A Singaporean local Indian recently posted on Reddit and stated how racisim still existed in Singapore. He stated that racism started off when he was studying and also even after he entered the workforce. It was so bad that he even though of killing himself when the school did nothing even though students called him “dirty’ and “ah pu neh neh”.

Here is the full reddit post.

Hello my Singaporean friends.

To preface, I’m not trying to compare anything to OP’s experience being sexually assaulted. It just inspired me to share my story because of the overwhelming support I saw given there.

I’m a Singaporean Indian male. Parents and grandparents were both Singaporeans as well. Needless to say, as a Singaporean I should deserve to be treated as one and not unfairly right? As it says in our very pledge ” regardless of race, language or religion.”

I can’t help but disagree. Throughout my entire life ( I was born in the 90s) I’ve been treated differently or patronisingly because of my race. It honestly feels like a crutch. Back when I was a kid, mother tongue was more of the norm so most of my friends were always speaking in broken English. It sucked because I can’t speak Tamil and the Indian kids in my school bullied me badly and exiled me from their friendship. Needless to say the other races would call me “apu neh neh” or “dirty/smelly” and I literally got beat up bad on multiple occasions to which my mother would complain to the school and the principal gave 0 fks. It was that bad.

I’ve been denied so many job applications because “they prefer Chinese” and I do understand the bigger crowd is the Chinese demographic here but that is part of the disadvantage for me. It sucks so bad that despite how talented I am I never got to try things because of my race. In secondary school I had a teacher use me as a example for so many stereotypes that didn’t even apply to me. I had him straight up laugh in my face when I wanted to be a class representative (because I already struggled with believing I was worth anything so I wanted to prove to myself that I had what it takes). Not even a chance given. Immediately shut down. I cried and wanted to commit suicide on SO many occasions because of him.

I see other issues being taken so seriously in Singapore but then even til today there is RAMPANT racism. Seriously. I shit you not almost everywhere I go, no matter how nice the people are I’m bound to hear racist comments. I personally believe this stems from our parents generation. They push their beliefs onto their children and sometimes I can’t really blame the Chinese people for saying the shit they say because it’s so normalised. They don’t even know it’s wrong. It’s not like they’re bad people but they’re just simply ignorant when it comes to this. It sounds very accusatory I know, but it’s honestly an issue.

I remember there was a post about a foreign exchange student who did the “chinese eyes” and everyone was outraged saying Singapore absolutely does not welcome racists. In my heart I was honestly scoffing because a lot of these “woke” Gen Z people jump on the bandwagon to become a victim. Let’s not sugar coat it, these days in spite of a lot of people suffering from mental health/assault etc. There is a HUGE fetishisation of being a victim. People just want in the sympathy for things they don’t really suffer from or doesn’t really affect them. Not saying it’s right what the lady did, but how does that actually affect any of these people in Singapore. Majority of them here are still Chinese. Let’s just put it into perspective for a bit:

Chinese people being racist towards Malays

Malays being racist towards Chinese.

at the end of the day, you have to understand Chinese people in Singapore are the majority. It’s shitty to be racist on both ends but the one’s actually taking the damage are the minorities.

In a class full of chinese and malay kids I was the only Indian in most cases. Same when I worked part time jobs, I’m always the only Indian. People being racist affects me the most because I bear the full load of it from multiple people who unforunately share the same mindset whether they’re good people or not. A lot of it is deep rooted in ignorance and taught by ignorant older generation parents.

Another shitty thing that these people do, they decide for you what’s racist or isnt’. I remember getting upset as a teen at my friends because one of them said “apu neh neh” and I confronted him. Every one of his friends immediately got defensive/aggressive about it and said “aiyah it’s not even a bad word, is you dont know”. Like what the fk? If I, an Indian, feel offended by a derogatory word directed towards people of my race, you have the audacity to tell me that I shouldn’t be offended by it? This shit has happened on THOUSANDS of occasion I can’t even keep count. How many times I got annoyed/upset by racist remarks and I had someone tell me I’m overreacting.

Controversial opinion: (Maybe I’m looking too much into this one)

Last year I told a malay friend of mine, if you look at “Singapore ads” as a foreigner, you’d think this was China. When I went to the cinema on multiple occasions there were 0 mainstream ads (at least from what I saw) that showed “Singapore” as a country with all the races. It’s mostly chinese actors/actresses even if it was English speaking. But to my surprise, they had an ad about drugs and theft and it just so happened the thief was malay and the drug-addict was Indian. Like I said I might be reading too much into it but it feels like shit when you’re already going through so much and so insecure and you see these things. They fk with your mind.

