Critical Spectator - Posts | Facebook
"With the recent resurgence of the topic of race and racism in Singapore, I thought it's time to look at the most reliable source of information on this highly emotional subject - data...
The problem Singapore does have is not racism but perception of racism, often amplified (like most modern day crises) by media coverage of isolated incidents that are merely exceptions to the rule.
With 24/7 news on TV and internet, media provide focus on sensationalist stories while millions of positive interactions don’t get a minute in the spotlight. This creates a completely misleading picture of reality in people’s minds...
The latest available survey on Race Relations was conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in 2016 (side note: unbeknownst to most, it is also the source of the widely regarded as controversial, opinion of Heng Swee Keat that "older generation of Singaporeans not ready for non-Chinese PM" - which has been misleadingly circulated without context in the past 2 years, to portray the former PM-in-waiting and his party as racist, when he was really just citing survey results).
To understand the difference between racism and perceptions of it we have to evaluate it from two different angles:
1️⃣ First is the perception of actual mistreatment - i.e. whether you were treated unfairly, others have treated you with superiority or perhaps you were a target of insults, threats or other harassment.
2️⃣ Second is the perception of the causes of this mistreatment - WHY do people think these negative experiences happened...
Let's first take a look at examples of negative treatments reported in the survey. Respondents - Singapore residents (citizens and PRs) - were asked to provide information about such incidents occurring in the preceding TWO YEARS, answering the following questions (I removed percentages for Other for clarity, as their portion in the society is quite small):
ℹ Please view the attached images with charts:
1️⃣ Being mistreated at a store or restaurant.
As you can see 42% of Chinese and Malay Singaporeans, and about 46% of Indian residents have received inferior service at least once in the last two years. The difference seems rather marginal.
2️⃣ When you felt people have seen you as inferior or themselves as smarter than you.
For these two questions, 36 to 46% of Chinese experienced condescending behavior, compared to 50-56% for Malays and 48-54% of Indians - though more people among the minorities signalled individual rather than repeat incidents compared to the Chinese.
The differences are visibly larger but it’s hard to call them a major gulf between the majority and the rest of the residents.
3️⃣ Insults and/or threatening behavior.
Finally, insults and threats are similarly rare for all. Slightly more Malays and Indians reported being insulted but the difference is within single digits (25% Chinese vs. 30% Malays vs. 33% Indians).
🔴 As we can see, then, on the whole, the differences in reported mistreatment are fairly low, with surprisingly high incidence signalled by the Chinese majority (despite the divisive narrative of their alleged oppression of the minorities peddled by some).
There's a moderate difference in interactions involving condescension, with Malays and Indians more affected but not by a lot (10 to 14% more).
Alleged discrimination in Singapore is often blamed on the Chinese majority but the survey suggests that, in reality, everybody is receiving a more-less equal share of negative experiences...
Let’s now take a look at the perceived reasons for this mistreatment.
After all race doesn't have to be the only factor. Perhaps someone didn't like you, even if you represented the same race. It's hard to say why anybody acted negatively towards you, unless it was explicitly said (which it most often is not).
Here is where we start to see real differences - the perception gap:
🔴 Out of those reporting negative treatment, 35% of Chinese but 67% of the minorities believed race was the factor driving the behavior.
This proportion holds true across the entire population as well, with 17% of the Chinese vs. 33% of Malays and 36% of Indians reporting having felt racially discriminated at least once in their lives.
In other words, while all ethnic groups in the country are receiving comparable levels of negative treatment (with slightly more among minorities being victims of condescension), minorities are TWICE as likely to blame their bad experiences on racism...
17% of Chinese reported being racially discriminated in their lives - that is around 510,000 people. Around 35% of the minorities reported being racially discriminated - so, around 350,000 people.
For simplicity (since we have no specific data) let's assume that no racist incidents happened between minorities (i.e. Malay against Indian or Indian against Malay) - but that the Chinese majority is entirely responsible for all of them.
Even in such an extreme case, Chinese would have discriminated minorities at a rate of around 1 per 8.5 people, while minorities discriminate the Chinese at a rate of 1 per 2 - more than four times higher.
If we were able to accurately account for all incidents between Indians and Malays, that ratio could grow even further...
if we are to believe all victims, it's the Chinese majority that is the target of far more discrimination...
some people in Singapore seem to believe that, on this basis, it is impossible to be racist against the Chinese...
the entire discourse is framed as if racism is a problem that minorities face at the hands of the majority rather than what it really is - individual incidents between people of various ethnicities, that occurs in different directions, not only with the Chinese as offenders and minorities as victims...
Let’s take the recent story of a Hari Raya cut out put up by the People’s Association in Tiong Bahru, which used a wedding photo of a Malay couple, without their permission.
It was clearly an embarrassing mistake both for the PA and the vendor who wanted to cut corners and just downloaded private photos from the internet, thinking that cutting out people’s faces would be enough to get away with not paying for the image. It may also be inappropriate for the occasion, as the offended lady pointed out.
🔴 But at no point was it - as she has also claimed - driven by racism or racial discrimination or caricature of the Malays.
It’s silly to even suggest that but, sadly, many people have been conditioned to think that anytime something upsets them or they are a victim of somebody’s mistake, ill-will or crime, it must necessarily be due to their race, religion or skin color...
What really matters is whether all ethnic groups have equal freedom to make the most of their lives:
- Do they receive similar access to schooling, healthcare, transportation?
- Do they have the same access to housing, particularly to publicly-funded estates?
- Can they pursue their selected careers, enjoy equal rights in access to jobs and are able to ascend in their chosen profession?
- Are they equal before the law?
- If there are any differences in career outcomes are they a result of different personal choices or systemic factors?
If we look at income, for example, it turns out that the highest earning ethnic group are... Indians.
I don't have the latest figures but they surged past the Chinese by 2010 and by the most recent data from 2015, 12.5% of them live in households earning $20,000 or more - compared to 12.8% for Chinese and just 2.3% for Malays."
Liberals: if more Malays commit crimes or are obese, this is racist and misleading since this is really due to social class.
Also liberals: Malays having poorer outcomes is due to racism.
