention to cause ill will between races.
A police spokesman said they take a stern view of actions that can threaten social harmony here.
"Such irresponsible comments can promote feelings of ill will or hostility between different races, and are unacceptable in Singapore's multiracial and multi-religious society," he added.
Notably, this is the first case I'm aware of of anti-Chinese racism being investigated in Singapore.
Activist Sangeetha Thanapal, who lives in Melbourne where she is a researcher, was investigated this month when she returned to Singapore on Jan 2.
SINGAPORE - Activist Sangeetha Thanapal, known here for coining the term "Chinese privilege", has been given a stern warning by the police over a Facebook post that promotes feelings of ill will and hostility between races .
The 36-year-old Singaporean, who lives in Melbourne where she is a researcher, was investigated this month when she returned to Singapore on Jan 2, the police confirmed to The Straits Times on Tuesday (Jan 29).
Ms Sangeetha, who has since returned to Melbourne, was investigated for her remarks insinuating that Chinese in Singapore acted in a racist manner towards those of other races.
Her post was prompted by the Hollywood film Crazy Rich Asians.
The movie, touted as a big win for representation of Asian people on screen, was also criticised for a lack of representation of minorities in Singapore, where much of the action is set.
In a Facebook post last April, Ms Sangeetha called Singapore a "terribly racist country" before going on to make a series of claims.
For instance, she wrote that it is constantly reinforced that "only Chinese people" would be able to "save Singapore", while other races are "lazy and violent".
"Her remarks also alleged that the Singapore Government looks down on minority races and have embarked on deliberate policies to favour one race over the others," the police said in their reply.
In the same post, Ms Sangeetha claimed she had to "run away" to Australia after being threatened with sedition for speaking out on race matters.
In consultation with the Attorney-General's Chambers, police issued her a stern warning on Jan 16, "for an offence of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race" under Section 298A of the Penal Code.
Ms Sangeetha has written extensively about what she calls "Chinese privilege" in Singapore.
Akin to "white privilege" in Western countries, it refers to the claim that the majority race is unable to see things from the viewpoints of the minorities.
Attempts to reach her for comment have been unsuccessful.
However, in a Facebook post three days after being warned, Ms Sangeetha wrote that she had "a very traumatising experience" on her return to Singapore.
She said it prompted her to briefly shut down her Facebook page, "as anything we say on the internet is often used against activists".
"Right now, I am recuperating and focusing on other things in my life, but I won't be talking about what happened to me back in Singapore until and unless I know that I can't be threatened by the long arm of the Singapore state again."
In 2015, Ms Sangeetha found herself in a predicament after misrepresenting comments that current Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam had made at a Singapore Press Club talk, where he spoke of a growing polarisation in Malaysia, with mainstream schools "becoming more and more Malay and Islamic".
His point was that trends in their education system made integration among the different races a challenge, with Chinese children attending Chinese-medium schools, and Malays going to mainstream schools.
But in a Facebook post, Ms Sangeetha suggested Mr Shanmugam had made the comments because he considered Malay-Muslims a threat.
Calling Ms Sangeetha's post "inaccurate and seditious", Mr Shanmugam said he had initially intended to make a police report.
But he later decided not to do so after meeting Ms Sangeetha, who took down the post and apologised for her comments.
His decision to drop the matter was not prompted by her apology, Mr Shanmugam later told reporters, but because she did not have the intention to cause ill will between races.
A police spokesman said they take a stern view of actions that can threaten social harmony here.
"Such irresponsible comments can promote feelings of ill will or hostility between different races, and are unacceptable in Singapore's multiracial and multi-religious society," he added.
Notably, this is the first case I'm aware of of anti-Chinese racism being investigated in Singapore.
Post ID: 945879670408782274
Tuesday, May 08, 2018
Conversations - 8th May 2018
A: the strange thing about sangy is that her antics over the years have made me more proud to be chinese and less tolerant of minorities when they start to make noise. imagine that
and that's saying a lot given I am not a chinese-educated chinese
pressing ethnocentric buttons works both ways"
B: The irony is she doesn't go back to where she's the majority but goes somewhere else to be a minority to whine about being a minority. She definitely has a persecution complex.
A: she believes that all tamils are being oppressed
also she hates tamil men
so there is no place for her to go to
lol
Me: "from what I've heard, if you're one guy in a women's studies class you get so much pussy"
A: As someone who was one of only two men in a module in feminist studies (which I scored an A for, I might add), I can tell you that it is not true.
Me: Wow why did you take that class
A: Well it seemed a lot more interesting than Syntax and Sentence Structure.
And so I can tell rabid feminists I know what I'm talking about cos I got an A in it.
B: ^^^^^
Famous last words.
A: Kumbaya + envy + persecution mindset = sjw
I note that social activism groups become toxic once a lot of their initial goals have been met
Could be due to mission creep or manipulative opportunists joining the movement as it becomes more popular
B: Don't just fist pump. Turn around, do a sweeping point at everyone else and shout "LOSERS!"
hahaha
A: *triggered
I think I have figured out the difference between sjw privilege and underprivileged as we commonly understand it
SJW privilege sees all unequal outcomes as inherently unfair even if these advantages came from people having their shit together
Fat woman is morally superior to one who worked to keep fit because she has less access to good outcomes
Sjw privilege also carries on to issues that a person could realistically do something about
Such as minorities picking up Chinese or letting their children do so if they want to break into jobs requiring a Chinese speaker
SJW also views the transference of advantages that one generation worked hard to get to future ones as a sin
Therefore if you are born in Sg you are "privileged" and need to give what your ancestors worked hard to earn for you to other parties to level things out
The notion of you working to solidify these advantages by building on them causes the SJW to go insane, because it goes against the anticompetitive ethos of the people who jump onto these bandwagons
All this is very different from the commonly understood notion of needing to help the underprivileged- those by whom nature has dealt a bad hand through no fault of their own
B: yah
so i'm for helping the underprivileged
disabled or orphans etc
but when it comes to something that you can work on... and you choose not to... then... go and die lor
A: I read this article where this doctor was against reading to your kids
Because it privileges them versus kids whose parents don't have the time to do so
Wtf
B: yes
and so we should make sure all kids are malnourished too because you know, some kids are
and please inject all kids with viruses and diseases and amputate as necessary
and that's saying a lot given I am not a chinese-educated chinese
pressing ethnocentric buttons works both ways"
B: The irony is she doesn't go back to where she's the majority but goes somewhere else to be a minority to whine about being a minority. She definitely has a persecution complex.
A: she believes that all tamils are being oppressed
also she hates tamil men
so there is no place for her to go to
lol
Me: "from what I've heard, if you're one guy in a women's studies class you get so much pussy"
A: As someone who was one of only two men in a module in feminist studies (which I scored an A for, I might add), I can tell you that it is not true.
Me: Wow why did you take that class
A: Well it seemed a lot more interesting than Syntax and Sentence Structure.
And so I can tell rabid feminists I know what I'm talking about cos I got an A in it.
B: ^^^^^
Famous last words.
A: Kumbaya + envy + persecution mindset = sjw
I note that social activism groups become toxic once a lot of their initial goals have been met
Could be due to mission creep or manipulative opportunists joining the movement as it becomes more popular
B: Don't just fist pump. Turn around, do a sweeping point at everyone else and shout "LOSERS!"
hahaha
A: *triggered
I think I have figured out the difference between sjw privilege and underprivileged as we commonly understand it
SJW privilege sees all unequal outcomes as inherently unfair even if these advantages came from people having their shit together
Fat woman is morally superior to one who worked to keep fit because she has less access to good outcomes
Sjw privilege also carries on to issues that a person could realistically do something about
Such as minorities picking up Chinese or letting their children do so if they want to break into jobs requiring a Chinese speaker
SJW also views the transference of advantages that one generation worked hard to get to future ones as a sin
Therefore if you are born in Sg you are "privileged" and need to give what your ancestors worked hard to earn for you to other parties to level things out
The notion of you working to solidify these advantages by building on them causes the SJW to go insane, because it goes against the anticompetitive ethos of the people who jump onto these bandwagons
All this is very different from the commonly understood notion of needing to help the underprivileged- those by whom nature has dealt a bad hand through no fault of their own
B: yah
so i'm for helping the underprivileged
disabled or orphans etc
but when it comes to something that you can work on... and you choose not to... then... go and die lor
A: I read this article where this doctor was against reading to your kids
Because it privileges them versus kids whose parents don't have the time to do so
Wtf
B: yes
and so we should make sure all kids are malnourished too because you know, some kids are
and please inject all kids with viruses and diseases and amputate as necessary
Post ID: 2345342682101167535
Monday, April 30, 2018
Sangeetha's Silencing of Minorities
Following up on Sangeetha's anti-Crazy Rich Asians spiel, Surya Kumar reports that she is not open to fact-checking from other Indians:
"Just like several other Singaporean "activists" she has deleted my factual comment and blocked me. It was fun whilst it lasted.
She needs professional help...
I provided a long list of non-Chinese in positions of power in Singapore (goverment, civil service, stat boards and private sector).
Separately, I also asked for proof on some of the wild allegations .... especially South Indian workers being killed and buried in concrete."
Curiously, I was unable to see Surya's comments on Sangeetha's post - nor could I (at the time of writing this post) see the screenshots of Surya's comments that someone had posted earlier (presumably in response to her deleting comments).
Luckily, I'd saved them then:
"Currently in Singapore:
... and I will speak for Indians
Deputy Prime Minister... Indian
Minister for Home Affairs as well as Law ...
Indian
Minister for Trade and Industry ... Indian
Minister for Foreign Affairs ... Indian
One out of 3 female Ministers ... Indian
Chief Justice ... Indian
Chairman of the Monetary Authority of
Singapore ... Indian
CEOs of several major banks ... Indian
... the list goes on."
"But, but that doesn't fit in with her narrative that all positions of authority are priviliged Chinese people!"
"of course it wouldn't. This woman is clearly too busy vilifying the Chinese and justifying her BS in her PhD."
"Yeh where the malays that is 5 times bigger population than the indians. So something is wrong."
"15 % Malays vs 7.4 % Indians is 5 times more?
Our President is a Malay female who wears a headscarf.
We do have several Malays in the Cabinet / political office.
We do have many .. many Malays who are very successful professionals (doctors, lawyers etc)
We do have many Malays who are successful entrepreneurs and in the private sector.
The capable Malays appear to have selected the non—po|itical or non-civil service path.
Nothing wrong as far as I can see.
The government has put in schemes to support the rise and success of Malays as well as Indians aka
minorities."
One might ask why Sangeetha Thanapal, champion of minorities in Singapore, would be silencing a fellow minority who disagreed with her. One might also ask why she had left some other critical comments there.
Presumably, she cannot abide being criticised by other Indians because then she can't claim to be the voice of the Oppressed Singaporean Indian.
With the only dissenting voices being Chinese, she and her fanclub can label all those who disagree with her as racist because they're Chinese (i.e. having animosity towards someone else because of his race, which is the definition of racism).
People like Surya deprive her of her standing (I've an Indian friend Shane Gill who also got blocked for calling out her nonsense).
We can see parallels in how feminists hated Margaret Thatcher, and anti-racists and the black establishment hate Thomas Sowell.
Bonus:
Her cheerleaders (who refute claims that she is racist against Chinese people) should note that she has openly proclaimed that she looks down on Chinese people:
"Singaporean Chinese people are so terrible at basic critical thinking, that this is really what we can generally expect from them"
"Just like several other Singaporean "activists" she has deleted my factual comment and blocked me. It was fun whilst it lasted.
She needs professional help...
I provided a long list of non-Chinese in positions of power in Singapore (goverment, civil service, stat boards and private sector).
Separately, I also asked for proof on some of the wild allegations .... especially South Indian workers being killed and buried in concrete."
Curiously, I was unable to see Surya's comments on Sangeetha's post - nor could I (at the time of writing this post) see the screenshots of Surya's comments that someone had posted earlier (presumably in response to her deleting comments).
Luckily, I'd saved them then:
"Currently in Singapore:
... and I will speak for Indians
Deputy Prime Minister... Indian
Minister for Home Affairs as well as Law ...
Indian
Minister for Trade and Industry ... Indian
Minister for Foreign Affairs ... Indian
One out of 3 female Ministers ... Indian
Chief Justice ... Indian
Chairman of the Monetary Authority of
Singapore ... Indian
CEOs of several major banks ... Indian
... the list goes on."
"But, but that doesn't fit in with her narrative that all positions of authority are priviliged Chinese people!"
"of course it wouldn't. This woman is clearly too busy vilifying the Chinese and justifying her BS in her PhD."
"Yeh where the malays that is 5 times bigger population than the indians. So something is wrong."
"15 % Malays vs 7.4 % Indians is 5 times more?
Our President is a Malay female who wears a headscarf.
We do have several Malays in the Cabinet / political office.
We do have many .. many Malays who are very successful professionals (doctors, lawyers etc)
We do have many Malays who are successful entrepreneurs and in the private sector.
The capable Malays appear to have selected the non—po|itical or non-civil service path.
Nothing wrong as far as I can see.
The government has put in schemes to support the rise and success of Malays as well as Indians aka
minorities."
One might ask why Sangeetha Thanapal, champion of minorities in Singapore, would be silencing a fellow minority who disagreed with her. One might also ask why she had left some other critical comments there.
Presumably, she cannot abide being criticised by other Indians because then she can't claim to be the voice of the Oppressed Singaporean Indian.
With the only dissenting voices being Chinese, she and her fanclub can label all those who disagree with her as racist because they're Chinese (i.e. having animosity towards someone else because of his race, which is the definition of racism).
People like Surya deprive her of her standing (I've an Indian friend Shane Gill who also got blocked for calling out her nonsense).
We can see parallels in how feminists hated Margaret Thatcher, and anti-racists and the black establishment hate Thomas Sowell.
Bonus:
Her cheerleaders (who refute claims that she is racist against Chinese people) should note that she has openly proclaimed that she looks down on Chinese people:
"Singaporean Chinese people are so terrible at basic critical thinking, that this is really what we can generally expect from them"
Post ID: 1233509597298047181
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Crazy Rich Asians and Sangeetha's Self-Promotion
"This post is about Cr*zy Rich Asians. I've been seeing a lot of people being excited about it and I think it's because they don't know what Singapore is actually like. I understand that many in the Global North, especially Americans, have no real understanding of the complications and nuances of race in other parts of the world. So I’ll give you some context.
