When it was our turn to share our discrimination stories, I related mine to the class.
Having said that, I still do not hold any contempt for them. Conversely, I developed an aversion to my own race, particularly to those whose command of English isn't up to standard (as sadly as it sounds and I'm probably embarrassing myself here).Ever since young, I have always blended in better with the non-chinese, be it Malays or Indians. Maybe coming from an English-speaking family contributed heavily to my confidence in approaching the non-Chinese, since English was the common language. But even though my race is considered as the majority, I was a minority in my non-Chinese clique. I experienced discrimination in the smallest way such as excluded me in conversations when they talked among themselves in Malay, having to tolerate their mockery at my race, etc.
Is my attitude towards those cannot-speak-good-English Chinese considered as a form of discrimination?
2 comments:
Oh!!! I get that too! Since young, every new place I go to, kids won't play with me till they know my race. Since I've always been darker skinned, the first question I get is always. "Are you malay or chinese?" Does it matter? I always wonder. The worst was a cabby asking my mother if I was her maid.
When I hung out with the foreign students in my school, my teacher said I discriminated Singaporeans. Did I? Or was he discriminating foreign students?
Wait, I digressed. Ah, just like you, I disliked some people. But in a different way. They were those who made racist remarks or discriminated foreign students. Heh. Maybe all of us discriminate others at some point of time? Even though it might not seem that way.
I guess i would have to agree with you,we all experience some for of discrimination through our lives. I found that i had experienced this the most when i was studying in school be it primary or secondary. I found that i was hard to be the minority and that most of the time people would do all they could to exclude me out of a conversations. However i attributed this later on to the type of people who you mixed around with because which i switched schools, this happened very rarely.
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