Why not Morrissey?

There's a certain buzz going around outside of our farm regarding former-Smiths musician, Morrissey's racist remark about Chinese people:

Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare? Absolutely horrific. You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies." (Sauce.)

Here at the barn, we are well aware that everyone farts up once in a while, and hold no illusion -- especially since child rapist Roman Polanski walked free, TWICE -- that even the cutest, most talented, smartest and even most cuddly sorts are saved from being fucked up. Little surprise, hence, that there's very little I care to say about who and what Morrissey is, and why his racism is any more or less egregious than if uttered by mere mortals.

On the other hand, there is much to be said about how fellow concerned life form can deal with famous assholes, much of it brought on by a Guardian commentary by Tom Clark, in which Clark calmly urges Morrissey's fans to "not feel obliged to disown the music we love" and that "nothing Morrissey says or does now would taint my enjoyment of the songs". Obviously the mileage varies between Clark and this male, unfeminist, gay Chinese pig, because I don't see why it's so impossible for offended fans to renounce their loyalty to any artist for the latter's assholicism.

In fact, I think any fan or music lover who gives a flying fuck about making the world a better place has every right to exercise some consumer discretion for an embargo. Here at the farm, we care to do something.

And just why fucking not?

My taking pleasure in one's art rings the latter's cash register, and in Morrissey's case it is precisely because his records are still selling that he feels his artistry will forever save him from truly being held accountable, or being remembered as a racist (apart from a good musician) long past his death. If his being popular from our listening to his music is empowering him to express his racism without contriteness, which is the case, then the obvious key to some humility may very well be in a boycott.

Then Morrissey's music wouldn't live forever. Maybe some day Someone will ask, "Hey, what happened to all the Morrissey songs that you liked?" And you can go, "I stopped listening to them because he turns out to be such a racist asshole that it pains me to even listen to him pluck his guitar." Then maybe when Someone listens to Morrissey on the speakers at your favourite bar, zie will share the racist factoid with hir friends, and they in turn can remind others that this brand of good music is spun from some moral bankruptcy--warning label reads "Enjoy at your own risk."

Personally, I don't have a problem with forgoing some good art for the sake of some humanity. I would rather the holocaust not have occurred and forgo "Schindler's List", than appreciate the impetus for art that Nazism provided. I would rather we didn't live in a kyriarchy and be writing about fluffy bunnies than exercising my writing chops here. Likewise, I would rather a musician not be a racist than have to exercise mental acrobatics over the fact that his racism is somehow an intrinsic part of some very complex, very profound whole, from which good music apparently stems, and which a simpleton like Bacon Bits here will never possess or understand.

Pftt.

Newsflash: greater people have lived without being assholes.

Why not Morrissey? Why not Polanski? Why couldn't Larkin? Why couldn't Churchill even?

The best art simply cannot justify the diminishing of human decency. And if you choose to ignore that, then don't mind if I stop listening to you too.

This does not help

In fact, it's downright oppressive:

A French parliamentary committee has recommended a partial ban on women wearing Islamic face veils.

The committee's near 200-page report has proposed a ban in hospitals, schools, government offices and on public transport.

It also recommends that anyone showing visible signs of "radical religious practice" should be refused residence cards and citizenship.

This is allegedly in the service of gender equality, but in reality it's simple xenophobia on the part of the French non-Muslim majority.

Don't get me wrong. The social dictate that women must cover their entire bodies and faces, lest a glimpse of their earlobes inflame uncontrollable male lust, is absurd, oppressive, and insulting to women and men both. But the same is true of the social dictate that women must wear make-up or high heels to be presentable, and nobody for a moment entertains the idea that banning their use in public would further gender equality.

If women are being coerced by family members to wear the veil, this ban is simply further limiting the ability of these women to enjoy any independent public existence. Worse, it could be an excuse for those same family members to place even more severe restrictions on their freedom of movement.