Singapore is a terribly racist country. The state embarked on a form of eugenics in the 1980s meant to displace its indigenous population and replace it with settler colonial Chinese people. Minorities find it hard to gain employment. Muslim women in hijabs are kept out of certain civil service jobs because of their headwear. (This is government policy that the state has openly defended). Malay-Muslims are told they cannot be trusted in the military because they are Muslims with loyalty to other states. This is really ironic when you think about the fact that Malays are indigenous to the land. Indian construction workers are killed on site due to lax labour safety laws, and instead of being sent home to their families, are buried underneath those skyscrapers y’all love so much about Singapore. Minorities are stereotypically represented or never represented. Chinese people wear Indians in ‘brown face’ and Hinduism is considered something to mimic for Halloween. Minorities are called slurs on a daily basis, and Chinese people proudly say they are racist and don’t care to be otherwise. Scholarships are reserved for the Chinese, heck, entire schools are reserved for them, and these are paid for with taxpayers money. Imagine a purely white school only for white kids that the state pays for with your money, and then tells you that these schools are necessary for the future of America. Cos the Chinese supremacist state of Singapore constantly tells us that the Chinese are what makes Singapore successful, that Malays are lazy, that Indians are violent and that only Chinese people can save Singapore.
In case you think I’m making this up, I’ll tell you a few things about myself. I am a) Singapore’s most well-known anti-racism activist. B) I have written extensively on racism in Singapore, and I coined the term and theory around what is now called “Chinese Privilege.” C) I am doing a PhD on Chinese privilege, Chinese supremacy and racism in Singapore. D) I had to run away to Australia because I was being threatened by the Singapore state with sedition for speaking out about race. (Think about the fact that Australia is safer for me than Singapore.)
So when you celebrate this movie, ask yourself who you are complicit in erasing. It is the minorities who have been told every day that we are worthless, ugly, lazy, unworthy of being represented. That we deserve to be treated as second-class citizens in our own country. You are celebrating a novel that barely made a splash in Singapore because Chinese people writing about being Chinese and rich is so fuckin' commonplace here.
What people celebrating this movie are doing is bringing a Western racial framework to bear upon a Singaporean one. Chinese people in Singapore aren’t oppressed in any way, in fact, they are the oppressors. Asians in the Global North are so happy to see themselves that they don’t care about the context in which this is happening. CRA is set in Singapore and only has Chinese people in it. This isn’t new or refreshing, this is the EVERYDAY FUCKIN LIVES OF MINORITIES. It is only diversity FOR YOU. Why should Western Chinese representation come at the expense of minorities in Singapore? Why is it that so many POCs in America, Europe and Australia lack such compassion for the suffering of minorities in the Global South?
If a movie was set in NY and it only featured white people, you’d call it racist. This is set in Singapore, a country where already Chinese people are the only ones who are visible and represented, and where Chinese people hold all economic, social and political power, a state of affairs this movie perpetuates. Yet, this is perfectly all right for many of you.
I have been triggered in so many ways these past few days seeing how little Asians in the West care to research or read the things they unthinkingly support. This is my life that y’all think should come second to your ability to be represented.
Seeing post after post on what an achievement this movie is really difficult for us because you’re doing what Singaporean Chinese have done to us our whole lives-erase us, talk over us and dismiss us.
For god’s sake, for once in your lives, think about the consequences of the things you support.
You're not the only people who deserve to be represented, and when you support this movie, that's actually what you are saying."
There's a lot to unpack here, and I'm still trying to recover from Google's new Gmail truncating 2 of my drafts and losing me a lot of data, so I will limit myself to eight
i) Given that as cited by the Association of Muslim Professionals the Malay population has been steadily increasing (without any visible slowdown in or since the 1980s), Singapore's "eugenics" to "displace its indigenous population" is one of the front-runners, together with Israel (who, unsurprisingly she also rages about) for the prize of most incompetent ethnic cleansing in history
ii) Singapore doesn't seem to release unemployment statistics by race, but if we use the 2010 Census's Table 42: Resident Population Aged 15 Years and Over by Language Literate In, Economic Status and Sex to proxy race using language ability, the claim that minorities find it hard to gain unemployment isn't supported at all.
If we take those who speak Chinese only or English and Chinese only as proxies for being racially Chinese (likewise for Malay - I will exclude Tamil as half of Singaporean Indians don't speak it, and we know Indians are more successful economically than Malays), 63% of Chinese Residents work, compared to 60% of Malay Residents.
Even if one attributes all of this 3% difference to discrimination, it is clear that "Minorities find it hard to gain employment" is a blatant lie.
Indeed, if we restrict our analysis to males, the gap reverses, with 70.2% of Chinese resident males being employed, versus 71.1% of Malay resident males (for completeness, if one restricts the analysis to women the respective numbers are 55% and 48% respectively).
So if anything, it looks like Chinese men are actually finding it harder to find jobs than Malay men.
iii) I want to know where these mass graves of Indian construction workers are. Am I the only one who hasn't heard of them? They must be potent sites to perform black magic.
iv) What are these Chinese only scholarships and how do I apply?
I was unable to find Chinese-only scholarships - although there is a CDAC page called "Scholarship & Bursary", there is only one scheme listed there - CDAC-SFCCA Bursary which, as its name suggests, is not a scholarship.
On the other hand, when I visit Mendaki I see many scholarships reserved for Muslim students:
The Ridzwan Dzafir Community Awards
Anugerah Belia Cemerlang MENDAKI (MENDAKI Youth Promise Awards)
MENDAKI Fellowship Award
Special Achievement Award for Excellence (Non-Academic)
Singapore Airlines - MENDAKI Undergraduate Scholarship
MENDAKI-Merchant Scholarship
MENDAKI-Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (MENDAKI-ISCA) Scholarship (Accounting) - Nominations by Universities
MENDAKI - Institution of Engineers Singapore (MENDAKI-IES) Scholarship (Engineering) - Nominations by Polytechnics & Universities
MENDAKI - Dr Abdul Aziz Ali Scholarship
MENDAKI-Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce Foundation (MENDAKI-SCCCF) Scholarship
MENDAKI Scholarships (University)
MENDAKI Scholarships (Polytechnic)
Special Malay Bursary (University)
Special Malay Bursary (Polytechnic)
PSB - MENDAKI Scholarship
Yayasan MENDAKI – Dr Jai Prashanth Rao Scholarship
Even though a few are supposedly to help poorer Muslim students, being rich doesn't disqualify you from getting them - you only get a lower priority. Yes, even the ones called "Bursary" do not disqualify rich Muslims.
In contrast, for the CDAC-SFCCA Bursary, you are explicitly disqualified with "Gross Monthly Household Income (MHI) not exceeding $1,900 or Monthly Per Capita income (PCI) not exceeding $650".
I note too that while CDAC only gives you $280-$450 a month, the Muslim-only scholarships award up to $100,000 a year (and SIA gives a full scholarship with allowances on top of that which, if you study at certain overseas universities, can be worth even more)
v) It took her only three paragraphs to start blowing her own trumpet.
vi) Apparently her apology to Shanmugam was insincere. Her exact words being:
"I would like to offer an unreserved apology to Minister K Shanmugam Sc for what I had done. I had posted an article in haste. What I had posted about what he had said was untrue, and my comments were unjustified. On reflection, I am sorry for what I have done.
I have since met the Minister and offered my apology to him, which he has accepted."
Maybe she can spin this as being Chinese people persecuting her, and Shanmugam can sue her for defamation for saying he's Chinese.
vii) It is so ironic she says Crazy Rich Asians is "bringing a Western racial framework to bear upon a Singaporean one", given that she took the idea of White Privilege, changed White to Chinese, and brought it to bear on Singapore.
viii) The movie isn't even out yet, so she (like everyone else getting into the action) is bashing the movie based on its trailer.
So in conclusion Sangeetha is lying (as usual), and there is even more support for Muslims in Singapore than I realised (and Chinese men actually find it harder to get a job than Malays).
Hearteningly, the comments have some people calling out her hate-filled screed:
"I thought you might enjoy a good laugh here. She cannot tell the difference between immigrating and being involuntarily displaced."
"Malay people are indigenous to Singapore?
They are the orang asli??"
"Everytime I share my piece on indigeneity in SE Asia, racist Malay people consolidate that to assert their 'ownership' of Malaysia"
"You claim to be an anti racism activist but you are so racist yourself..."
“How about spent some time discussing about those way larger and more populated countries like Malaysia and Indonesia and their strong discrimination against non-Muslim people. It is within their law”
"If we are going to look at Chinese privilege as a whole, why not expand to the rest of SE Asia?"
"This is her platform you don't get to tell her what she should focus on" [Ed: Ironically, liberals always demand what others should focus on, e.g. the film industry needs to improve "representation"]
"I think this political school of thought that argues about chinese privilege in Singapore has only started to recently emerge in the past few years. More specifically it started gaining traction when I left... from my own experience growing up through highschool there, chinese, malays, and indians got along together just fine... Overall, I don’t think Singapore is an explicitly racist society, everyone gets along and respects each other in harmony... I re-read the post about job discrimination towards malay-muslims. I’m not too sure if that is true because the current Singapore president is a Malay woman wearing a hijab. Singapore is pretty fair for job opportunites. Its a meritocracy."
(anti-racists will try and dismiss this, but it was posted by Matthew Rodriguez)
"In any case, it’s a fiction? Surely, it perpetuates certain stereotypes but hey i dont watch harry potter and believe there are some magical beings flying the skies of UK."
"She was shitting all over the place. Someone had clearly wronged her in the past, and like any given fool she decided to stereotype, which is the easiest coping mechanism"
""I am S'pore's most famous anti racism activist." Self proclaimed of course. Truth is this is your only way to get the attention you desperately crave Sangeetha Thanapal."
" You had me until you blamed American people of color for this travesty. Way to generalize us as not only ignorant of your issues (I've visited Singapore twice and am not) but apathetic and complacent. We, the people being gunned down in the streets by law enforcement, being denied homeownership or employment, having our history erased by gentrification, being snatched up by ICE, and hearing from the White House how this is not really our home, all while being unable to escape it all by moving to another continent, are the LAST people you should be coming after. Try edification sans blame next time, hmm?"
"I bet you didn't know that a certain racial group enjoys free education.
And that group isn't the majority."
"Isn’t having the money to study and live overseas a privilege"
"honey the movie is called crazy rich asians, not crazy rich south asians or crazy rich indians. perhaps you can travel back in time and ask the author to change his book. and while you're at it, why don't you go to your motherland of india and fix the caste system at the same time. indians are the most racist against their own judging by the amount of discrimination against the lower caste untouchables. and do fix the discrimination against women at the same time too so it wouldn't be nicknamed 'rapeland' all the time."
"Isn't the president of Singapore a Malay Muslim woman who wears a hijab? And the deputy prime minister a person of Indian origin?"
"Um... if you are hating on chinese people, arent you racist yourself???"
"I'm also looking for school that is entirely reserved for Chinese"
Addendum:
"She claims to be anti racist but yet is racist to us ethnic Chinese? Blaming my entire race for a few handful bunch of racism she experienced? I experienced racism from minorities too but do u blame their entire race? No..because an idiot will be an idiot no matter the colour of your skin."
"I'm Indian, born and bred in Singapore. And I don't speak Mandarin well, other than knowing the basics.
If you wanna champion rights of the minorities, this isn't the way to go about it. Too many exaggerations will put off balanced readers such as myself. If you can work on being less biased and not constantly attacking the Chinese (which, ironically makes you exactly what you claim to be fighting against - racist), some people might actually pay attention to you. For now, I find your rants just coloured with biased hatred. Cheers!"
"Workers killed on site, and you blame it on Chinese... Wow Ms PHD candidate!"
"So I know what racism is like and I received it from not just the whites but also the African Americans and Latino Americans. Been pelted with milkshakes, vegetables and almost run down by a car cos they thought they were running me out of the USA. But if I let it fester, it would only make me angry and belligerent. I do not want to waste my time hating, I spend my time reaching out with sincerity. Anger only perpetuates and exacerbates the situation. Why do we always see another race and think racism? Why don’t we give them the benefit of doubt and just leave it as they do not understand my race and culture and feel uncomfortable around me in case they unknowingly offend me. I always try to make them feel comfortable. If they don’t feel judged or any aggression, they will return the courtesy. Sometimes the harder we fight back the worse it becomes. This is where Sun Tzi’s Art of War comes into play. The rule of thumb I follow is to know my place if I am in a foreign country. I know of people who go to another country and act arrogantly and obnoxiously and that creates racism. I can’t expect everyone to love me or hate me. If I feel a negative vibe, I move on."
Depressingly, some foreigners are taking her rant at face value instead of finding out the truth. And there're people adding on to the hysteria:
"huffpost n guardian are liberal mouthpieces. they support "progressiveness" within an assimilationist, capitalist, white supremacy framework. they are in effect, politically centrist.
Sangeetha's views come across to me as far more radical, intersectional leftist, and for media outlets such as guardian and huffpost, these views, are too "extreme""
(this is the person who blocked me when, after she claimed that FTF [female to female] individuals did not exist, I pointed out that Cornell University disagreed with her since "Some transwomen reject being seen as “MTF,” arguing that they have always been female and are only making this identity visible to other people (instead, they may call themselves “FTF”)")
Incidentally, it takes a good deal of hubris to quote yourself in your Cover Picture (with byline):
"Whether you're poor or rich, being Chinese gives you a leg up in Singapore ... They are beneficiaries of a system of racial superiority."
Post ID: 4273715352402788020
Friday, May 05, 2017
TIL Sangeetha Thanapal comes from North Korea
"Been thinking a lot about the romanticization of wilderness, the outdoors and the usual judgement that comes with saying you'd rather not be there.
This idea that we are princesses with no reslience or ability to tough it out just because we don't like the outdoors is so fucked up.
I grew up in poverty with a single mother in one of the world's most classist & racist dictatorships.
I'd like to see y'all survive that with half the equanimity I have.
The ability to enjoy and be in nature actually requires a fair amount of wealth. Access to equipment, training that teaches you to survive the outdoors and the right kind of clothing (which can be highly expensive) etc just requires a whole lot of capital.
A lot of women, POC, queer people etc already live incredibly hard lives. Our everyday lives involve us having to face & survive a whole host of structures that are specifically designed to harm us.
It is a privilege to choose to make your life more difficult by going into the outdoors because you think it's build character and resilience and shit like that.
I'm resilient enough as it is-from just living my life.
