Pleasing the small racially-self absorbed mind

The following is an article by a bloke by the name of Chua Chin Leng, aka, redbean.  In it he deems, in typical confucian style of thoughtlessness, that it is those whom cry foul of racism whom are the real racists.  He, again in typical confucian style, doesn't supply any plausible reasoning as to why, but just takes the statement as proof.  Anyway, i've reposted a significant part of his silly statement and addressed it thereafter so as to warn the more reasonable and egalitarian minds out there of the dangers of confusing the identifier of a problem as the 'inciter of hatred'.  Hmmm....i really wonder which tree such people tumble out of sometimes.

“Pleasing the Small Racist Mind http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/2012/02/pleasing-small-racist-mind.html

We had our D&D last night and we all had great fun. The MC was great with his mimicry and acting to bring live and laughters to an otherwise staid occasion. He used the four major racial groups as the background of his games, the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians and the Others, which is synonymous with Eurasians or the English Language. One of his main acts was to play 4 different pop songs and let the participants lip sync their roles. He was great in his introduction of how to play the game and the staff was equally great to play on as guided. And he kept apologising just in case someone thought it was insensitive.

....Why is the UOB theme seen as being offensive and be pronounced as racism? It is all in the minds of the little racists. In many cases, the real racists are the attackers who rapped others as racists for the slightest remarks. Such people see everything in the racist line and are out watching for such violations and infringements.

Racism and respect of other race and religion are constantly on the headlines to remind people to be aware and sensitive to other people’s sensitivities. No decent or proper organisation would skirt near such tabooed stuff. Attacking them for being insensitive and racist is uncalled for and harbours a hidden agenda.

The society must be more careful of the real racists living in our midst and going around attacking other people as racists. And we are going to face more of such rubbish as we open our door to more foreigners. Europe is starting to face the problems of immigrants wanting their way of life, to live separately, to impose their lifestyle and demanding their own private space.

While we happily and naively go about bringing in the hordes from around the world, and thinking nothing but economic growth numbers, we are intentionally bringing along all the problems associated with the different people, culture, race and religion that they bring. The silliness in this policy must be raised before it hits us real hard in the future. I think it is already too late and the tension is brewing.

There is no place for racism here. And people hiding under the guise of attacking anyone or things which they perceived as racists must be taken to task before they grow in numbers and exploded into our face. There must be no appeasement to the racist living in our midst, the kind of people that see everything in terms of racism and trying to light the fire of hatred and intolerance and trouble. The media has an important role to tell them off instead of encouraging them to go on to paint others in all kinds of unpleasant colours. - source”

ed’s comments at the aforementioned site

comment 1

One can afford to be magnanimous and 'understanding' about such things especially if one has profitted from the institutional, social, and economic racism that is part of 'singaporean' culture.  When one is in the lead, one wouldn't mind laughing at oneself as much as opposed to one has been deprived of fair play.  Even after having the mick taken out of one's race, one still knows that they rule, or don't have to suffer the discrimination that others have to. 

In that, whilst we all sit and laugh at each other and ourselves, it is the relatively disadvantaged whom are thus further depressed.  Even if everything is equal on the stage, it is its absence in socio-political arena that makes it unequal on stage.  Go think....further.

comment 2

The 'tension', or at least, the consequences, have been brewing and spilling over ever since the country turned confucian and pro-chinese without the old 'hordes' and bloggers saying little about it. Now you're just facing the consequences of being self-absorbed. If you can't take 'foreign' cultures and peoples, that is because you have become adept in ignoring the difference around you for quite a bit of time.

As for the 'small racist minds' amongst us, it takes a small mind to not appreciate that we ought to go by evidence as opposed to assuming everyone who shouts 'racism!' is a racist. That is a self-serving and basically illogical approach.

_____end comment_____

Basically, this idiot, Chua Chin Leng, is implying that there isn’t any real or significant racism to be talked about, and hence, anyone alleging racism should be taken ‘to task’ and have ‘small racist minds’.  Very nice ‘logic’ that.  Hardly.  Says this bloke who also goes by the pseudonym, ‘redbean’ (*sigh* food again),

“Such people see everything in the racist line and are out watching for such violations and infringements.”

Whom are ‘such people’ supposed to be?  Since the only definition given to ‘such people’ are those who ‘see everything in the racist line and are out watching for such violations and infringements.”, it would refer to anyone who talks about the existence of racism.  One really has to believe that racism doesn’t exist, or is alright because it happens everywhere, or that it isn’t significant enough to be talked about, in order to deem anyone who talks about it as a racist.  That is ridiculous.  Looks like this particular ‘redbean’ has outlived its ‘eat by’ date.  Now it is the one who alleges racism who is the racist?  And why?  No reason is given for it. 

But, in typical confucian approach, his focus is solely on the quintessential confucian ideal of ‘harmony’ whatever the cost or basis - which makes him a great student of every confucian proselytiser from Confucius to Lee Kuan Yew - as is evident in,

“There must be no appeasement to the racist living in our midst, the kind of people that see everything in terms of racism and trying to light the fire of hatred and intolerance and trouble.”

It is the ‘fire of hatred and intolerance’ that leads to people seeing things in terms of racism. This silly git has placed the cart before the horse in his reasoning.  It is only the self-absorbed fool who profits from injudicious circumstance who views all critique of the status quo as an ‘attempt to light the fire of hatred and intolerance and trouble’.  I’m sure the white slavers in the historical past saw the black emancipation movement and the work of the suffragettes in a similar light.