If women are choosing to wear the veil because they personally subscribe to the belief that their bodies must not be exposed, such a ban is tantamount to punishing women for observing her own conscientiously chosen form of religious dress. Absent clear danger to others (for example, if the clothing in question required knives to be carried), an individual's choice to observe their religious beliefs through their clothing is not a matter for state interference.

All kinds of people express all kinds of contempt for women. Some of them even get to write in national newspapers or be celebrated statesmen. If the veil is also often used to express contempt for women, the solution isn't to punish the very women on whom the main burden of that contempt falls.

This proposed ban doesn't promote gender equality. It really isn't about women's well-being at all. It's about using Muslim women as pawns to express hostility to Islam.

The fallacy of scoffing at first steps

Some days it seems that either the Straits Times has a schizophrenic editorial policy, or there are internal conflicts going on in the newsroom. Today's paper contained one opinion column defending the preservation of race categories in Singapore, and a news item reporting a study which noted a decline in discriminatory job advertisements.

A bit of background on race categories in Singapore. All Singapore citizens and permanent residents are assigned a race on their national identity card which falls into one of the discrete groups: Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian or Other. These categories are used to administer state policies such as racial quotas in public housing, ostensibly to "promote the mixing of households of different races and income groups in our estates" (source) but which some people reckon are to prevent the formation of racially-aligned voting blocs.

Recently it was announced that the government would allow parents who are themselves assigned different race categories to choose a double-barrelled race category for their children. However, Andy Ho seems to think that

Because there are no legal categories of race in Brazil, there are also no laws to combat racial discrimination which undeniably exists. By contrast, official practice in Singapore leads to bright-lines among the races. But the very same laws that inscribe these lines also make it possible to recognise and address racially discriminatory practices.

In this way, having legal categories of race may not be so pernicious after all.

Note that the new policy merely allows parents to append one additional race category in their children's statutory documents. It does not refine the existing category to include other choices, nor does it abolish the categories altogether. This first policy change in many years has generated quite a lot of discussion about race in Singapore, during which abolition of race categories has been mooted. But Andy Ho seems to think such talk is hopelessly naive, and that the fact that race as a social construct will always exist in our minds is a reason to not even bother with trying to make the first baby steps towards abolishing categories that are often inaccurate, divisive or irrelevant.

A few pages further into the paper, in the Home section, Rachel Chang reports that the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices (Tafep), has found that 'only 1 per cent specified race, age, gender or other preferred characteristics, without explaining why these were necessary for the job', down from 19.7% in 2006. Tafep attributes this to "heightened awareness among employers of the need to recruit on a fair, meritorious basis" and "newspapers which run the classified ads agree[ing] to vet them according to Tafep guidelines." Tafep co-chairman Halimah Yacob also noted that "most complaints over unfair treatment continue to be from [older workers]."

Perhaps this is what Andy Ho is referring to when he extols race categories that "make it possible to recognise and address racially discriminatory practices"? Unfortunately, Singapore has no workplace discrimination laws. Tafep only issues guidelines, not gazetted regulations. When Tafep is notified of unfair employment practices, it can only "approach the employer to assist them in their adoption of fair employment practices especially if it concerns discrimination based on age, race, gender, religion, family status or disability." (Source here, emboldening mine.) Even if recruitment ads are nominally non-specific about race, age, gender or other characteristics, discrimination still rears its head during the interview process, in the course of work, during salary reviews, and even in the decision to fire someone.

But I'm falling into the same trap as Andy Ho. The law is not perfect, but Tafep does important work in acknowledging that workplace discrimination exists, that we should be aware of it, and that both employers and employees should have help and resources to combat it.

The abolition of categories on paper does not automatically and magically lead to the abolition of discriminatory practices and behaviour. But it's a first step, and we should not scoff at that.

+++++

If you feel that you have experienced discrimination at work in Singapore, you can contact Tafep at 6838 0969 or e-mail query@fairemployment.sg. The Tafep website also has some resources published in English and Chinese.

