By Cheong Kah Shin and Faris Mokhtar

Racist incidents online go as fast as they come. After much lampooning and some public discussion, the dust settles and the incident is over in a week, forgotten in two.

Where in the past we could conveniently skirt around the issue of racism, the Internet now acts like a mirror to show up such racist sentiments in society. Comments such as those by Amy Cheong (who was sacked by NTUC after a Facebook rant against Malays) or Lai Shimun (the Nanyang Polytechnic student who was told off for tweeting racist remarks against Indians) are documented on a public platform, sounding alarm bells and forcing us to take a closer look at the problem.

Going back to news articles and Facebook posts, one would see that the government responded strongly to most cases of racist speech. So did some community leaders. But beyond responses from officials, we as individuals also have a significant role to play in fighting the ills of racist speech.

Here are three habits we could consider for doing precisely that:

Resist racism

Evolutionary psychology says that seeing the world in “us versus them’’ is only natural. Animals, after all, discriminate safe members of their group from dangerous outsiders for self-preservation. Human beings of the same race with cultural and emotional affinity for each other also tend to protect their own when in competition for scarce resources.

Sociologists argue that race-based public policies such as our official Chinese-Indian-Malay-Others categories also reinforce the tendency to view society through racial lenses. Thus both nature and nurture seem to sanction racial consciousness.

But we need to pause and resist such tendencies. While we cannot deny the existence of race, there is a distinction between being racial and racist.  It is the difference between aware and beware.  The former means recognising racial differences between people and the latter means being prejudiced against them.

In fact, both instincts and upbringing may make racialisation of the mind so ingrained that we do not see it. Amy Cheong’s assertion that her comments were “silly” rather than “racist” is one example. If making a spurious correlation between “cheap” Malay weddings and high divorce rates is not racism, then we fear knowing what is.

While Ms Cheong’s case might seem far out there, the rest of us are not immune to milder racial inclinations too.  American scientists in a paper published in 2002 found using implicit association tests— a method that bypasses our conscious controls— that whites who report weak to no racial preference subconsciously demonstrate inclinations toward their own group. In addition, several studies using brain scans show that people display different cognitive reactions to black and white faces. To resist racism, we must recognise our in-built biases, put the brakes on stereotypical thinking, so as to avoid going down the path of being racist.

Live multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is not only the avoidance of conflict but a celebration of diversity and the richness of each other’s cultures. For instance, instead of merely tolerating the noise and congestion which might arise from Thaipusam, we could appreciate and seek to understand the origins and the meaning behind the painful ritual of carrying the kadavi in a street procession. The same principle applies to other cultural events like a Chinese funeral procession or the Hungry Ghost Festival.

Yet, moving beyond passive tolerance to active integration is something we have yet to internalise. Passive tolerance means getting by without really knowing one another: sharing space, without making connections. Active integration, however, goes deeper. It means appreciating each other’s cultures and engaging in activities that form social and emotional bonds with other races – be it playing football or having a meal together.

Again, being multicultural is not to deny the existence of race, but to accept diversity and embrace our common humanity.

Malaysian director Yasmin Ahmad’s well-known series of anti-racism commercials also present that vision of multiculturalism well-lived. In one of them, an Indian girl (who speaks Malay) spontaneously demonstrates her karate moves when asked what she would do if a boy were to bully her Chinese friend. In another, a Chinese boy falls in love with a Malay girl. These commercials give us a glimpse of the common identity that is possible in a truly multiracial world.

Ultimately, we need to feel multiculturalism is an asset rather than a liability.

Speak up against racism

Besides community leaders, we as individuals should also speak up against racism. Verbal sanctions carry extra weight when they are part of a ground-up movement, emerging from ordinary citizens – the blogger or the Facebook user – rather than an institutionalised reaction.

Aside from online reactions, however, it is even more important to nip racism in the bud in daily offline interactions. Had more of us called racists out earlier – be they family, friends or colleagues, especially when they belong to our own race – perhaps there would be fewer Lai Shimuns or Amy Cheongs who would have reflected more before making bigoted remarks.

This, however, may be the hardest thing to do. It is easier to ignore racist comments or dismiss them as normal, rather than to call them out and risk discomfort between loved ones. But it is precisely the trust between loved ones that might make a racist pause and reflect: advice from a loved one could be seen as well-intentioned caution rather than as sharp rebuke from a stranger.

The Internet might be used to spread racist vitriol, but equally its connectedness allows people to come together to resist racism and reaffirm multiculturalism. Last year’s Cook-a-Pot-of-Curry day is a prime example of this. We look forward to more of such ground-up movements where Singaporeans fully utilise technology’s potential to demonstrate solidarity for the values they believe in.

But beyond ad-hoc Internet events, multicultural minds and multicultural habits are ultimately the best weapons against racism — be it online or offline. These three habits – resisting racism, living multiculturalism and speaking up against racism — are easier preached than practised, but racism is unlikely to vanish any time soon. Singapore must get into practice, now.

————————–

Headline picture by: Ammon Beckstrom, Creative Commons Licence