But it’s alright.  This Chua is too obviously a xenophobic, sinocentric, and self-absorbed piece of shit as is evident in,

“Europe is starting to face the problems of immigrants wanting their way of life, to live separately, to impose their lifestyle and demanding their own private space.

While we happily and naively go about bringing in the hordes from around the world, and thinking nothing but economic growth numbers, we are intentionally bringing along all the problems associated with the different people, culture, race and religion that they bring.”

if you express your humanity in a wicked way, you’re going to fear the humanity of others as well.This idiot has obviously not realised that the above statement could just as easily apply to the local chinese and indians whom were the ‘hordes’ of yesteryear. And with regards to the chinese, these ‘hordes’ kicked out true multiculturalism out in favour of the chinese and confucianism.  The chinese, including my friends and family, in general didn’t actively do this, but they certainly kept quiet about it as they didn’t think they had anything to lose by it.  Hence, being culturally and racially self-absorbed, it is no surprise that he perceives ‘different people, culture, race and religion’ as ‘problems’.

Perhaps this Chua subconsciously fears that these new ‘hordes’ might be as troublesome as his ancestors with their triads, cultural self-absorption, racism, and might eventually do to the local chinese what the local chinese did to other locals in the past and present - though not all of them of course.

Hell, there might even be a quota system in place one day that stipulates that each block of flats can only have 20% of local chinese so as to fragment and render impotent their sense of themselves as a people.  Of course exceptions can be made when a mainland chinese marries a local chinese. Or we can have ‘Mandarin speakers with a China accent’ ad.  Or maybe the government in future might say, ‘we need to maintain a racial balance in favour of the mainland Chinese’.  As the ed's saying goes, if you express your humanity in a wicked way, you’re going to fear the humanity of others as well.  Perhaps that is why there are little 'Chinatowns' all over the world.  In that sense, i’d recommend that Chua ‘be Indian/multicultural’, and hence realise that his former confucian self is the foundation for much of his current concerns, gripes, and oversights.  Silly git.

I personally view the influx of the new foreigners with excitement as it might promise engagement with new perspectives, and peoples - so long as they don’t conform to ‘the confucian/chinese’ way of seeing and thinking about things.  Strangely enough, the bloke, Ong Ming Wee, (the one arrested and incarcerated for rape in Toa Payoh), at least once had the sense to tell me, whilst i was buying something over the counter at his shop, and in response to me asking him what he thought about the new foreigners, “I like all these foreigners coming in....new cultures...can learn a lot”.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.  Very likable and quite humble character.  Hence, when he was arrested for rape, i took it as a severe lapse in judgement and self-control and not that he was devoid of it. 

Anyway, the point here is not just to take on this Chua bloke - small racially self-absorbed gits like him aren’t worth the effort - but rather to address the tendency amongst anyone to desire harmony at the expense of equality.  To those whom profit from the inequitable status quo in singapore, or those whom are accustomed to it, whatever their ethnicity, to deem everyone who alleges ‘racism!’ as the one who is causing trouble, is nothing but an attempt to protect what they are used to.  They are either used to profiting from it, or have established their ways of coping with it, or have degenerated to the point that they can see no problem with it as their aspirations, personality, and character have been dumbed and numbed down enough to fit such circumstance well.

Chillingly, Chua's 'logic' of demonising those who take issue with racism was certainly used to coerce the silence of the nationally fragmented non-Chinese in the past so that the Chinese-supremacist policy could be pursued by the government with impunity - the chinese populace are not to be blamed for this, but in the spirit of engendering mutual love amongst people of all races, it would behove them to do something about it.  Now, the likes of Chua are attempting to bring it back again so as to renew the people's vow of racial and cultural self-absorption by way of ignoring and even vilifying all critique purposed for bringing about true egalitarian multiculturalism.  If one was to think further about this than a redbean is capable of, one would realise that this logic was also used to justify a one-party state. 

if you think that it is alright to make fun of all races on stage because ‘all’ are being made fun off - though i personally think that the event Chua spoke about at his ‘Dinner and Dance’ is alright in itself - that depends on whether such equality is true offstage.Finally, if you think that it is alright to make fun of all races on stage because ‘all’ are being made fun off - though i personally think that the event Chua spoke about at his ‘Dinner and Dance’ is alright in itself - that depends on whether such equality is true offstage.  As i stated in my first comment at this Chua’s site, when things are unequal offstage, to laugh at every race on stage basically serves to further put down those whom are disadvantaged off stage.  It is no wonder that people might take issue with the ‘blackface UOB’ event - which i have written about, but which is yet to be published here.  It is not that this event is in itself racist, but when people have had enough in real life, they’re going to be less tolerant of such events.  So the reaction to the ‘blackface UOB’ event is basically an indicator of feelings outside.

But given singapore’s grossly racist and xenophobic status quo, it is certainly not an indicator of how watchful people are of racial transgressions, but also of how they might only be attentive to such obvious instances as opposed to those that are really significant - as has been highlighted from time to time on this site unlike any other singaporean site.  You could say that people who fuss over such issues and not the really significant ones are those who can't see the big for the small, or think that since everyone is used to the big problems, we might just fuss over the small or consequential ones - which is basically confucian/chinese pragmatism in a nutshell.

But, i suppose, if the likes of Chua are allowed to have their way, this site would have to shut down, or just talk about food, shopping, and whatever affects the interests of the majority and has knock-on effects on the minorities, in favour of pleasing the racially self-absorbed mind.  I suppose that would expedite an alliance or union with China in the future.  Perhaps that’s what he has in mind, given that the perspectival union has already been achieved.

ed