Skin Lightening Creams Work - But They Also Cause Permanent Damage

Pam Spaulding from Pandagon has a piece up that delves deeply into the phenomenon of skin-lightening creams, the racial politics behind it and the quite terrible consequences for long-term users of such products. A quote:

This whole melanin thing is quite complicated, and cultures around the world are obsessed with it, as human beings follow natural inclinations to categorize and organize things, including people. The assignment of other humans into easy visual cubbyholes by those in dominant cultures makes it infinitely easier to give political and economic power to (or withhold from) whole classes of people. It all spirals down into a pitiful morass of bigotry and insane systems of repression that are also accepted and perpetuated within those populations deemed racially "inferior."

Her jumping off point is a New York Times article that is also well worth a read. We have discussed this here before in a piece by the Poultrygeist wherein a reader asks about the efficacy of such creams (qualifying zirself for my patented missing the point award, but that's a story for another day).

Avatarred

[WARNING: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS]

Yeah, okay, the CGI was amazing, and on the whole it was entertaining enough.

But now that we've got that out of the way...

Much of the film was distractingly silly, in a way that relates directly to its political failings. A great deal has been said, very masterfully (especially by Annalee Newitz), about the problematic colonial 'saviour' fantasy playing out in Avatar, so I went into the cinema with probing Magical beak at the ready.

(To dispose of this objection quickly: the film features human beings from a corporation backed by armed might who seek, out of a profit motive, to relocate a racially distinct indigenous population with cultural features strongly recalling stereotypical representations of native Americans, namely war paint, 'feathered' clothing, and bows and arrows. If anyone still wishes to argue the film-makers don't specifically invoke colonialism - an intertwined complex of racism, militarism and capitalism - please do so elsewhere.)

The weakest aspect of the story is that Jake Sully, who initially comes as part of the invading force, is apparently divinely ordained as The One who will lead the indigenous people, the Na'vi, to success in their struggle against humanity. Two issues with his portrayal really leap off the screen.

One is the astounding, untenable ignorance with which he approaches the Na'vi and their planet, Pandora. This just defies belief: he goes wandering into a completely alien forest, in a completely alien body, without the faintest clue about the completely alien perils he might face. He wanders off mid-mission to poke completely alien plants that - for all he knows - might eat or poison him; and when faced with gargantuan and dangerous animals he hasn't the foggiest how he ought to respond to them, so he shoots randomly. Despite the enormous expense they have incurred to transport him to Pandora and kit him out in this new blue body, none of his employers sees fit to ground him in even the most basic facts about the hostile environment in which they want him to operate, nor does he - apparently entirely lacking in curiosity - ask.

This is the guy your amazing life-force-embodying-tree-goddess, allegedly calling upon the cumulative wisdom of thousands of sentient beings of times past, chooses to lead the people? ...and specifically, this guy is chosen over the careful, respectful, interested scientist Grace Augustine, for inclusion in the Na'vi community?

Second, the inevitable counterpart to Jake Sully's ignorance is the collapse of the Na'vi into a cartoonish bunch of mystics. There's a lot to be said for the attractiveness of their culture, like the respect for life and biodiversity, but it all becomes undermined by the film-maker's Super Duper Top Priority, i.e. that Jake Sully must be the one to lead them to victory. Quite aside from the fact that at the time of his selection by the floating seeds he appears to be totally, wilfully clueless, there's also the manner in which his eventual leadership is established. Are the film-makers genuinely telling us that in a society where mastering the flying Toruk brings pre-eminence, no one for generations other than this n00b has successfully completed the relatively simple task of flying above it and dropping onto its back? Moreover, the story implies that the Na'vi are so utterly simple-minded that they'll immediately accept not just the help but the leadership of a traitor whose deception and betrayal have just destroyed their sacred home, just so long as he turns up on the back of this red dragon.