For so many people, their lives are that of privilege & wealth. They don't have character or depth and they will in all probability die if they had to live the lives that POC, women and queer pple live. So for them, a few days of roughing it out is probably the closest they will ever be to having anything tough happen to them.
The rest of us don't have that luxury and we shouldn't be judged when we choose to try to make our lives a little easier instead.
I like cities. I like brunch. I like coffee. I also like nature, but in small amounts. And if you're gonna judge me as somehow less than you because I don't want to strap on some boots and be in the freezing cold as some experiment for my character, you can go fuck off."
(Emphasis mine)
Post ID: 779607980954178113
Thursday, November 03, 2016
Sangeetha's Gameplan - Seeking Asylum in Australia?
Having fled to Australia (probably because she got a grant to spread her hate), Sangeetha seems to be poking the Singaporean government once again with her usual series of half-truths, lies and mischievous insinuations.
Given a recent post (which sadly has 19 reactions), perhaps her plan is to attract "persecution", upon which she can claim asylum in Australia, which is considerably more progressive than Singapore since they indoctrinate schoolchildren into thinking that men is evil and that is why they get beaten up by women.
"4 Million Muslims Killed In Western Wars: Should We Call It Genocide?
Let us remember that in Singapore in the 1980s, Malay Muslim people were targeted for sterilization, and they continue to be told till now in many ways that births should be prevented among the community. Muslim people are targets of genocide worldwide, and we should start calling it what it is.
"In the wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. not only killed millions, but systematically destroyed the infrastructure necessary for healthy, prosperous life in those countries, then used rebuilding efforts as opportunities for profit, rather than to benefit the occupied populations. To further add to the genocidal pattern of behavior, there is ample evidence of torture and persistent rumors of sexual assault from the aftermath of Iraq’s fall. It appears likely the U.S. has contributed to further destabilization and death in the region by supporting the rise of the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and Syria by arming rebel groups on all sides of the conflict.""
Nevermind that the "evidence" that "the United States and its allies" committed "genocide" in the Middle East is nonsense - taking the raw death counts in Middle Eastern conflicts and ascribing all of them to a deliberate Western campaign of extermination (based on a creative interpretation of a few words from George W Bush) is sophistry at best.
Nor that the claim that "the U.S. not only killed millions, but systematically destroyed the infrastructure necessary for healthy, prosperous life in those countries" is totally unsupported.
Or even that reading anything into isolated Americans' rantings would be considered "racist" and "Islamophobic" if one were looking at Muslims' opinions.
Sangeetha is plainly ignorant of Singaporean history.
What she is presumably referring to is Singapore's population control policies. However, these were not targeted by race:
With reference to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), genocide is an act
Of course, Malays have historically had higher fertility than other races in Singapore, so they would've been more affected by this particular population policy than them.
Yet, if the disparate racial impact of a neutrally framed policy is evidence of racism (to say nothing of genocide), this works both ways.
For example, the GST Voucher for 2016 is given based on one's Annual Home Value.
According to Table 58, Resident Households by Type of Dwelling, Ethnic Group of Head of Household and Tenancy, of the General Household Survey 2015, 36% of Malay Resident Households live in 1, 2 or 3 room flats (which are the housing types which should have the lowest Annual Home Values).
This compares to 24% for the resident population as a whole and 22% for Chinese (and 25% for Indians).
Therefore I conclude that the GST Voucher scheme is racist and a secret government ploy to enrich the Malays at the expense of the Chinese!
Given a recent post (which sadly has 19 reactions), perhaps her plan is to attract "persecution", upon which she can claim asylum in Australia, which is considerably more progressive than Singapore since they indoctrinate schoolchildren into thinking that men is evil and that is why they get beaten up by women.
"4 Million Muslims Killed In Western Wars: Should We Call It Genocide?
Let us remember that in Singapore in the 1980s, Malay Muslim people were targeted for sterilization, and they continue to be told till now in many ways that births should be prevented among the community. Muslim people are targets of genocide worldwide, and we should start calling it what it is.
"In the wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. not only killed millions, but systematically destroyed the infrastructure necessary for healthy, prosperous life in those countries, then used rebuilding efforts as opportunities for profit, rather than to benefit the occupied populations. To further add to the genocidal pattern of behavior, there is ample evidence of torture and persistent rumors of sexual assault from the aftermath of Iraq’s fall. It appears likely the U.S. has contributed to further destabilization and death in the region by supporting the rise of the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and Syria by arming rebel groups on all sides of the conflict.""
Nevermind that the "evidence" that "the United States and its allies" committed "genocide" in the Middle East is nonsense - taking the raw death counts in Middle Eastern conflicts and ascribing all of them to a deliberate Western campaign of extermination (based on a creative interpretation of a few words from George W Bush) is sophistry at best.
Nor that the claim that "the U.S. not only killed millions, but systematically destroyed the infrastructure necessary for healthy, prosperous life in those countries" is totally unsupported.
Or even that reading anything into isolated Americans' rantings would be considered "racist" and "Islamophobic" if one were looking at Muslims' opinions.
Sangeetha is plainly ignorant of Singaporean history.
What she is presumably referring to is Singapore's population control policies. However, these were not targeted by race:
Action was taken in the early stages of development to curtail fertility, a policy implemented in many developing economies to foster economic development. In the years between 1965 and 1984, population planning in Singapore was based on fertility reduction, through campaigns in family planning, sterilisation and legalised abortion using such slogans as ‘Stop at Two’ and ‘Two is Enough’. The aim of this blanket policy was to discourage large families, which were popular in all ethnic communities whether Chinese, Malay or Indian, by encouraging small families through a series of state incentives and disincentives. For example, after a family‘s first two children, maternity leave was restricted, delivery fees were raised progressively with the number of children and priority access to school places was lost for the third and subsequent children (for more detail see Saw 1990). The result was a vast movement of women into the workplace. This campaign, coupled with rapid economic development, was immensely successful and resulted in total fertility rates dropping from 4.66 in 1965 to an unexpected low of 1.4 in 1986 (Teo and Ooi 1996). --- The Gender Inequalities of Planning in Singapore / Gillian Davidson in Gender, Planning and Human Rights
With reference to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), genocide is an act
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group
Of course, Malays have historically had higher fertility than other races in Singapore, so they would've been more affected by this particular population policy than them.
Yet, if the disparate racial impact of a neutrally framed policy is evidence of racism (to say nothing of genocide), this works both ways.
For example, the GST Voucher for 2016 is given based on one's Annual Home Value.
According to Table 58, Resident Households by Type of Dwelling, Ethnic Group of Head of Household and Tenancy, of the General Household Survey 2015, 36% of Malay Resident Households live in 1, 2 or 3 room flats (which are the housing types which should have the lowest Annual Home Values).
This compares to 24% for the resident population as a whole and 22% for Chinese (and 25% for Indians).
Therefore I conclude that the GST Voucher scheme is racist and a secret government ploy to enrich the Malays at the expense of the Chinese!
Post ID: 8705840576237137629
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Not Everyone was Pleased by Joseph Schooling's Olympic Gold
In view of the elation over Singapore's First Olympic Gold, here is a sobering counterpoint from the mouth of the inimitable Sangeetha Thanapal:
"I really don't give a fuck about the Chinese people or Eurasian people or whatever people with state, societal and monetary support in the Olympics.
She's the ONLY thing from Singapore who is worth anything to me the Olympics (sic) this year
‘Unbelievable’: Singapore rower Saiyidah Aisyah on historic Olympic qualification - Channel NewsAsia"
Some possible takeaways (some of which we already knew or suspected):
- She hates Chinese
- She hates Eurasian people (perhaps Schooling's type of Eurasian in particular, since he is of predominantly white and Chinese descent, so he "benefits" from both "Chinese privilege" and "White privilege", which makes him doubly evil)
- She hates people with state support (given that Schooling's parents sold their house to fund his training, I'm not sure how little state support an athlete would have to get to receive her imprimatur)
- She hates people with social support (i.e. who are popular)
- She hates people with monetary support (i.e. rich people)
Given that Saiyidah Aisyah Rafa'ee won the Sports Excellence Scholarship (spexScholarship)*, that her mother didn't sell her house and that Sangeetha proclaims that all non-Malays in Singapore are immigrants**, one suspects that Sangeetha's support of her might be due more to the former's being "first Malay Olympian since shuttler Zarinah Abdullah competed at the 1996 Atlanta Games" than to her supposedly lacking state support, or any of the other factors she gives.
* - As a non-Chinese Singaporean sports commentator comments, "Saiyidah also has state and monetary support. SSC covers her expenses, make-up pay, facilities, diet guidance and medical help. She gets everything"
Of course, she has since removed the post from public view, which we could (perhaps) take as a tacit mea culpa. But then, the lack of a retraction (to say nothing of an apology) suggests that there is neither remorse nor sorrow on her part.
Though, more than her, I am worried that (at least) 116 people liked the post.
** - Sangeetha on Malay indigeneity:
On this Singapore National Day: I think about all the Indian people who have been called slurs and who have had Chinese people move away from them on public transport. I think about all the dark skinned women made to feel ugly and worthless. I think about all the minorities who knew better than to aspire, for they knew they will never have access to half the opportunities Chinese people have.
I think about all the Malay children who weren't born because of this country's eugenecist policies. I think of all the Malay boys in NS who are discriminated everywhere they turn but still do their duty to their land. I think about how this is Malay land, but Malay people are treated as outsiders and told to go back to Malaysia if they talk about racism.
On this National Day, I affirm that this always was and always will be indigenous land- belonging to Malay people and other indigenous peoples of the Nusantara. I affirm that we are here on their sufferance, and the rest of us better start remembering this.
I am also grateful to be far away from the overly fawning and facetious expressions of nationalism from people who lack empathy on a normal day. I am happy to not be on the receiving end of false advertising telling me to be grateful to live in this multi-racial country.
And if this makes me unpatriotic, if this makes me anti-national, then I welcome this label, for it puts me in the same company as one of the greatest men this country ever knew.
"Anti-National"
"Anti-National", they said
Lo, here is the proof.
Is this truly so?
If
To destroy the colonialists
To oppose to the end the imperialists
To eliminate oppression
To liquidate injustice
... this be "Anti-National"
Yes, I am Anti National!
If
To entomb the system of
discrimination
All injustice all servitude
And bury feudalism
... this be "Anti-National"
Yes, once again my declaration is
"yes" and it's true
I am Anti-National!
1963
[Ed: This is "Poem from Prison" by Said Zahari, 1963]
"I really don't give a fuck about the Chinese people or Eurasian people or whatever people with state, societal and monetary support in the Olympics.
She's the ONLY thing from Singapore who is worth anything to me the Olympics (sic) this year
‘Unbelievable’: Singapore rower Saiyidah Aisyah on historic Olympic qualification - Channel NewsAsia"
Some possible takeaways (some of which we already knew or suspected):
- She hates Chinese
- She hates Eurasian people (perhaps Schooling's type of Eurasian in particular, since he is of predominantly white and Chinese descent, so he "benefits" from both "Chinese privilege" and "White privilege", which makes him doubly evil)
- She hates people with state support (given that Schooling's parents sold their house to fund his training, I'm not sure how little state support an athlete would have to get to receive her imprimatur)
- She hates people with social support (i.e. who are popular)
- She hates people with monetary support (i.e. rich people)
Given that Saiyidah Aisyah Rafa'ee won the Sports Excellence Scholarship (spexScholarship)*, that her mother didn't sell her house and that Sangeetha proclaims that all non-Malays in Singapore are immigrants**, one suspects that Sangeetha's support of her might be due more to the former's being "first Malay Olympian since shuttler Zarinah Abdullah competed at the 1996 Atlanta Games" than to her supposedly lacking state support, or any of the other factors she gives.
* - As a non-Chinese Singaporean sports commentator comments, "Saiyidah also has state and monetary support. SSC covers her expenses, make-up pay, facilities, diet guidance and medical help. She gets everything"
Of course, she has since removed the post from public view, which we could (perhaps) take as a tacit mea culpa. But then, the lack of a retraction (to say nothing of an apology) suggests that there is neither remorse nor sorrow on her part.
Though, more than her, I am worried that (at least) 116 people liked the post.
** - Sangeetha on Malay indigeneity:
On this Singapore National Day: I think about all the Indian people who have been called slurs and who have had Chinese people move away from them on public transport. I think about all the dark skinned women made to feel ugly and worthless. I think about all the minorities who knew better than to aspire, for they knew they will never have access to half the opportunities Chinese people have.
I think about all the Malay children who weren't born because of this country's eugenecist policies. I think of all the Malay boys in NS who are discriminated everywhere they turn but still do their duty to their land. I think about how this is Malay land, but Malay people are treated as outsiders and told to go back to Malaysia if they talk about racism.
On this National Day, I affirm that this always was and always will be indigenous land- belonging to Malay people and other indigenous peoples of the Nusantara. I affirm that we are here on their sufferance, and the rest of us better start remembering this.
I am also grateful to be far away from the overly fawning and facetious expressions of nationalism from people who lack empathy on a normal day. I am happy to not be on the receiving end of false advertising telling me to be grateful to live in this multi-racial country.
And if this makes me unpatriotic, if this makes me anti-national, then I welcome this label, for it puts me in the same company as one of the greatest men this country ever knew.
"Anti-National"
"Anti-National", they said
Lo, here is the proof.
Is this truly so?
If
To destroy the colonialists
To oppose to the end the imperialists
To eliminate oppression
To liquidate injustice
... this be "Anti-National"
Yes, I am Anti National!
If
To entomb the system of
discrimination
All injustice all servitude
And bury feudalism
... this be "Anti-National"
Yes, once again my declaration is
"yes" and it's true
I am Anti-National!
1963
[Ed: This is "Poem from Prison" by Said Zahari, 1963]
Post ID: 3899419740658866807
Monday, May 09, 2016
Reddit comments: Sangeetha Thanapal
Chinese Privilege, Gender and Intersectionality in Singapore: A Conversation between Adeline Koh and Sangeetha Thanapal : singapore
"'National beauty pageants also tend to celebrate a Chinese ideal of feminine beauty, as opposed to other ethnicities, so that it becomes exceedingly rare for a minority to win these competitions.'
Curious about this so I checked out a few beauty pagents in Singapore on wiki. I just assumed that names reflected races and that there weren't other notable beauty pagents.
