(1)

Velayutham published a paper outlining ‘everyday racism’ in Singapore, positing that

normalisation of social discrimination is rampant against minority races. With race being a
prominent political focal point, Singapore’s government has adopted a paternalistic approach
‘due to their potential for intragroup cohesiveness and for intergroup divisiveness and conflict’
(Lai, 2004) An overarching multi-racialism rhetoric fostered through national dialogue and
propaganda has reduced structural racism yet has stifled academic and socio-political discourse
on any remaining discrimination. The demarcation of race issues with “Out-of-Bound markers”
further labels such concerns as illegitimate and sensitive. Hence, the acts of discrimination have
evolved from overt acts to subtler forms that manifest in everyday social settings. Yet, the lack of
open debate and the apathy of the majority effectively silence those on the receiving end of racist
notions.

According to Philomena Essed(1991), racism is not only stemming from structure and ideology,
but is routinely reinforced in everyday interactions, embedded in mundane practices. In
Singapore, apart from existing institutional discrimination (discrimination of Malay-
Singaporeans in military roles, racial privileging in educational pathways such as SAP schools),
subtler discrimination is rampant as well. Through various anecdotal examples, Velayutham
expounds on the different types of ‘everyday racism’. The examples can be categorized into the
following: minorities receive abuse based on their phenotypical appearance, stereotypes of
minorities disparagingly discriminate against them, and there is a covert normalization of Chinese
privilege.

Firstly, physical characteristics remain a discriminator in Singaporean society. Name-calling is

commonplace where the body and color of the skin becomes a point of ridicule. Acts of discomfort
are also common in public transport where the proximity to Indians are met with subtle racist
acts (Velayutham, 2009). Such derogatory acts are damaging to self-confidence and normalizes
the “inferiority” of the minority. Secondly, cultural stereotyping perpetuates various racial
inequalities. Malays, as the indigenous race even since colonial times has earned them the
historical and cultural label of the lazy, unproductive native (Alatas, 1997). Coupled with the slow
progression of Malays’ economic indicators such as educational qualifications have invited a slew
of derogatory comments online about their ‘lazy nature’. In fact, a survey by Institute of Policy
Studies shows that 8 out of 10 Singaporeans hold preconceived notions about people from a
different race before interacting with them (Matthews, 2014). Lastly, these acts of racism have
contributed to the Chinese majority disproportionately receiving opportunities. A significant
instance is during employment, where additional restrictions exist towards minorities such as
ability to speak Chinese or the need to remove headscarves for Muslim women.

However, the most damaging aspect of these everyday racism is the trivialization of micro-
aggressions in the Singaporean ethos. The onus of overcoming such discriminatory practices is
placed on the minorities: Only 16.5% Chinese felt that they had to work harder or much harder
compared to Indians and Malays at 30.8% and 36%, respectively (Mathews, 2014). The
internalization of the inferiority felt by minorities is also exacerbated by the government’s heavy-
handed management of such acts which consequentially brushes off their severity and suppresses
sustained conversations about the possibility of racism in society. It masks a deeper racist
undertone of the populace, such that victims of racial abuse oftentimes just put up with it (Lee et
al. 2004) due to the constant trivializing of such issues.

(2)

An argument against labelling that is prominent in the newspaper article is that the CMIO
framework is a hurdle towards a discrimination-free, race-blind Singapore, as they box up and
draw lines between the different races. The CMIO framework is a relic of the colonial era, where
even in the 1824 census, races were drawn up into Chinese, Indian and Malay. The racial lines
persisted through the early nation-building years where the immigrant enclaves maintained a
strong sense of nationalism with their homeland. Even during independence, such racial lines led
to tense racial conflicts and riots. With a strong colonialist history and roots in racial strife, the
labelling of various ethnicities in Singapore is hotly contentious. Although the CMIO framework
has been adapted from its divisive antecedents to become an integral part of a multi-racial multi-
cultural policy, the author posits that it is a hindrance towards a true pluralist society and instead
further pigeonholes diverse identities and perpetuates existing racial stereotypes.

This hindrance towards a post-racial Singapore stems from two main reasons, the failure of racial
labelling to address the increasingly hybridized and evolving ethnic society as well as the public-
private dissonance towards racial labelling.

(3)
Even though racial labelling is ineffectual against stemming everyday racism, it must be stated
that the argument for or against labelling is a false dichotomy. As individuals, we cannot help but
feel a sense of belonging to both a racial group and to Singapore, and neither can we take either
out of an individual. However, racial labelling as a precedent for policy and national discourse is
a point of considering reducing everyday racism.

