An Indian girl shared that she was racially harassed by an uncle on the bus, who pulled his mask down and wasn’t wearing it properly.
The uncle thought she was Malay and made discriminatory remarks about her not covering up (she’s actually Indian).
He also thought she was Malaysian and insulted her nationality (she’s actually Singaporean).
You can read her full post below:
“Hi, I experienced racial discrimination on the bus yesterday… this is the first time anything like this has happened to me before and I just want to spread awareness.
Please note : The last picture in this video is the picture that made the man angry. He was sitting across from me and he kept looking at me which I don’t know why but then he came to sit behind me and that was when he saw that I took the picture of the building.
His mask was pulled down and he begin to talk on the phone really loudly and apparently he was really pissed at the fact that I was taking pictures, which FYI it was just that one photo I took and I still remember the exact words he was saying (towards the end of the video you could actually hear him say “mind your own business lah…. don’t offend people why want to take photos of this kind of thing”)
I wish I had taken a video of what he said before I alighted but these were some of it:
“I don’t understand why must take photos it’s so stupid and on top of that it’s a f**king women you know”.
“All these Malaysians come to singapore think they so big but who TF do they think they are” (FYI I’ve been living in singapore my WHOLE life and so did generations and generations of my family).
“At the end of the day, they are all just slaves working under us”.
“Especially all this Malay girls ah don’t know how to cover up properly don’t know how to go around with respect” (FYI I’m actually Indian so I don’t know why he’s assuming things).
The part that really me mad was that not only was he being discriminatory but he was also being a sexist by saying “woman you know” “what’s worse is that it’s a woman” as if being a women means I can’t take photos?
Instead of telling me he goes on to talk really loud on the phone and I did want to say something in the heat of the moment but I knew it would just escalate things further and I did not want to give him the satisfaction that I knew he was talking about me.
Luckily, my stop was next so I bit my tongue and got of the bus but what was even more childish was that when the bus was leaving he straight up pointed the middle finger towards me.
All my years of living in Singapore I have never once felt like an outsider nor have I been racially discriminated this badly (other than of course a few name calling in primary school which I could take) but I’ve always had many Chinese and Malay friends who made me feel part of their family and I was so thankful to be part of this community.
After that incident yesterday, the rest of the 1hr journey back home in train was just filled with tears as I have never felt so alone or vulnerable in the place that I grew up in. As a 17 year old who just wanted to sit in a bus and just simply enjoy, I don’t know what made me a grown man’s target for him to think that he could just destroy someone like that.”
FULL VIDEO LOADING…
Image and video source: @adminsgfollowsall on IG