Ms Singapore Universe past 20 years: 4 non-Chinese names, 16 Chinese names. Last winner was non-Chinese: http://www.missuniverse.com/members/profile/661371/year:2014
Ms Singapore World past 20 years: 10 non-Chinese names, 10 Chinese names. Last winner was non-Chinese: http://www.missworld.com/Contestants/Singapore/
Miss Singapore International past 20 years: 2 non-Chinese names, 18 Chinese names. (It has only ever been won by three non-Chinese)
16/60 non-Chinese names roughly = 26% non-Chinese, 74% Chinese. This roughly matches up with Singapore's non-Chinese:Chinese population of 74%
... 'Heterosexual patriarchy is also at work here.'
The word is "hypergamy". OMG if she's going to use cheem words, can she at least use them properly?...
What - however - irritates me tremendously - is how she acts as though this is brand new information. But there have been tons of studies in Singapore about this. Professors in NUS have written books about this! On how racial theories apply to Singapore. But she ignores all of this to focus on transplanting American race theory to Singapore? It feels like a) she's trying to reinvent the wheel and b) she has not done any research on what Singaporean academics - or even Southeast Asian academics - have done. I find it immensely frustrating that she herself (by not referencing any Singapore academic, and relying almost exclusively on American authors) undervalues what Singaporean academics have done."
"I'm not saying that discrimination doesn't exist, because it does. I'm saying that she does a very poor job of demonstrating and discussing it. She's just regurgitating what's she's been taught in her liberal arts classes (much of which is problematic in the first place) and clumsily applying it in a local context. The concepts taught in her course are very un-scientific. Students such as herself are conditioned to see patterns that aren't there. As a consequence, they enthusiastically attribute differences between demographics (a very popular one is the myth of the gender pay gap) to discrimination without considering other factors."
"American social science theories are dominant in today's social science. To use academic language, we could say that by solely utilising American social science discourse to explain a Singapore social phenomenon, Adeline Koh is in turn uncritically reinforcing the dominant hegemony of American intellectual inquiry. As a assistant professor of postcolonial literature, she is demonstrating exactly what she's criticising...
Even if Thanapal was influenced by Internet social justice, her role as an academic (or "independent scholar") is to critically examine both the tools of analysis being handed to her (that is, examine the American theories she is using), as well as to do research into existing Singapore academic literature (either build on or to refute Singapore theories). As someone who holds a Master of Arts in Social and Political Thought from the University of Sussex, I would honestly expect a more rigorous analysis than what I'm seeing. But maybe I'm putting too much value on holding a Masters"
"Screw this kind of SJW bullshit. I found a lot of the text highly racist. As a Chindian myself... My identity is human. Singaporean. Post-racial. But these SJW-types keep insisting that I'm some underprivileged PoC/Indian/otherised victim. Encouraging professional victim-hood over self-empowerment."
"Having been an art major myself, I am very sceptical of "studies" conducted by liberal arts majors. They tend to formulate the conclusion first ("we are being oppressed, maligned, etc"), then conduct "research" where they cherry pick data that suits their conclusion, after which they nod their heads in collective agreement, satisfied with the "proof". This is a disgrace to academia and to the scientific method... they see oppression the way some religious nutjobs can see god in a potato. I'm tired of this shit."
"Do minority races feel left out in a Chinese speaking group? Of course. In the same way a vegetarian feels left out in a group of buddies going for the Meat Lovers special on a pizza outing. Do we do it on purpose to oppress them? I do not think so... speak up("got secret ah! channel 5 please"), not suffer in silence like how the author is trying to portray the minorities as an oppressed group. I've been in majority malay groups as well and I don't feel oppressed when they speak Malay amongst each other sometimes. I understand that it is the way they feel comfortable in communicating, and I don't take on this adversarial, antagonistic stance where I have to believe they are oppressing me or are excluding me from something."
"[Adeline Koh's] approach paints her as someone who sees themselves as part of a group of enlightened (likely presumptuous) folk, better than everyone else, and we should all listen to her.
Her self-importance really highlights the irony of this little blurb from her essay:
'It’s also not up for you to decide whether the person speaking is “right” or “wrong.” That you think your opinion is important is already indicative of how much privilege you have, and how ignorant you are of it.'"
"Why don't we kick out the Chinese, and make Singapore equal parts Chinese, Malay, Indian, White and Black? And while we are at it why don't we abolish English and replace it with Esperanto or Elvish to avoid giving Whites any special advantage?"
***
Balderdash: Fact Checking Sangeetha Thanapal's Lies (Again) : singapore
"She's following the American Liberal school of SJW-ism. By their standards, victimhood is virtue, xe who cries 'oppression!' loudest wins, and calling out false claims of victimhood is impossible.
If their activism screws the nation with racial conflicts, then in their minds they're vindicated because the nation is racist, therefore they're needed more! Like how if a man denies being sexist, it proves that the Patriarchy is all-powerful, or if burning a witch doesn't stop the drought it proves that witch-magic is very powerful and more need to be burnt."
"I've talked to a few genuine SJWs and attended their meetings here in Edinburgh where I'm studying (I was subsequently banned for arguing that cultural appropriation isn't real and that cultural exchange is a good thing, therefore I have "internalised oppression and support white supremacy" even though I'm a brown Chindian). They're almost all sheltered, privileged and delusional idiots. Like a black person with an upper-class English accent (probably born into it), studying in a high-tier university, funded by her parents working in London, and still complaining about "being put down by white supremacy" and organising protests against it.
They have no idea what oppression is. They haven't even experienced the level of oppression all Singaporean guys face in NS, or non-Malays experience in Malaysia, let alone the serious racist oppression they claim to fight against like colonial atrocities in India and the Americas.
They literally think that hearing an Israeli diplomat speak is 'violence' that 'makes students on campus feel unsafe'. They literally say that "white people don't look us when we walk down the street because they want to erase us". They literally banned 'Blurred Lines' from being played because it violates the 'safe space policy' and 'promotes rape culture'. If they gain power the West is doomed."
"I commented on her FB once disagreeing that there was 'Chinese Privilege' in Singapore. Instantly blocked without any message whatsoever. And I'm Chindian with an Indian surname so there's no way she couldn't have known that."
"'National beauty pageants also tend to celebrate a Chinese ideal of feminine beauty, as opposed to other ethnicities, so that it becomes exceedingly rare for a minority to win these competitions.'
Curious about this so I checked out a few beauty pagents in Singapore on wiki. I just assumed that names reflected races and that there weren't other notable beauty pagents.
Ms Singapore Universe past 20 years: 4 non-Chinese names, 16 Chinese names. Last winner was non-Chinese: http://www.missuniverse.com/members/profile/661371/year:2014
Ms Singapore World past 20 years: 10 non-Chinese names, 10 Chinese names. Last winner was non-Chinese: http://www.missworld.com/Contestants/Singapore/
Miss Singapore International past 20 years: 2 non-Chinese names, 18 Chinese names. (It has only ever been won by three non-Chinese)
16/60 non-Chinese names roughly = 26% non-Chinese, 74% Chinese. This roughly matches up with Singapore's non-Chinese:Chinese population of 74%
... 'Heterosexual patriarchy is also at work here.'
The word is "hypergamy". OMG if she's going to use cheem words, can she at least use them properly?...
What - however - irritates me tremendously - is how she acts as though this is brand new information. But there have been tons of studies in Singapore about this. Professors in NUS have written books about this! On how racial theories apply to Singapore. But she ignores all of this to focus on transplanting American race theory to Singapore? It feels like a) she's trying to reinvent the wheel and b) she has not done any research on what Singaporean academics - or even Southeast Asian academics - have done. I find it immensely frustrating that she herself (by not referencing any Singapore academic, and relying almost exclusively on American authors) undervalues what Singaporean academics have done."
"I'm not saying that discrimination doesn't exist, because it does. I'm saying that she does a very poor job of demonstrating and discussing it. She's just regurgitating what's she's been taught in her liberal arts classes (much of which is problematic in the first place) and clumsily applying it in a local context. The concepts taught in her course are very un-scientific. Students such as herself are conditioned to see patterns that aren't there. As a consequence, they enthusiastically attribute differences between demographics (a very popular one is the myth of the gender pay gap) to discrimination without considering other factors."
"American social science theories are dominant in today's social science. To use academic language, we could say that by solely utilising American social science discourse to explain a Singapore social phenomenon, Adeline Koh is in turn uncritically reinforcing the dominant hegemony of American intellectual inquiry. As a assistant professor of postcolonial literature, she is demonstrating exactly what she's criticising...
Even if Thanapal was influenced by Internet social justice, her role as an academic (or "independent scholar") is to critically examine both the tools of analysis being handed to her (that is, examine the American theories she is using), as well as to do research into existing Singapore academic literature (either build on or to refute Singapore theories). As someone who holds a Master of Arts in Social and Political Thought from the University of Sussex, I would honestly expect a more rigorous analysis than what I'm seeing. But maybe I'm putting too much value on holding a Masters"
"Screw this kind of SJW bullshit. I found a lot of the text highly racist. As a Chindian myself... My identity is human. Singaporean. Post-racial. But these SJW-types keep insisting that I'm some underprivileged PoC/Indian/otherised victim. Encouraging professional victim-hood over self-empowerment."
"Having been an art major myself, I am very sceptical of "studies" conducted by liberal arts majors. They tend to formulate the conclusion first ("we are being oppressed, maligned, etc"), then conduct "research" where they cherry pick data that suits their conclusion, after which they nod their heads in collective agreement, satisfied with the "proof". This is a disgrace to academia and to the scientific method... they see oppression the way some religious nutjobs can see god in a potato. I'm tired of this shit."
"Do minority races feel left out in a Chinese speaking group? Of course. In the same way a vegetarian feels left out in a group of buddies going for the Meat Lovers special on a pizza outing. Do we do it on purpose to oppress them? I do not think so... speak up("got secret ah! channel 5 please"), not suffer in silence like how the author is trying to portray the minorities as an oppressed group. I've been in majority malay groups as well and I don't feel oppressed when they speak Malay amongst each other sometimes. I understand that it is the way they feel comfortable in communicating, and I don't take on this adversarial, antagonistic stance where I have to believe they are oppressing me or are excluding me from something."
"[Adeline Koh's] approach paints her as someone who sees themselves as part of a group of enlightened (likely presumptuous) folk, better than everyone else, and we should all listen to her.
Her self-importance really highlights the irony of this little blurb from her essay:
'It’s also not up for you to decide whether the person speaking is “right” or “wrong.” That you think your opinion is important is already indicative of how much privilege you have, and how ignorant you are of it.'"
"Why don't we kick out the Chinese, and make Singapore equal parts Chinese, Malay, Indian, White and Black? And while we are at it why don't we abolish English and replace it with Esperanto or Elvish to avoid giving Whites any special advantage?"
***
Balderdash: Fact Checking Sangeetha Thanapal's Lies (Again) : singapore
"She's following the American Liberal school of SJW-ism. By their standards, victimhood is virtue, xe who cries 'oppression!' loudest wins, and calling out false claims of victimhood is impossible.
If their activism screws the nation with racial conflicts, then in their minds they're vindicated because the nation is racist, therefore they're needed more! Like how if a man denies being sexist, it proves that the Patriarchy is all-powerful, or if burning a witch doesn't stop the drought it proves that witch-magic is very powerful and more need to be burnt."
"I've talked to a few genuine SJWs and attended their meetings here in Edinburgh where I'm studying (I was subsequently banned for arguing that cultural appropriation isn't real and that cultural exchange is a good thing, therefore I have "internalised oppression and support white supremacy" even though I'm a brown Chindian). They're almost all sheltered, privileged and delusional idiots. Like a black person with an upper-class English accent (probably born into it), studying in a high-tier university, funded by her parents working in London, and still complaining about "being put down by white supremacy" and organising protests against it.
They have no idea what oppression is. They haven't even experienced the level of oppression all Singaporean guys face in NS, or non-Malays experience in Malaysia, let alone the serious racist oppression they claim to fight against like colonial atrocities in India and the Americas.
They literally think that hearing an Israeli diplomat speak is 'violence' that 'makes students on campus feel unsafe'. They literally say that "white people don't look us when we walk down the street because they want to erase us". They literally banned 'Blurred Lines' from being played because it violates the 'safe space policy' and 'promotes rape culture'. If they gain power the West is doomed."
"I commented on her FB once disagreeing that there was 'Chinese Privilege' in Singapore. Instantly blocked without any message whatsoever. And I'm Chindian with an Indian surname so there's no way she couldn't have known that."
Post ID: 7284940094235974151
Friday, April 29, 2016
Joshua Chiang critiques Privilege Theory
Via Joshua Chiang - Because she was oppressed by facts. Not sure if... (I do not think the other person's comments are very interesting and anyway you can tell what they are by Joshua's responses):
"I have always, even before she came on the scene, made it clear there is Chinese hegemony which whether intentionally or not makes the system benefit Chinese people more. In fact when I was CE of TOC I felt it was an important angle to write about and had - though unsuccessfully - tried to rope in Malay and Indian writers to write about their experiences. What I had disagreed right from the start is the rhetoric of privilege and the obnoxious white-knighting ways in which Adeline Koh came along and told everyone else to shush - which reflects the very problem of privilege rhetoric in that its proponents find it very easy to deflect any valid crictisms as people speaking from a privileged position. Without realising they are using their scholarly 'privilege' to shut discourse.
Two - just because we are having this conversation, and only because I give a shit, doesn't mean that a lot of people are. What they are discussing however is how obnoxious Sangeetha is. I'm sorry to say that if she had any issues and agenda to champion, she has pretty much derailed it and made it only about her."
""A critical change is whether the issue is being discussed or not at all - and right now, more people are starting to try and understand what the fuss is all about. This, believe it or not, is progress."
Just like how Sept 11 got everyone talking about terrorism and the West's culpability in meddling in the Middle East?"
"My main objection has always been on using 'privilege' theory as a form of advocacy and Sangeetha being a terrible advocate. You think her style has led to some progress even in the discourse, I beg to differ. If anything she is totally unreliable as someone you can trust or work with; the penchant of her judging who should be her 'allies' and then turning against them is the stuff of legend among civil society circles now.
And again, you make the assumptions that we know very little of the 'unknown-knowns', since TOC days, we've already known how thick skulls are with regards to stubborn resistance to change on a whole range of issues. The whole of Singapore is NOT ready to abolish DP. It is NOT ready for LGBTQ rights. It is NOT ready for Migrant Workers' right. Heck it is NOT even ready to consider a day without the PAP.
So how? Scream and shout oppression at every damn thing? Do you see an LGBTQ advocate going around scolding straight people for 'het privilege'?"