Everywhere I go it’s so normal for me to hear at some point jokes like.

“Eh that Indian guy your father ah?”*turns off the lights* “Eh OP where you go sia can only see your teeth?”

etc etc. It’s not just “a few people” or “the people I hang out with”. Recently after enlisting in NS I witnessed the same thing going down. How brazen some of these people are with their racism.

Don’t even get me started with dating. I’ve had multiple girlfriends, all races. It doesn’t matter to me. But whenever I was with a chinese girl I’d get the DIRTIEST stares I’ve ever seen in my life from other chinese guys or older generation uncles/aunties.

The worst one so far:At one point I had an aunty come up to my then-girlfriend and said in mandarin (yes i do speak a bit of mandarin):

Are you okay?

Are you sure you want to be with this guy?

You know if your baby come out “hei hei” not beautiful.

This bitch kept going and going. And my girlfriend didn’t even say anything back to her I was just walking with my jaw on the floor and I absolutely couldn’t believe this was happening to me.

This fking happened this year lol. In 2021. This is the reality sadly. I had a Korean girlfriend at one point, and one of my chinese male friends (Nice guy, just simply fking ignorant) said to me after seeing her picture:

“Huh? When you met, she knows you’re Indian anot?” like it was some sort of disease lmao. What the fk? How would I have been with her without her knowing my race. The concept of this relationship was so unreal to this guy. This is a perfect example of the ignorance most people have. They’re not bad people they’re just so ignorant.

I also had multiple people speak down to me as if I can’t speak English. It was extremely condescending.

I had an autistic friend in school and whenever he heard Indian people speaking he’d just start laughing uncontrollably and not when other races spoke. How is it that an autistic person is wired to react this way? Basically our society’s perspective on Indians here.

I worked on an occasion with an entirely chinese staff. And they had a secret dinner entirely without me. I found out by accident when I was looking for someone at work and I opened the door to their dinner and they all just looked so dumbstruck when they saw me.

From the constant bullying, denial of basic things and harassment. I just can’t believe nothing’s being done about this in 2021.

Something Indians do because of this that I can’t stand:

Indian guys who develop a “Chinese singlish accent”.

Singlish is Singlish. Chinese people sound chinese , Malays sound malay, Indians sound Indian when they speak it. You can tell easily right? There’s a group of Indian guys out there who are so affected by this racism that they try to disassociate from being Indian. I guarantee you have that one Indian friend. I saw this Indian guy wearing a hypebeast looking outfit with the korean glasses and centre parting hair and his accent sounded so forced chinese I almost died from second hand embarassment. But this is the state of how things are based on how normalised racism is here. A lot of the Indians just accept it. They can’t do anything about it either way right?

PS: There might be some hint of anger/hatred or insinuated accusations but I assure you I don’t bear any hatred for my Chinese friends. In fact the ones I hang out with are actually amongst the kindest most sweet people I have ever met. It’s just the reality of the struggle I face as an Indian in my own home. I deserve to feel like I’m entitled to the same thing every other Singaporean because I’m not just a colour. I’m a human being. I am absolutely not justifying the racism that chinese people face from Indians and Malays either.

I just made this post to show you that from my days as a kid up til today I’m still heavily affected by racism and it’s not just a few bad apples. It’s a deep rooted in a lot of people and we really need to teach our kids in the future so they know better. I really hope this gets some traction so I can hear perspectives from others because I was hesitating posting this for the longest time out of fear but I have to get this off my chest.

We previously wrote about a racist attack on a woman who was out for a brisk walk, and a number of politicians have since spoke about and slammed the attack, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

The attack on the Singaporean woman, Hindocha Nita Vishnubhai, a 55-year-old private tutor, was unprovoked, with the woman even saying to the perpetrator “God bless you” before getting kicked in the chest.

PM Lee said in a Facebook post:

“I am very disappointed and seriously concerned that this racist attack could happen in Singapore.”

“I understand people being under stress because of COVID-19, and anxious about their jobs and families. “

“But that does not justify racist attitudes and actions, much less physically abusing and assaulting someone because she belongs to a particular race, in this case Indian. “

“The victim happens to be a Singaporean, but even had she not been one the attack would still have been wrong and shameful. “

“It goes against everything that our multiracial society stands for, and the mutual respect and racial harmony that we hold so dear. “

“It harms our international reputation more than we realise.”

“I am confident that the police will establish the facts and bring the perpetrator to justice. There is no place for such behaviour here. We must stand united against racism. – LHL”

Image source: @parrvyy and @wakeupsingapore on Instagram and Lee Hsien Loong Facebook