Firstly, racial labelling fails to address the evolving culture and the growing presence of
hybridization of races. The CMIO framework collapses various racial differences into strict
boundaries and simply defines each race despite the massive heterogeneity of each group.
Singapore is a ‘society of minorities’ where minorities exist within each category(Reddy G., 2016).
A prominent case study is one of the Eurasian labels which has been historically adopted by the
government. It has received recognition as a ‘pure’ label akin to Chinese, Malays, etc., while being
lumped unceremoniously in the Others category. Ironically, Eurasians are taxonomically assumed
as a monolith even though significant mixedness exists within the category. Eurasians are, a
diverse mix of an Asian and Caucasian descent. Hence, this dual positioning of purity and
mixedness is confounding especially as race is such an important discriminator in society. Unlike
other labels in the CMIO framework, Eurasians have no distinct defining culture to feel a sense of
attachment to, essentially alienating Eurasians from our social fabric. In the same vein, mixed-
race descendants suffer the same alienation from the miscategorisation and the lack of belonging
to any category of the race. Even the use of double-barreled hyphenation (displaying two races
instead of one) becomes convoluted as our society shifts towards hybrid mixes away from a co-
existence model that was commonplace historically. Hence, racial labelling outcasts those that do
not fit perfectly in their constraints and have been internalized as a norm by Singaporeans – in
order to belong to this country, one has to belong to one of these broad categories (Rocha & Yeoh,
2019). It oversimplifies and paints over the multiplicity within each category, leaving out complex
sub-ethnicities. Finally, racial labelling increases the accentuating effect, where the similarities
within one race is perceived to be greater than the actual similarity, whereas the differences
between different races are also conflated.

Thus, racial labelling oversimplifies ethnic cultures and alienates those with mixed heritage,
leaving them more vulnerable to racial segregation.
Secondly, racial labelling presents itself as a paternalistic intervention in racial politics by the
government instead of accurately portraying the current social fabric of Singapore. The incumbent
government’s interpretations of race have shaped many nation-building policies in Singapore,
such as the GRC system to allow minority representation in Singapore and the EIP to allot housing
percentages on racial lines to increase interracial interactions. However, these have been
described as ‘intrusive social engineering’ even by the Deputy Prime Minister (Tharman, 2015).
The public-private dissonance of such racial frameworks is apparent even in these successful
social engineering policies: despite the GRC system’s aim to ensure at least one minority candidate
in a GRC team, Singaporeans have shown that they are not inclined to vote along racial lines. 69%
of respondents of a 2016 survey expressed support for Deputy Prime Minister Tharman (Yong,
2016) despite claims by the incumbents that ‘Singaporeans are not ready for a non-Chinese PM”
(Wong P, 2019). There has also been claims that the GRC system is purely a political tool for the
current government to maintain a supermajority rule during elections ; perhaps such racialization
of politics is merely a political dispensary and not representative of the private individuals’ sense
of identity, and the CMIO framework could be analyzed in the same microscope.

The CMIO framework is increasingly becoming a more distant classification from the individual
Singaporean, being held as a mere administrative or statistical tool rather than a cornerstone of
culture. However, even as a statistical tool utilized in policy-making, racial labelling falls short.
For instance, the calibrated immigration policies have kept the ratios of CMIO stable, yet it can
be seen as a disproportionate tool to entrench the majority percentage of Chinese Singaporeans.
There is also cherry-picking in the usage of these racial statistics, whereby housing and
immigration strictly follows racial lines, while incarceration rates are not even published by the
government. A lack of transparency in such disadvantaged, taboo aspects of society dampen
national discourse and stonewalls any targeted policies to help those disproportionately
incarcerated. If there is such policy focus on preserving minority ratios in housing, shouldn’t there
be a focus on incarcerations as well?

The public-private dissonance of racial labelling shows that we as a society have outgrown these
social crutches have the government has constructed. Essentialization of race is not always seen
in the private sphere (Reddy G., 2016), and the self-identification of individuals is increasingly
different from state-mandated racial lines. While some individuals identify themselves as just
Singaporeans foregoing the racial categorizations, others identify themselves along more granular
racial lines than the CMIO framework, such as Ceylonese, Cantonese or Peranakan etc. The
inability for a rigid racial labelling regime to keep up with private sentiments shows the erosion
of relevance of the CMIO framework.

References:

Reddy, G. (2016). Race rules in Singapore. Singapore, 4, 70-91. doi:10.4324/9781315658599-10

Wong, P. (2019). Older generation of S'poreans not ready for non-Chinese PM: Heng Swee Keat
Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/older-generation-singaporeans-not-
ready-non-chinese-pm-heng-swee-keat. Retrieved from
https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/older-generation-singaporeans-not-ready-non-
chinese-pm-heng-swee-keat

Rocha, Z. L., & Yeoh, B. S. (2019). Managing the complexities of race: EURASIANS,
classification and mixed racial identities in Singapore. Journal of Ethnic and Migration
Studies, 47(4), 878-894. doi:10.1080/1369183x.2019.1654159