"Dude. Don't assume. Because I can get started on your non-colorblind privilege. And then we can compete on who experiences more oppression on a daily level... Do not even assume I am not offended by your constant assumptions of my experiences... The moment u start talkimg about pain, u begin to assume I have never experienced some form of daily "oppression"... Also do not forget your experiences even if they are a result of institutionalized racism is not a universal experience - I've spoken to minorities who don't feel the way you do. So how? It doesn't mean institutionalized racism doesnt exist but we can't take your pain as a yardstick to action. And when u start making your pain the most important thing in this discussion and start going into things like oh go and be academic with people who lost a child, you are being offensive to my experiences of losing someone and knowing what it is to lose someone. I seldom bring these up because we are talking about ideas and whether this and that work. Not our own subjective pain."
"i think u need to a) check ur binary thinking b) stop mansplaining what is privilege as if I never did my research (you on the other hand appear not to know any of the criticisms against privilege theory) and c) find a safe space if you think discussing on an academic level is very triggering."
"You also need to check the microaggression. Don't forget i am technically disabled because of my color blindness."
"the only reason why you can't even address my points on grounds of logic IS because privilege theory and rhetoric has no legs to stand on. At the end the only position you can take is that of righteous outrage based on some assumed 'victim/oppressor' relationship we have and claiming my moral inferiority to yours based on the 'privilege' I have in making statements you claim offence at, claiming some pain in the unique position you know I cannot reasonably say to experience but at best approximate because hey, I am HUMAN and I know what it is like to feel hurt, rejected, insulted etc.
THAT is the shaky ground in which privilege theory has made you stand on. This chasm that I have been trying to build a bridge across but you steadfastly refuse to close because you want to claim the moral high ground that privilege theory offers you.
It's bullshit and I am sick of it.
And I'm OFFENDED. I'm offended because folks like us, we do our best to right the wrongs which we had no part in, but we're never good enough. Boy did we listen, did we listen hard, but fuck. You're just not happy unless you get some bleeding confession of guilt some fucking pound of flesh. And guess what? At the end, we folks will stand up for you - and do not presume there is no personal cost in sticking our necks out, sometimes further than what you do for yourself, and yet you'll still call us oppressors by virtue of the color of our skin, unless we acknowledge to some intellectually bankrupt theory.
But I don't think you know how that feels. This pain. Even though I'm pretty sure you know what being wronged feels like. Because hey, you're a minority. You cannot feel what I feel, right?
And since according to the same theory and reasoning, anger is a legit response, then here's my most legit response. FUCK YOU. FUCKING FUCK YOU."
"my exasperation has nothing to do with my race or yours. When we have a discourse, the only tools we bring to the table are our knowledge and our brains. Whatever class, race, gender advantage you or I have over each other, that exists in the real world, they have an impact on our lives, that's true, I have never denied that. But here, my IQ, yours, my knowledge, yours, it is not coloured by race. It should not even be coloured by experience. A discussion on a theory based in social science, however hard to empirically study compared to physical science, need necessarily be based also on more or less logical principles.
I lay it on the table, why I think privilege theory is a very bad articulation of social facts that we can agree on. You did not address the issue. You did not give me reasons why you think it is a good theory, or better than a lot of existing theories out there that studies the power relationships between groups of people, e.g. Foucault's theory of hegemony.
Instead you keep bringing the privilege card whenever you can. And then you think it's some kind of truimph when I let loose my exasperation and you're like 'hey that is exactly how we feel everyday in a racist world!" Wow. Breaking news. Like none of us have ever done thought experiments before. Like you cannot bloody see the reason why we want to make things better is because we know this anger this injustice and it is unconsciensable. But see where this goes? Nowhere. I keep saying, I see your point, I feel your burn. Do you see mine? Do you recognise the frustration of being judged everyday as some oppressor merely by the color of our skin? Maybe the injury you suffer from is a left hook to the face. The one I get is punch to the stomach. Different places, same hurt.
So we do have things in common. Pain. And the desire to improve things. But all I'm getting from you is - NO HEAR ME ROAR HEAR MY PAIN MY PAIN IS MOST IMPORTANT. Well, then where were you when I was standing alone against the police and MCYS officers taking a real risk of being arrested for getting in the way of police procedures because they want to evict a group of homeless Malays and Indians - OPPRESSED MINORITIES - from the beach?"
"you simply have no end goal, because privilege theory doesn't propose any. It's just this fuzzy thing that you think describes your situation, from your perspective, without consideration of the perspective of those you frame 'oppressors'. And instead of seeing how we can bridge that gap with those who want to, you just stand on your pedestal and shout "you won't understand one!" "
"I have always, even before she came on the scene, made it clear there is Chinese hegemony which whether intentionally or not makes the system benefit Chinese people more. In fact when I was CE of TOC I felt it was an important angle to write about and had - though unsuccessfully - tried to rope in Malay and Indian writers to write about their experiences. What I had disagreed right from the start is the rhetoric of privilege and the obnoxious white-knighting ways in which Adeline Koh came along and told everyone else to shush - which reflects the very problem of privilege rhetoric in that its proponents find it very easy to deflect any valid crictisms as people speaking from a privileged position. Without realising they are using their scholarly 'privilege' to shut discourse.
Two - just because we are having this conversation, and only because I give a shit, doesn't mean that a lot of people are. What they are discussing however is how obnoxious Sangeetha is. I'm sorry to say that if she had any issues and agenda to champion, she has pretty much derailed it and made it only about her."
""A critical change is whether the issue is being discussed or not at all - and right now, more people are starting to try and understand what the fuss is all about. This, believe it or not, is progress."
Just like how Sept 11 got everyone talking about terrorism and the West's culpability in meddling in the Middle East?"
"My main objection has always been on using 'privilege' theory as a form of advocacy and Sangeetha being a terrible advocate. You think her style has led to some progress even in the discourse, I beg to differ. If anything she is totally unreliable as someone you can trust or work with; the penchant of her judging who should be her 'allies' and then turning against them is the stuff of legend among civil society circles now.
And again, you make the assumptions that we know very little of the 'unknown-knowns', since TOC days, we've already known how thick skulls are with regards to stubborn resistance to change on a whole range of issues. The whole of Singapore is NOT ready to abolish DP. It is NOT ready for LGBTQ rights. It is NOT ready for Migrant Workers' right. Heck it is NOT even ready to consider a day without the PAP.
So how? Scream and shout oppression at every damn thing? Do you see an LGBTQ advocate going around scolding straight people for 'het privilege'?"
"Dude. Don't assume. Because I can get started on your non-colorblind privilege. And then we can compete on who experiences more oppression on a daily level... Do not even assume I am not offended by your constant assumptions of my experiences... The moment u start talkimg about pain, u begin to assume I have never experienced some form of daily "oppression"... Also do not forget your experiences even if they are a result of institutionalized racism is not a universal experience - I've spoken to minorities who don't feel the way you do. So how? It doesn't mean institutionalized racism doesnt exist but we can't take your pain as a yardstick to action. And when u start making your pain the most important thing in this discussion and start going into things like oh go and be academic with people who lost a child, you are being offensive to my experiences of losing someone and knowing what it is to lose someone. I seldom bring these up because we are talking about ideas and whether this and that work. Not our own subjective pain."
"i think u need to a) check ur binary thinking b) stop mansplaining what is privilege as if I never did my research (you on the other hand appear not to know any of the criticisms against privilege theory) and c) find a safe space if you think discussing on an academic level is very triggering."
"You also need to check the microaggression. Don't forget i am technically disabled because of my color blindness."
"the only reason why you can't even address my points on grounds of logic IS because privilege theory and rhetoric has no legs to stand on. At the end the only position you can take is that of righteous outrage based on some assumed 'victim/oppressor' relationship we have and claiming my moral inferiority to yours based on the 'privilege' I have in making statements you claim offence at, claiming some pain in the unique position you know I cannot reasonably say to experience but at best approximate because hey, I am HUMAN and I know what it is like to feel hurt, rejected, insulted etc.
THAT is the shaky ground in which privilege theory has made you stand on. This chasm that I have been trying to build a bridge across but you steadfastly refuse to close because you want to claim the moral high ground that privilege theory offers you.
It's bullshit and I am sick of it.
And I'm OFFENDED. I'm offended because folks like us, we do our best to right the wrongs which we had no part in, but we're never good enough. Boy did we listen, did we listen hard, but fuck. You're just not happy unless you get some bleeding confession of guilt some fucking pound of flesh. And guess what? At the end, we folks will stand up for you - and do not presume there is no personal cost in sticking our necks out, sometimes further than what you do for yourself, and yet you'll still call us oppressors by virtue of the color of our skin, unless we acknowledge to some intellectually bankrupt theory.
But I don't think you know how that feels. This pain. Even though I'm pretty sure you know what being wronged feels like. Because hey, you're a minority. You cannot feel what I feel, right?
And since according to the same theory and reasoning, anger is a legit response, then here's my most legit response. FUCK YOU. FUCKING FUCK YOU."
"my exasperation has nothing to do with my race or yours. When we have a discourse, the only tools we bring to the table are our knowledge and our brains. Whatever class, race, gender advantage you or I have over each other, that exists in the real world, they have an impact on our lives, that's true, I have never denied that. But here, my IQ, yours, my knowledge, yours, it is not coloured by race. It should not even be coloured by experience. A discussion on a theory based in social science, however hard to empirically study compared to physical science, need necessarily be based also on more or less logical principles.
I lay it on the table, why I think privilege theory is a very bad articulation of social facts that we can agree on. You did not address the issue. You did not give me reasons why you think it is a good theory, or better than a lot of existing theories out there that studies the power relationships between groups of people, e.g. Foucault's theory of hegemony.
Instead you keep bringing the privilege card whenever you can. And then you think it's some kind of truimph when I let loose my exasperation and you're like 'hey that is exactly how we feel everyday in a racist world!" Wow. Breaking news. Like none of us have ever done thought experiments before. Like you cannot bloody see the reason why we want to make things better is because we know this anger this injustice and it is unconsciensable. But see where this goes? Nowhere. I keep saying, I see your point, I feel your burn. Do you see mine? Do you recognise the frustration of being judged everyday as some oppressor merely by the color of our skin? Maybe the injury you suffer from is a left hook to the face. The one I get is punch to the stomach. Different places, same hurt.
So we do have things in common. Pain. And the desire to improve things. But all I'm getting from you is - NO HEAR ME ROAR HEAR MY PAIN MY PAIN IS MOST IMPORTANT. Well, then where were you when I was standing alone against the police and MCYS officers taking a real risk of being arrested for getting in the way of police procedures because they want to evict a group of homeless Malays and Indians - OPPRESSED MINORITIES - from the beach?"
"you simply have no end goal, because privilege theory doesn't propose any. It's just this fuzzy thing that you think describes your situation, from your perspective, without consideration of the perspective of those you frame 'oppressors'. And instead of seeing how we can bridge that gap with those who want to, you just stand on your pedestal and shout "you won't understand one!" "
Post ID: 8958329386188757173
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Divining Sangeetha Thanapal's Motivations
A post that's been removed from Wake Up, Singapore:
"Dear Sangeetha, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
--------------------------------
As a self-proclaimed 'Anti Racism Social Media Activist', it is truly astounding how you turn away the very people who can remedy the situation you endlessly expound upon.
Sangeetha and her rants have been making their rounds around social media these days quite often. Yes, racism snd does exist to an extent it may even be institutionalised, but that is no excuse for slamming the majority - especially those like the person in the exchange below who is seeking to do their bit to remedy the situation.
Sangeetha, you argue that the majority of Singaporeans are racist. From your actions over the past years, I think you are no less racist then those who you accuse. It's simply ridiculous how you claim to be a 'social media activist' yet you expose your incredibly thin-skin whenever critics arise.
I don't know if what you want to achieve by shutting the conversation is simply some 'safe spaces' and/or circlejerk. If that's the case, you shouldn't be fronting these heated issues in the first place. If anything, you're a radical for not wanting to engage naysayers, not an activist.
Sangeetha, you're the epitome of a paradoxical creature. I thank you for raising some of these issues (although I highly doubt your claims that you were the first to surface them) but I think right now, you're doing way more harm then good for the cause. Ideally, you should be encouraging debates and not building echo chambers.
And, by the way, twisting facts won't get you anywhere too. (http://gssq.blogspot.sg/…/fact-checking-sangeetha-thanapals…)
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And don't forget to take your SJW antics along with you on your way out too."
This was a response to a public thread on Sangeetha's Facebook.
And it is very telling:
Chee Siong Zhixiang: "what can be done about it?"
Sangeetha Thanapal: "Not coming here derailing and expecting minorities to come up with solutions for a problem u and ur ancestors created would be one way.
Like seriously, what kind of a person sees a minority expressing their pain and exhaustion at living here, and thinks THIS is a good time to parrot some bullshit about action. A person lacking in basic decency and compassion, that's who. This isn't a space for Chinese pple to come and mouth off. This is a space for minorities. If you don't know how to support us, shush and leave us alone."
A Chinese asks how he can help, and in return he gets flamed.
The allegedly racist state has now somehow become the fault of individual Chinese and their "ancestors". Since Sangeetha presumably doesn't know anything about Chee Siong Zhixiang (much less about his ancestors), it is telling that she is blaming him and his ancestors for everything that is wrong with this world. This certainly qualifies as racism on her part.
And given that Chee seems to be sympathetic to Sangeetha and wants to combat Chinese "racism" in Singapore, yet immediately gets tarred with this marvelously broad brush, this is a good example of the Contempt in which "Allies" are held by "Minorities".
Curiously, we note that for a self-proclaimed "Writer & Anti Racism Social Media Activist-Scholar engaged in anti-racism work in Singapore", she doesn't seem to want to do much activism or scholarship, and proclaims that "action" is "bullshit", instead preferring to wallow in her "pain".
Unsurprisingly, we see in this a perfect mirror of the Yale student who said that "I don't want to debate. I want to talk about my pain".
Sangeetha, like many SJWs (Social Justice Warriors), doesn't really want to change anything.
Instead, she just wants to revel in her victimhood and feel self-righteous and oppressed, with people cheering her along all the way. The dangerous allure of victim politics is an easy way to get into a cycle of self-indulgent emotional masturbation in a vacuum.
The original post also outlines Sangeetha's strategy for minorities:
"I have gotten to the point where I truly believe there is absolutely no point for any minority who isn't rich and desperate to assimilate into Chineseness to remain in Singapore. Minorities should be spending all their time, energy and effort on leaving.
It is the only option left for any of us who want to have any real shot at self-determination."
