Disguising Narcissicm as Anti-Racism

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."