Racism is not accepted in Singapore. I’m not saying that it doesn’t exist, but for the most part, it is tolerated and frown upon if it gets out of control.
That’s why I’m not sure if I should laugh, get angry or pity this young girl for the situation that she put herself into in the first place.
On December 4, Instagram user @beforeik.o posted up a picture of herself wearing a cheongsam while pulling her eyes back to make herself look more Chinese. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, her post had captions of words saying “ching chong”.
Expectedly, the post blew up with users confronting her blatant racism. Instead of accepting it, she went on to fight back the wave by claiming that she was not racist.
And that she was smart enough to know the difference because she has a master degree and a diploma from Havard about ethnicity at work. Okay, this is the part, that cracked me up. A Havard diploma holder who clearly can’t tell racism? She didn’t just destroy her image, but Havard’s as well!
Knowledge and open-mindedness don’t naturally make you a good person. It’s a constant work of progress that never ends.
This incident is a classic case of, if you can’t tell who the racist is, then it’s probably you.