For a start, this betrays her political illiteracy for as Cornell advises us, self-determination is "the legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order".
So unless she sees "minorities" in Singapore as people who deserve their own states, she is (again) talking rubbish.
One possibility is that she is referring to the psychological theory of motivation which is "concerned with supporting our natural or intrinsic tendencies to behave in effective and healthy ways", but it would take a very charitable (and pro-active) reader to draw that link from her Facebook post which is ranting about political oppression and says little (at best) about healthy personal behavior.
Anyhow, we can see that Sangeetha doesn't believe in the ideal of Singapore as a multiracial state.
Interestingly, she is implicitly conceding that it should be a Chinese supremacist state (or at least that no one should bother trying to work against that).
Ironically, here she has much in common with the (possibly imaginary) Chinese supremacists that she so hates.
Finally, this is good news for other Singaporeans, since it looks like Singapore will be losing one of its most hateful, poisonous people in the near future.
PS: Adeline Koh likes Sangeetha's "bravery"
When an accusatory post on Facebook (and presumably accompanying comments trashing everyone you don't like) qualifies as "bravery", you know that we as a society are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
PPS: Someone approvingly talks about affirmative action in India and recommends it as "a good tool of empowerment of the marginalised people", perhaps not realising how disastrous it has been.
PPPS: "all those times they said we were family, they didn't mean you. They meant the Chinese and the Ang Moh, and even the token Malay, but not you"
I think this is called "inter-sectionality". And I suspect Alfian Sa'at might disagree.
"Dear Sangeetha, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
--------------------------------
As a self-proclaimed 'Anti Racism Social Media Activist', it is truly astounding how you turn away the very people who can remedy the situation you endlessly expound upon.
Sangeetha and her rants have been making their rounds around social media these days quite often. Yes, racism snd does exist to an extent it may even be institutionalised, but that is no excuse for slamming the majority - especially those like the person in the exchange below who is seeking to do their bit to remedy the situation.
Sangeetha, you argue that the majority of Singaporeans are racist. From your actions over the past years, I think you are no less racist then those who you accuse. It's simply ridiculous how you claim to be a 'social media activist' yet you expose your incredibly thin-skin whenever critics arise.
I don't know if what you want to achieve by shutting the conversation is simply some 'safe spaces' and/or circlejerk. If that's the case, you shouldn't be fronting these heated issues in the first place. If anything, you're a radical for not wanting to engage naysayers, not an activist.
Sangeetha, you're the epitome of a paradoxical creature. I thank you for raising some of these issues (although I highly doubt your claims that you were the first to surface them) but I think right now, you're doing way more harm then good for the cause. Ideally, you should be encouraging debates and not building echo chambers.
And, by the way, twisting facts won't get you anywhere too. (http://gssq.blogspot.sg/…/fact-checking-sangeetha-thanapals…)
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And don't forget to take your SJW antics along with you on your way out too."
This was a response to a public thread on Sangeetha's Facebook.
And it is very telling:
Chee Siong Zhixiang: "what can be done about it?"
Sangeetha Thanapal: "Not coming here derailing and expecting minorities to come up with solutions for a problem u and ur ancestors created would be one way.
Like seriously, what kind of a person sees a minority expressing their pain and exhaustion at living here, and thinks THIS is a good time to parrot some bullshit about action. A person lacking in basic decency and compassion, that's who. This isn't a space for Chinese pple to come and mouth off. This is a space for minorities. If you don't know how to support us, shush and leave us alone."
A Chinese asks how he can help, and in return he gets flamed.
The allegedly racist state has now somehow become the fault of individual Chinese and their "ancestors". Since Sangeetha presumably doesn't know anything about Chee Siong Zhixiang (much less about his ancestors), it is telling that she is blaming him and his ancestors for everything that is wrong with this world. This certainly qualifies as racism on her part.
And given that Chee seems to be sympathetic to Sangeetha and wants to combat Chinese "racism" in Singapore, yet immediately gets tarred with this marvelously broad brush, this is a good example of the Contempt in which "Allies" are held by "Minorities".
Curiously, we note that for a self-proclaimed "Writer & Anti Racism Social Media Activist-Scholar engaged in anti-racism work in Singapore", she doesn't seem to want to do much activism or scholarship, and proclaims that "action" is "bullshit", instead preferring to wallow in her "pain".
Unsurprisingly, we see in this a perfect mirror of the Yale student who said that "I don't want to debate. I want to talk about my pain".
Sangeetha, like many SJWs (Social Justice Warriors), doesn't really want to change anything.
Instead, she just wants to revel in her victimhood and feel self-righteous and oppressed, with people cheering her along all the way. The dangerous allure of victim politics is an easy way to get into a cycle of self-indulgent emotional masturbation in a vacuum.
The original post also outlines Sangeetha's strategy for minorities:
"I have gotten to the point where I truly believe there is absolutely no point for any minority who isn't rich and desperate to assimilate into Chineseness to remain in Singapore. Minorities should be spending all their time, energy and effort on leaving.
It is the only option left for any of us who want to have any real shot at self-determination."
For a start, this betrays her political illiteracy for as Cornell advises us, self-determination is "the legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order".
So unless she sees "minorities" in Singapore as people who deserve their own states, she is (again) talking rubbish.
One possibility is that she is referring to the psychological theory of motivation which is "concerned with supporting our natural or intrinsic tendencies to behave in effective and healthy ways", but it would take a very charitable (and pro-active) reader to draw that link from her Facebook post which is ranting about political oppression and says little (at best) about healthy personal behavior.
Anyhow, we can see that Sangeetha doesn't believe in the ideal of Singapore as a multiracial state.
Interestingly, she is implicitly conceding that it should be a Chinese supremacist state (or at least that no one should bother trying to work against that).
Ironically, here she has much in common with the (possibly imaginary) Chinese supremacists that she so hates.
Finally, this is good news for other Singaporeans, since it looks like Singapore will be losing one of its most hateful, poisonous people in the near future.
PS: Adeline Koh likes Sangeetha's "bravery"
When an accusatory post on Facebook (and presumably accompanying comments trashing everyone you don't like) qualifies as "bravery", you know that we as a society are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
PPS: Someone approvingly talks about affirmative action in India and recommends it as "a good tool of empowerment of the marginalised people", perhaps not realising how disastrous it has been.
PPPS: "all those times they said we were family, they didn't mean you. They meant the Chinese and the Ang Moh, and even the token Malay, but not you"
I think this is called "inter-sectionality". And I suspect Alfian Sa'at might disagree.
Post ID: 413136915324475621
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Fact Checking Sangeetha Thanapal's Lies (Again)
(HT PPBI)
On Hassan Sunny being named one of the world's Top 20 goalkeepers:
Sangeetha's claim: "It just barely gets a mention in Today.
If it was a Chinese guy, it'll be all over the news and he would be named Sportsperson of the Year."
Fortunately, Augustin Chiam did a fact check and pointed out that:
- The Straits Times put a teaser on its front page and had a story on page C12
- Today put it on page 4 (if that is "barely" mentioning it, I wonder what it being in the middle of the paper counts as)
- The New Paper had it on page 12
- CNA featured it
- Yahoo Singapore also had a story on it
His conclusion: "Just need to google it."
Unsurprisingly, these helpful comments pointing out that she was incontrovertibly wrong have now disappeared, leaving only her discredited lies, aimed at stirring racial tensions.
And her frothing fans are none the wiser (even assuming they care about facts).
At least now no one can pretend she is only an innocent "Writer & Anti Racism Social Media Activist-Scholar engaged in anti-racism work in Singapore."
Addendum:
Augustin informs me that he has been, unsurprisingly, blocked by Sangeetha. Even better, a Joshua Chiang reports that he was blocked just for *liking* Augustin's comment.
A non-Chinese Singaporean sports commentator: Lol if anything the Hassan Sunny story was blown up far too big. I was gonna comment on how the media here were heralding some throwaway random slideshow as a major accolade. And here she is saying it wasnt enough
If it makes her feel any better, the Singapore football scene is the one place where being non-Chinese works in your favour
Someone: Wow
Would be somewhat acceptable if she deleted the post
That would be she is a coward, but keeping post and deleting comments means she's a liar
On Hassan Sunny being named one of the world's Top 20 goalkeepers:
Sangeetha's claim: "It just barely gets a mention in Today.
If it was a Chinese guy, it'll be all over the news and he would be named Sportsperson of the Year."
Fortunately, Augustin Chiam did a fact check and pointed out that:
- The Straits Times put a teaser on its front page and had a story on page C12
- Today put it on page 4 (if that is "barely" mentioning it, I wonder what it being in the middle of the paper counts as)
- The New Paper had it on page 12
- CNA featured it
- Yahoo Singapore also had a story on it
His conclusion: "Just need to google it."
Unsurprisingly, these helpful comments pointing out that she was incontrovertibly wrong have now disappeared, leaving only her discredited lies, aimed at stirring racial tensions.
And her frothing fans are none the wiser (even assuming they care about facts).
At least now no one can pretend she is only an innocent "Writer & Anti Racism Social Media Activist-Scholar engaged in anti-racism work in Singapore."
Addendum:
Augustin informs me that he has been, unsurprisingly, blocked by Sangeetha. Even better, a Joshua Chiang reports that he was blocked just for *liking* Augustin's comment.
A non-Chinese Singaporean sports commentator: Lol if anything the Hassan Sunny story was blown up far too big. I was gonna comment on how the media here were heralding some throwaway random slideshow as a major accolade. And here she is saying it wasnt enough
If it makes her feel any better, the Singapore football scene is the one place where being non-Chinese works in your favour
Someone: Wow
Would be somewhat acceptable if she deleted the post
That would be she is a coward, but keeping post and deleting comments means she's a liar
Post ID: 2409382366202756445
Thursday, April 21, 2016
The Contempt in which "Allies" are held by "Minorities"
Note: This was excerpted from Links - 21st April 2016 in order to classify it under the label "sangeetha"
Chinese people writing articles about Chinese... - Sangeetha Thanapal - "Chinese people writing articles about Chinese privilege: your self-flagellation, and consequently expected adulation for simply pronouncing that you have Chinese privilege does not make you an ally. Stop annoying me and using the frameworks and terminology I created to show off what a 'good' Chinese person you are, without doing anything to actually threaten or dismantle this Chinese supremacist system."
"Allies" are probably held in secret (or not-so-secret) contempt by the "minorities" they champion. Indeed the very term "ally" indicates that never the twain shall meet
Does pouring out hatred against Chinese people on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr count as doing something to threaten or dismantle a "Chinese supremacist system"?
Addendum: Is her friend Adeline Koh "doing anything to actually threaten or dismantle this Chinese supremacist system"?
Chinese people writing articles about Chinese... - Sangeetha Thanapal - "Chinese people writing articles about Chinese privilege: your self-flagellation, and consequently expected adulation for simply pronouncing that you have Chinese privilege does not make you an ally. Stop annoying me and using the frameworks and terminology I created to show off what a 'good' Chinese person you are, without doing anything to actually threaten or dismantle this Chinese supremacist system."
"Allies" are probably held in secret (or not-so-secret) contempt by the "minorities" they champion. Indeed the very term "ally" indicates that never the twain shall meet
Does pouring out hatred against Chinese people on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr count as doing something to threaten or dismantle a "Chinese supremacist system"?
Addendum: Is her friend Adeline Koh "doing anything to actually threaten or dismantle this Chinese supremacist system"?
Post ID: 4897359343487387464
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
White Skin Good, Yellow Skin Bad
Note: This was excerpted from Links - 15th March 2016 in order to classify it under the label "sangeetha"
Hand-in-hand with a white man: Dating and racial hierarchies in Singapore — Chinese Privilege - "To a young Tamil Singaporean woman like me, the concept of racism is nothing new or inconceivable. Nonetheless, it wasn’t until I started going out with my fiancé, who happens to be Caucasian, that I began to see a new side to racial discrimination in Singapore. The surprised looks by strangers were one thing, but the harsh comments made to me by fellow Indians, especially men, implying that I had somehow betrayed Indian men as a collective, came as quite a shock to me... Strangely, the most disapproving looks I have received are from fellow Indians. Some of my male Indian friends have remarked to me that my decision to date a Caucasian man, presumably before other Indian men, speaks to a broader pre-occupation with the white male ideal. These friends have even implied that it is insincere of me to be critical of heterosexual white male privilege and date a white man at the same time."
So Sangeetha claims Indian men date Chinese women to benefit from Chinese privilege, but publishes an article by an Indian woman dating a white man who doesn't call it benefiting from white privilege and who says those who criticise her are racist.
Win.
Hand-in-hand with a white man: Dating and racial hierarchies in Singapore — Chinese Privilege - "To a young Tamil Singaporean woman like me, the concept of racism is nothing new or inconceivable. Nonetheless, it wasn’t until I started going out with my fiancé, who happens to be Caucasian, that I began to see a new side to racial discrimination in Singapore. The surprised looks by strangers were one thing, but the harsh comments made to me by fellow Indians, especially men, implying that I had somehow betrayed Indian men as a collective, came as quite a shock to me... Strangely, the most disapproving looks I have received are from fellow Indians. Some of my male Indian friends have remarked to me that my decision to date a Caucasian man, presumably before other Indian men, speaks to a broader pre-occupation with the white male ideal. These friends have even implied that it is insincere of me to be critical of heterosexual white male privilege and date a white man at the same time."
So Sangeetha claims Indian men date Chinese women to benefit from Chinese privilege, but publishes an article by an Indian woman dating a white man who doesn't call it benefiting from white privilege and who says those who criticise her are racist.
Win.
Post ID: 1667367529039480715
Friday, February 05, 2016
Reactions to Shanmugam making a police report against Sangeetha Thanapal
Note: This was excerpted from Links - 5th February 2016 in order to classify it under the label "sangeetha"
Law and Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam to make police report over 'inaccurate and seditious' Facebook post by Sangeetha Thanapal : singapore
"Sample post: It’s so tiring to even leave the house and deal with being in public, because Chinese people refuse to treat us as human. Chinese Privilege is being treated as a human being, rather than an object to avoid... my advice to all minorities who aren’t super rich and open to licking PAP balls, RUN. Run to another country as soon as you can."
"These people are everything that's wrong with the younger generation. Everything is an act of microaggression that's out to offend people"
"Lolololol been waiting for this for some time already. As a minority Singaporean I'm sick of her divisive SJW antics and I'm #nothershield."
"I used to get very offended all the time and it got seriously exhausting. So I decided to have a more humorous outlook."