This ridiculousness, again, has its source in the imperative that this member of the colonising force must be the one who leads the oppressed people to victory. The film-makers are simply more interested in the colonisers than the colonised, and this ideological perspective warps an otherwise promising story. It's also for this reason that the audience never gets to meet Na'vi who aren't members of the royal family, or to witness any complex dynamics within Na'vi society (by contrast to tensions within the human camp). Heroism is not available to the oppressed group.

All of this makes the movie less believeable, less interesting and less meaningful than it could have been. In other words, it's not critics of Avatar's approach to colonialism and racism who are spoiling the story with their politics. The film-makers have been more than adequate at doing that themselves.

++++

I am indebted to conversation with Badly Drawn Pig, who astutely points out that this problem may inhere in the very concept of "The One" to begin with, especially when "The One has traditionally always been a dude ... here to save all us sissies".

Should've Had One

I'm always pretty uncomfortable looking at displays of indigenous artefacts in museums. Unless the collection was curated by the people in question who also have full rights to all the items (which, I don't think I've ever encountered and I am a museum junkie), I just feel like I'm gawking at the end result of a dispossessed diaspora. Not cool.

The display I was at the other week was no exception. To add insult to injury, the places of origin on the labels accompanying each item had names like "New Ireland" and "New Britain" - clearly not what the people who actually lived there called the land.

I mention this to my partner (who very early on in our relationship proudly showed me a picture of his fairly recent forebearers as colonists in India) and he deadpans,

"Well, it's their fault - they didn't have a flag."

And sure enough, I look around and that is exactly what is missing from the display of frankly every other object that could conceivably be found within a community of people.

Authentic Azian Senzation™

In both Poultrygeist's awesome post on early absorption of racism and a comment left at Complaining Cow's missive on the embracement of insensitivity by certain people, it is proposed that the majority class will only begin to understand the problem with "harmless" stereotyping when the tables are turned on them.

I think they're absolutely right.

I'm totally reminded of an Australia and New Zealand Bank (ANZ Bank) TV commercial that ran on the Australian free-to-air when I was there as part of a Animals Are Friends, Not Food world tour a year ago.

The entire campaign peddled ANZ's apparently superior credit card security tracking system that picked up suspicious spending trends. In this particular ad, the example was Fiona Tyler's credit card that was used simultaneously in both Melbourne and Singapore. It starts from inside the ANZ security oversight office, before cutting to a scene of "Singapore" where the credit card fraud perpetrator is attacked by ANZ's campaign mascot.

Their idea of Singapore? Shops with large chinese signboards, hanging red lanterns, food hawkers along pedestrian walkways and what looks like our preferred mode of transport, the trishaw. Complete with old-school, yellow tint to the film and cue Chinese New Year-esque, chirpy Chinese mandolin and drum soundtrack for maximum Authentic Azian Senzation™!


(Er... I don't think Singapore has looked like that since the 1970s.)

And I really don't think it does anything to inform people of the realities outside of Australia. Information that, I figure, might be useful for its people since I learnt some things while I was there:

- Some people have impressions that Singapore is in South China, populated by only yellow-skinned people. And yellow-skinned people are bad in English.

- Being bad in English receives similar warmth (typically yellow-skinned) Singaporeans accord (other typically yellow-skinned) migrants in Singapore: leave the country if "you speaky no ingrish".

I got pats on the head and cookies for "speaking such good but accented English" and possessing "a really wide vocabulary". ("Why, thank you! Your English isn't too bad too! Where'cha learn to speak like that?") I'm "not like the other Asians"--you know, the two or three other Asian data points with whom your interlocutor has had extensive conversations to speak so authoritatively on. (No worries that I, a badly drawn, male unfeminist barnyard animal can talk at all, yo!)

- Some have anxieties quite alike Singaporeans--a loud quarter wants migrants to just "go back to your own country!" (I will, mate, once you return to your own country, since most of you shouting can't rightfully claim to be native.)