Law and Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam to make police report over 'inaccurate and seditious' Facebook post by Sangeetha Thanapal : singapore
"Sample post: It’s so tiring to even leave the house and deal with being in public, because Chinese people refuse to treat us as human. Chinese Privilege is being treated as a human being, rather than an object to avoid... my advice to all minorities who aren’t super rich and open to licking PAP balls, RUN. Run to another country as soon as you can."
"These people are everything that's wrong with the younger generation. Everything is an act of microaggression that's out to offend people"
"Lolololol been waiting for this for some time already. As a minority Singaporean I'm sick of her divisive SJW antics and I'm #nothershield."
"I used to get very offended all the time and it got seriously exhausting. So I decided to have a more humorous outlook."
Post ID: 4594729308639394691
Thursday, January 21, 2016
The Delusions of Grandeur of Sangeetha Thanapal
My attention was drawn to a Twitter flamewar between SJW favourite Sangeetha Thanapal (Geetha (@fallenvirgo)) and Desdemona (@The_railroad_)
Some of the claims made in that exchange were very... interesting.
Take this for example:
@fallenvirgo: "YOU HAVE ZERO FOLLOWERS. I have thousands. And u think u can play on my league? You're so entertaining."
A simple check at the top reveals:
"Followers: 200"
Further down:
Geetha: "I'm famous, have an MA, and academics want me to talk, and filmmakers wanna make films abt me. Who are you again?"
I'm going to bet that most people have never heard of her...
On the other hand, I'm really looking forward to films about her.
@fallenvirgo: "this is so funny! Yeah man, I'm only in the ST, only being cited by academics, only loved by thousands."
Ah, more claims we can do a fact check about!
Searching the Straits Times website for "Sangeetha Thanapal", 5 results turn up, belonging to 3 articles. In order,
Law and Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam to make police report over 'inaccurate and seditious' Facebook post
Activist apologises to minister for remarks
The race issue: How far has Singapore come?
Now, if I wanted to be in the Straits Times I could always rob a bank, but I wouldn't put that on my CV, and I certainly wouldn't put that on Twitter.
Only 1 of the search results is for something unrelated to being sued by K. Shanmugam, and that is only a short one-paragraph mention.
As for the bit about being cited by academics, there is only one search result on Google Scholar and it turns out to be a book review.
Outside of Google Scholar there is The double captivity of ‘Chinese privilege’, but then that is a *negative* citation.
As for being loved by thousands... the least we can say about that is that they're not on Twitter.
Bonus!
Does retweeting misandristic tweets mean you are a misandrist?
Geetha Retweeted Father @YeoshinLourdes: "Men and women are not equals. Men have never been, will never be, desirable, compelling, or useful in the way women have always been. Ever."
(This is "a co-creator of the Twitter hashtag #GiveYourMoneyToWomen")
Other gems:
"Dump all men who aren't paying. Cease all dealings w men who don't benefit you upfront. Starve em out; watch the show. #GiveYourMoneyToWomen"
"Starve them out. Let low-utility men die a slow, tortuous death. Enjoy justice. Others will rise to the occasion to become assets to women."
Some of the claims made in that exchange were very... interesting.
Take this for example:
@fallenvirgo: "YOU HAVE ZERO FOLLOWERS. I have thousands. And u think u can play on my league? You're so entertaining."
A simple check at the top reveals:
"Followers: 200"
Further down:
Geetha: "I'm famous, have an MA, and academics want me to talk, and filmmakers wanna make films abt me. Who are you again?"
I'm going to bet that most people have never heard of her...
On the other hand, I'm really looking forward to films about her.
@fallenvirgo: "this is so funny! Yeah man, I'm only in the ST, only being cited by academics, only loved by thousands."
Ah, more claims we can do a fact check about!
Searching the Straits Times website for "Sangeetha Thanapal", 5 results turn up, belonging to 3 articles. In order,
Law and Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam to make police report over 'inaccurate and seditious' Facebook post
Activist apologises to minister for remarks
The race issue: How far has Singapore come?
Now, if I wanted to be in the Straits Times I could always rob a bank, but I wouldn't put that on my CV, and I certainly wouldn't put that on Twitter.
Only 1 of the search results is for something unrelated to being sued by K. Shanmugam, and that is only a short one-paragraph mention.
As for the bit about being cited by academics, there is only one search result on Google Scholar and it turns out to be a book review.
Outside of Google Scholar there is The double captivity of ‘Chinese privilege’, but then that is a *negative* citation.
As for being loved by thousands... the least we can say about that is that they're not on Twitter.
Bonus!
Does retweeting misandristic tweets mean you are a misandrist?
Geetha Retweeted Father @YeoshinLourdes: "Men and women are not equals. Men have never been, will never be, desirable, compelling, or useful in the way women have always been. Ever."
(This is "a co-creator of the Twitter hashtag #GiveYourMoneyToWomen")
Other gems:
"Dump all men who aren't paying. Cease all dealings w men who don't benefit you upfront. Starve em out; watch the show. #GiveYourMoneyToWomen"
"Starve them out. Let low-utility men die a slow, tortuous death. Enjoy justice. Others will rise to the occasion to become assets to women."
Post ID: 1174732594451574894
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Chinese privilege 102
An article that has since been deleted:
Chinese privilege 102
by Red Pill Dude
For anyone interested in finding out more about the Sangeetha Thanapal aka batshit crazy envious Indian woman who considers herself an expert on concept of ”privilege” and how it applies to the different races in Singapore, here’s a treat for you! Someone actually interviewed her to actually seek her opinion on Chinese privilege, gender and intersectionality in Singapore. It’s funny because the chick interviewing Sangeetha is equally mental (she is the author of this delightful article: To My Dear Fellow Singaporean Chinese: Shut Up When a Minority is Talking about Race)
Oh really? That’s good to hear. Men should be free to women of their choosing and vice versa. Let’s mix and melt it up baby.
*image*
Hmm…Indian men hooking up with Chinese chicks…but why???
*picture*
Hmm…Chinese men rarely hooking up with Indian chicks…but why???
*picture*
:) . I keed I keed. That’s just plain ole cherry picking ain’t it. There is a reason why Chinese men rarely date Indian women and why Indian men are increasingly dating and marrying Chinese women. Personally, as an Indian guy, I find that Indian women are generally unattractive both in physical appearance and character. They tend to be overweight and have really unpleasant personalities on top of being incredibly drama prone. Did I mention they tend to have pretty severe inferiority complexes? If I had a penny for every time one of my Indian female friends bitched about Chinese girls…either calling out their lack of booty or flat chests. I always make it a point to remind them that being fat and thereby having a large ass and boobs does not make you sexually attractive. Otherwise BBW would be all the rage in the porn industry.
*picture*
Of course there are some that I find highly attractive but they are few and far between.
*picture*
You have any evidence for this? I highly doubt so. You are probably talking out of your large bountiful ass.
*picture*
Hahahahaaaaa. In this statement, you see the mental gymnastics that is taking place in Sangeetha’s mind. In the convoluted labyrinthine that is her mind, Indian men’s increasing preference for Chinese women has EVERYTHING to do with grabbing some of that valuable Chinese privilege for themselves and NOTHING to do with Indian men finding Chinese women’s slim, fair taugeh bodies and/or personality attractive. Also, by boning Chinese woman, I experience less racism and more opportunities as an Indian guy?! Who wouldn’t want to marry Chinese woman lol
I was expecting for the ‘P’ word to pop up sooner or later…
Women want to marry up whenever possible. So do their parents. Marrying up, in terms of status/money, would allow the woman to live a more comfortable life and provide for her kids better than she could have if she married otherwise (down or across). It’s called hypergamy and explains why women love love love high status men.
*picture*
Hold yer horses. Firstly, you say that both Chinese woman and Indian men gain from marrying each other. Chinese woman gain class privilege aka money while Indian men gain racial privilege. You have any proof of this? That the Chinese woman are only marrying wealthy Indian men? I doubt so. From what I’ve seen, both sides are roughly at the same social status.
Secondly, you say that Chinese men gain nothing and lose everything by marrying an Indian girl eh. What about a scenario where a poor Chinese dude marries a wealthy Indian woman. Doesn’t that move them up a class privilege ladder? Why then don’t we see more Chinese men marrying Indian women?
Really? See what you can find when you look past your (racist) prejudices and bother do actually do some research. Below is a graph of the inter-ethnic marriages in 2013 in Singapore that I managed to find within 5 minutes.
*chart*
I do not even see Indian men and Chinese woman being registered in this list (Civil Marriages) at all. And why? That’s because they do not constitute any sizable percentage at all…These are statistics from 2013 but it should be fairly the same as the current situation now. So what does this all come to?
What is obvious for all to see is that we have a professional victim moaning and whining about how disadvantaged she is due to her race. She goes on a long rant bitching about something she calls Chinese privilege and concludes that she is at the lowest in her imaginary privilege totem pole. So in conclusion,
*meme*
So you're a professional victim that preys on people, who will feel bad for you.
Tell me again why I'm actually supposed to give a fuck?
*meme*
Related: The double captivity of ‘Chinese privilege’
Good comment by Masturah Alatas:
"Others have responded critically to the line that Thanapal and Koh have been pushing regarding their work on Chinese privilege. Among the criticisms I have come across are: too many generalizations and sweeping statements, conflation of concepts, a ranting, hostile, emotional tone; denigration of Indian men and Chinese women re their choice of marriage partner, the choice of frivolous examples like beauty contests to talk about a serious issue like gender discrimination, use of terms without really understanding them etc.
Any term built on an already problematic and flawed concept like White privilege is bound to run into serious problems. Works such as Theodore Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish became White and Sander Gilman’s ‘Are Jews White?’ in his book The Jew’s Body show that there is no common or consistent understanding of whiteness as one thing to begin with. Nor is there a common sense of privilege.
It is also a language problem, what words do when they appear in speech. Of course privilege exists, some people may not be aware of its negative effects and it is useful to remind them. But the moment one drops a term like Chinese privilege into the discussion, the reaction is often ‘What does that mean?’, ‘What has ‘Chinese’ got to do with it? Many Malaysian Malays are like that too’, ‘Why not just use the term Chinese chauvinism?’, ‘Why only Singaporean Chinese…many Malaysian Chinese are the same way…’, ‘Why are academics always talking about China these days?’ and the discussion becomes very confusing, circuitous, inconclusive and unproductive.
There is good scholarship and good writing about Singapore, if you know how to recognise it. This is a challenge further complicated by the amount of material available online, on platforms that readers give credibility to.
One final thing. The interview carries the byline of its editor, Petra Dierkes-Thrun, which is unusual for an interview. We are not told how the interview, called a “conversation”, was conducted—whether face-to-face, recorded and transcribed, or via email. Lack of clarity is understandable and inevitable in spontaneous speech. But if responses were written, then edited, why is there still lack of clarity (and I am not refering to typos like “..think in terms of the language and social of the dominant group..”)? What are we to make of “…it places the blame for failure on those who did not work hard enough…” So they did not work hard enough, or they were perceived as not working hard enough? Here we have the return of the myth of the lazy native.
Moreover, why does the interviewer not ask for clarification or call the interviewee out in the face of her naive and troubling conviction that Singapore is the only decolonised state that “has a completely alien population control political and economic power, while the formerly decolonized indigenous people remain continuously marginalized”? Apart from the fact that Malays do vote in Singapore, and the Singapore government has always shared political power in a multiracial coalition, the notion of “alien population” is troubling. Are Singaporean Chinese still considered an alien population in Singapore today? When did they start to become one? And when, pray tell, will they stop? Do Native Americans still consider other Americans an “alien population”? For the record, the Chinese have been present on Southeast Asian territory since the tenth century, not just as merchants but also settling down and marrying local people.
If Adeline Koh chooses not to react because she is following her own advice to “shut up when a minority is talking about race”, then the question is: who is damaged in the end by this approach?"
Comments on The double captivity of ‘Chinese privilege’ – Masturah Alatas - The Malaysian Insider:
Masturah Alatas: "Does Alfian really think that mental captivity is simply about ‘borrowing imported concepts from the West’ and not about how
we borrow and use them? Does he really, seriously, believe that anybody who uses a ‘Western concept’ is a captive mind? How could S.H. Alatas have written the captive mind essay, let alone his books, if he himself believed in such an absurdity? Why would I have discussed Emerson and Du Bois together to make a point about creatively borrowing ideas and literary modernisms (see the New
Mandala site where my article originally appears)? Aren’t Du Bois and Emerson both writers who were located in that geographical, spatial entity we call the West? So doesn’t this show that captive mind theory isn’t only simply about borrowing “from” the West, but also about borrowing and exchange within the West?
Secondly, the phrase ‘borrowing imported concepts from the West’ appears nowhere in my article. So here, once again, we have confirmation of double captivity, of theory in action, as 801008’s sharp comment about framing discourses in one’s own notions of ‘white superiority’ also confirms. Alfian sees the West everywhere and brings it into the discussion even when there is no need to or, more importantly, it could have been done in a different manner.
Thirdly, it doesn’t matter if Alfian or others find the term ‘Chinese privilege’ useful to talk about meritocracy and other important matters. Good for them. The point is theoretical and political.
It is about claims to the radical work that the term can do.
What does all of this tell me? What I have known all along, so I have not discovered that boiling water turns into steam. Once again, I can confirm that even the members of the so-called Singaporean literati are not reading S.H. Alatas closely and carefully, otherwise perhaps they may have found interesting, not embarrassing, ways to critique his work. And why should they? Why should they see utility in his work? But my question is, why would anyone want to publicly admit this?
Clive Kessler sees bebalism as “the commonsense self-congratulatory pragmatism of the mediocre in their moments and from their improbable positions of power.” He sees bebalism as a form of careless mindlessness, about doing without envisioning how your actions reflect back on you. It is about thinking big and building big and then “Eh, apa ni?...” It is about building a ten star hotel with luxury bathrooms and finding the toilet paper holder in the shower.
It is fine if Alfian Sa’at considers bebalism to be less productive as a concept than Chinese privilege. Is there a contest between the two? But what is embarrassing is that we have an attempt on Alfian Sa’at’s part to diminish Syed Hussein Alatas’ contribution to knowledge. By the way, Alatas said that bebalism is transcultural, transpatial, and transtemporal. So the concept is so trans it has to do with more than just ‘native’ production of knowledge as Alfian asserts. I wonder why Alfian takes a dig at Alatas, what value he sees in this. Is he just being mindless?
In closing, one final reflection. Liew Meng speaks about working honestly to earn a livelihood. S.H.Alatas would have liked that because it is a simple statement against a very big and pervasive
problem: corrupt practices to get ahead.
The same kind of honesty, in theory, should also apply to intellectual work."
801008: "In any society, the majority race will almost inevitably exercise some form of social and cultural hegemony. Not necessarily economic dominance (minorities can control economic activity) but in Singapore, that too.
It cannot be denied that Singaporean culture is much more sino-centric. Mandarin, Hokkien, these are the de facto lingua franca in Singapore. Whether or not this translates to notions of "Chinese privilege" or, Chinese superiority/entitlement is arguable. I think at the very least, there will be some (and perhaps more than some) who hold on to ideas of Chinese privilege in Singapore. Can they be faulted? Are these notions "unnatural" in the context of Singapore's racial and cultural demographic and also its history?
This author does bring up an interesting point though. Would Rachel Yeoh have felt the same self-conscious notions of physical inferiority if she was in an African country? Or even, say, an Indian country? Would she have felt "not as good" as the majority? I am not so sure.
I suppose the question is this: When we complain about Chinese privilege (or any other non-white privilege), do we frame those complaints in the context of our own notions of white superiority? In simple terms: Do we feel that the Chinese in Singapore consider themselves to be "superior" because we self-consciously (and perhaps sub-consciously) consider white people to be superior and therefore simply mirror or superimpose those notions onto a Singaporean context? How much of Sangeetha and Adeline's views on Chinese "privilege" are informed by their own notions of white people?"
Chinese privilege 102
by Red Pill Dude
For anyone interested in finding out more about the Sangeetha Thanapal aka batshit crazy envious Indian woman who considers herself an expert on concept of ”privilege” and how it applies to the different races in Singapore, here’s a treat for you! Someone actually interviewed her to actually seek her opinion on Chinese privilege, gender and intersectionality in Singapore. It’s funny because the chick interviewing Sangeetha is equally mental (she is the author of this delightful article: To My Dear Fellow Singaporean Chinese: Shut Up When a Minority is Talking about Race)
Instead of wadding through the whole sorry interview, I’ll lessen both your and my pain by just extracting the best bits for me to mock and ridicule.
In recent years, the number of interracial marriages in Singapore have risen. This is to be expected–after all, we are a multiracial country with a multitude of races and cultures. In 2012, one in five marriages was interethnic.
Oh really? That’s good to hear. Men should be free to women of their choosing and vice versa. Let’s mix and melt it up baby.
*image*
Singapore prides itself on being a postracial society (Ed: wtf is a post racial society?!), and within the Indian community, there has been indeed been a strong increase of Indian men dating and marrying Chinese women. And yet, the reverse is rarely true–Chinese men do not usually date or marry Indian women.
Hmm…Indian men hooking up with Chinese chicks…but why???
*picture*
Hmm…Chinese men rarely hooking up with Indian chicks…but why???
*picture*
:) . I keed I keed. That’s just plain ole cherry picking ain’t it. There is a reason why Chinese men rarely date Indian women and why Indian men are increasingly dating and marrying Chinese women. Personally, as an Indian guy, I find that Indian women are generally unattractive both in physical appearance and character. They tend to be overweight and have really unpleasant personalities on top of being incredibly drama prone. Did I mention they tend to have pretty severe inferiority complexes? If I had a penny for every time one of my Indian female friends bitched about Chinese girls…either calling out their lack of booty or flat chests. I always make it a point to remind them that being fat and thereby having a large ass and boobs does not make you sexually attractive. Otherwise BBW would be all the rage in the porn industry.
*picture*
Of course there are some that I find highly attractive but they are few and far between.
*picture*
It is also important to realize that the Indian men who marry Chinese women are by and large extremely well-educated members of the higher Indian-Singaporean socioeconomic classes. Chinese women are not marrying blue-collar Indian men, but rather those considered most eligible.
You have any evidence for this? I highly doubt so. You are probably talking out of your large bountiful ass.
Indian men who date Chinese women are desperate to assimilate. They instinctively realize the privilege of being Chinese, and unable to access it any other way, aspire to marry a Chinese woman. They do not have to experience racism as much when their wives’ Chinese privilege protects them, and it gives them access to opportunities that are usually reserved for Chinese people. They are effectively deracializing themselves.(Ed: Wtf does this mean)
*picture*
Hahahahaaaaa. In this statement, you see the mental gymnastics that is taking place in Sangeetha’s mind. In the convoluted labyrinthine that is her mind, Indian men’s increasing preference for Chinese women has EVERYTHING to do with grabbing some of that valuable Chinese privilege for themselves and NOTHING to do with Indian men finding Chinese women’s slim, fair taugeh bodies and/or personality attractive. Also, by boning Chinese woman, I experience less racism and more opportunities as an Indian guy?! Who wouldn’t want to marry Chinese woman lol
Heterosexual patriarchy is also at work here.
I was expecting for the ‘P’ word to pop up sooner or later…
Women are expected to marry up wherever possible.
Women want to marry up whenever possible. So do their parents. Marrying up, in terms of status/money, would allow the woman to live a more comfortable life and provide for her kids better than she could have if she married otherwise (down or across). It’s called hypergamy and explains why women love love love high status men.
*picture*
Indian women occupy the lowest rung of the Singaporean race hierarchy, and Chinese men occupy the highest. For a Chinese man to date and marry an Indian woman means to marry far beneath his status. Chinese women of a middling socio-economic class can move up a class by marrying the wealthiest indian men in the country. These Indian men, lacking racial privilege, which is itself a ‘property right’, can also move up the racial class through gaining access to their wives’ racial privilege. Chinese men gain nothing and lose everything by marrying an Indian girl, while Indian men gain access to racial privilege and Chinese women to class privilege by marrying rich Indian men.
Hold yer horses. Firstly, you say that both Chinese woman and Indian men gain from marrying each other. Chinese woman gain class privilege aka money while Indian men gain racial privilege. You have any proof of this? That the Chinese woman are only marrying wealthy Indian men? I doubt so. From what I’ve seen, both sides are roughly at the same social status.
Secondly, you say that Chinese men gain nothing and lose everything by marrying an Indian girl eh. What about a scenario where a poor Chinese dude marries a wealthy Indian woman. Doesn’t that move them up a class privilege ladder? Why then don’t we see more Chinese men marrying Indian women?
But what about Indian women? Singapore does not break down interracial marriages by gender, which obfuscates this racist situation, but the number of people needing to marry into Chineseness shows how powerless the minority communities really are.
Really? See what you can find when you look past your (racist) prejudices and bother do actually do some research. Below is a graph of the inter-ethnic marriages in 2013 in Singapore that I managed to find within 5 minutes.
*chart*
I do not even see Indian men and Chinese woman being registered in this list (Civil Marriages) at all. And why? That’s because they do not constitute any sizable percentage at all…These are statistics from 2013 but it should be fairly the same as the current situation now. So what does this all come to?
Indian women like me do not usually have access to the same opportunities Indian men have. Again, we observe the complex intertwinement of sexual, class, and race discrimination here, and the internal paradoxes and contradictions to official postracial, egalitarian Singaporean rhetoric are obvious.
What is obvious for all to see is that we have a professional victim moaning and whining about how disadvantaged she is due to her race. She goes on a long rant bitching about something she calls Chinese privilege and concludes that she is at the lowest in her imaginary privilege totem pole. So in conclusion,
*meme*
So you're a professional victim that preys on people, who will feel bad for you.
Tell me again why I'm actually supposed to give a fuck?
*meme*
Related: The double captivity of ‘Chinese privilege’
Good comment by Masturah Alatas:
"Others have responded critically to the line that Thanapal and Koh have been pushing regarding their work on Chinese privilege. Among the criticisms I have come across are: too many generalizations and sweeping statements, conflation of concepts, a ranting, hostile, emotional tone; denigration of Indian men and Chinese women re their choice of marriage partner, the choice of frivolous examples like beauty contests to talk about a serious issue like gender discrimination, use of terms without really understanding them etc.
Any term built on an already problematic and flawed concept like White privilege is bound to run into serious problems. Works such as Theodore Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish became White and Sander Gilman’s ‘Are Jews White?’ in his book The Jew’s Body show that there is no common or consistent understanding of whiteness as one thing to begin with. Nor is there a common sense of privilege.
It is also a language problem, what words do when they appear in speech. Of course privilege exists, some people may not be aware of its negative effects and it is useful to remind them. But the moment one drops a term like Chinese privilege into the discussion, the reaction is often ‘What does that mean?’, ‘What has ‘Chinese’ got to do with it? Many Malaysian Malays are like that too’, ‘Why not just use the term Chinese chauvinism?’, ‘Why only Singaporean Chinese…many Malaysian Chinese are the same way…’, ‘Why are academics always talking about China these days?’ and the discussion becomes very confusing, circuitous, inconclusive and unproductive.
There is good scholarship and good writing about Singapore, if you know how to recognise it. This is a challenge further complicated by the amount of material available online, on platforms that readers give credibility to.
One final thing. The interview carries the byline of its editor, Petra Dierkes-Thrun, which is unusual for an interview. We are not told how the interview, called a “conversation”, was conducted—whether face-to-face, recorded and transcribed, or via email. Lack of clarity is understandable and inevitable in spontaneous speech. But if responses were written, then edited, why is there still lack of clarity (and I am not refering to typos like “..think in terms of the language and social of the dominant group..”)? What are we to make of “…it places the blame for failure on those who did not work hard enough…” So they did not work hard enough, or they were perceived as not working hard enough? Here we have the return of the myth of the lazy native.
Moreover, why does the interviewer not ask for clarification or call the interviewee out in the face of her naive and troubling conviction that Singapore is the only decolonised state that “has a completely alien population control political and economic power, while the formerly decolonized indigenous people remain continuously marginalized”? Apart from the fact that Malays do vote in Singapore, and the Singapore government has always shared political power in a multiracial coalition, the notion of “alien population” is troubling. Are Singaporean Chinese still considered an alien population in Singapore today? When did they start to become one? And when, pray tell, will they stop? Do Native Americans still consider other Americans an “alien population”? For the record, the Chinese have been present on Southeast Asian territory since the tenth century, not just as merchants but also settling down and marrying local people.
If Adeline Koh chooses not to react because she is following her own advice to “shut up when a minority is talking about race”, then the question is: who is damaged in the end by this approach?"
Comments on The double captivity of ‘Chinese privilege’ – Masturah Alatas - The Malaysian Insider:
Masturah Alatas: "Does Alfian really think that mental captivity is simply about ‘borrowing imported concepts from the West’ and not about how
we borrow and use them? Does he really, seriously, believe that anybody who uses a ‘Western concept’ is a captive mind? How could S.H. Alatas have written the captive mind essay, let alone his books, if he himself believed in such an absurdity? Why would I have discussed Emerson and Du Bois together to make a point about creatively borrowing ideas and literary modernisms (see the New
Mandala site where my article originally appears)? Aren’t Du Bois and Emerson both writers who were located in that geographical, spatial entity we call the West? So doesn’t this show that captive mind theory isn’t only simply about borrowing “from” the West, but also about borrowing and exchange within the West?
Secondly, the phrase ‘borrowing imported concepts from the West’ appears nowhere in my article. So here, once again, we have confirmation of double captivity, of theory in action, as 801008’s sharp comment about framing discourses in one’s own notions of ‘white superiority’ also confirms. Alfian sees the West everywhere and brings it into the discussion even when there is no need to or, more importantly, it could have been done in a different manner.
Thirdly, it doesn’t matter if Alfian or others find the term ‘Chinese privilege’ useful to talk about meritocracy and other important matters. Good for them. The point is theoretical and political.
It is about claims to the radical work that the term can do.
What does all of this tell me? What I have known all along, so I have not discovered that boiling water turns into steam. Once again, I can confirm that even the members of the so-called Singaporean literati are not reading S.H. Alatas closely and carefully, otherwise perhaps they may have found interesting, not embarrassing, ways to critique his work. And why should they? Why should they see utility in his work? But my question is, why would anyone want to publicly admit this?
Clive Kessler sees bebalism as “the commonsense self-congratulatory pragmatism of the mediocre in their moments and from their improbable positions of power.” He sees bebalism as a form of careless mindlessness, about doing without envisioning how your actions reflect back on you. It is about thinking big and building big and then “Eh, apa ni?...” It is about building a ten star hotel with luxury bathrooms and finding the toilet paper holder in the shower.
It is fine if Alfian Sa’at considers bebalism to be less productive as a concept than Chinese privilege. Is there a contest between the two? But what is embarrassing is that we have an attempt on Alfian Sa’at’s part to diminish Syed Hussein Alatas’ contribution to knowledge. By the way, Alatas said that bebalism is transcultural, transpatial, and transtemporal. So the concept is so trans it has to do with more than just ‘native’ production of knowledge as Alfian asserts. I wonder why Alfian takes a dig at Alatas, what value he sees in this. Is he just being mindless?
In closing, one final reflection. Liew Meng speaks about working honestly to earn a livelihood. S.H.Alatas would have liked that because it is a simple statement against a very big and pervasive
problem: corrupt practices to get ahead.
The same kind of honesty, in theory, should also apply to intellectual work."
801008: "In any society, the majority race will almost inevitably exercise some form of social and cultural hegemony. Not necessarily economic dominance (minorities can control economic activity) but in Singapore, that too.
It cannot be denied that Singaporean culture is much more sino-centric. Mandarin, Hokkien, these are the de facto lingua franca in Singapore. Whether or not this translates to notions of "Chinese privilege" or, Chinese superiority/entitlement is arguable. I think at the very least, there will be some (and perhaps more than some) who hold on to ideas of Chinese privilege in Singapore. Can they be faulted? Are these notions "unnatural" in the context of Singapore's racial and cultural demographic and also its history?
This author does bring up an interesting point though. Would Rachel Yeoh have felt the same self-conscious notions of physical inferiority if she was in an African country? Or even, say, an Indian country? Would she have felt "not as good" as the majority? I am not so sure.
I suppose the question is this: When we complain about Chinese privilege (or any other non-white privilege), do we frame those complaints in the context of our own notions of white superiority? In simple terms: Do we feel that the Chinese in Singapore consider themselves to be "superior" because we self-consciously (and perhaps sub-consciously) consider white people to be superior and therefore simply mirror or superimpose those notions onto a Singaporean context? How much of Sangeetha and Adeline's views on Chinese "privilege" are informed by their own notions of white people?"
Post ID: 265113456682527140
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