- It's hard to absorb that there're other skin tones from Singapore. If you're a slight shade of brown, then you must be from Malaysia or Indonesia. Darker and you're from India, and if you're from India then you have a whole different subset of problems. Somewhere between and maybe your family are boat people, and that you probably were a delinquent mall rat at some point. All in all, everyone gets treated with suspicion at some retail or F&B outlets, if not by staff then maybe clientele.

- Being Asian also means that if, like me, you shop at Alternative Lifestyle™, then you're a docile, subservient boytoy who only wants it up his ass, and wishes to be either dominated by an apparently white(r) partner, or handed with extreme care like an exotic, delicate flower that bruises to touch. Oh yeah... You also worship MONSTER COCK. (By the way, I don't think Magical Chicken appreciates her boyfriend being referred to as "monster".) All of which points to a really troubling conception of femininity and gender roles pegged to your race.

- Certain strangers feel they can take liberties with you like publicly manhandle you (lift you up, pinch your cheeks, pat your head, even touch you on more inappropriate spots etc), comment on your Asian cuteness, and how much they like your food. It doesn't matter if you're Singaporean, because that's just part of Asia and it's all the same since they can't tell all you people apart. (Though, seriously, why do you need to tell us apart? So that you can be selectively racist?) If you insist that being Singaporean should mean something--because we on the island like to tell ourselves that we're better than our Asian counterparts--but all you receive is knowledge that the interlocutor has been to Singapore too, "and it has a really nice airport."

Stereotypes don't only trap you in a certain mould complete with often false expectations of what and who you are. They also trap people absorbing it with a certain image of how you should be treated. For every person who thinks these images innocuous, there're many others who can't or won't quite differentiate fact from fiction. And unless you're out there convincing everyone that your approved stereotype is actually not wholly safe for consumption, then I suggest you jolly well not encourage it at all. Because so far, I haven't found a stereotype that benefits anyone.

People we love: Lily Allen

She surely needs no introduction.

Look inside, look inside your tiny mind
And look a bit harder
Cause we’re so uninspired
So sick and tired
Of all the hatred you harbor

So you say it’s not okay to be gay
Well I think you’re just evil
You’re just some racist who can’t tie my laces
Your point of view is medieval

Fuck you, fuck you very very much
Cause we hate what you do
And we hate your whole crew
So please don’t stay in touch

Fuck you, fuck you very very much
Cause your words don’t translate
And it’s getting quite late
So please don’t stay in touch

Do you get, do you get a little kick out of being small-minded?
You want to be like your father
It’s approval you’re after
Well that’s not how you’ll find it

Do you, do you really enjoy living a life that’s so hateful
Cause there’s a hole where your soul should be
You’re losing control of it
And it’s really distasteful

When she was a young hatchling..

The past week, had this Spectral Turkey's giblets in a twist. Not only was it Thanksgiving when many of my fellow feathered family were mindlessly slaughtered for dinner, there were a slew of letters to the ST forum really bringing the crazy.

Ethnic stereotyping has been discussed here, thanks to my bovine barnmate, but this fowl feels she should weigh in, with perhaps a personal story on the consequences of what may be to people harmless stereotyping.

Many many years ago, this fowl was but a primary school-going hatchling. She loved going to school, and loved playing with all her fellow barn animals. She used to play hopscotch and five stones during recess, and after school she looked forward to playing with her little friendly neighbourhood barnyard creatures. The hatchling had a friend, a little foal and they soon became the best of friends.

One day she realised that the foal (let's call her Fiona) did not want to play with the hatchling anymore. The hatchling felt, and asked Fiona for the reason. "Hatchling," Fiona said. "Look at us - I'm a goldet tan colour, with hooves and a glossy tail. You? You have a dull brown plumage and two little claw-like feet. My family says that because of that, you can't achieve as much as me. And that I should find friends similar to me."

The hatchling did not understand what Fiona meant. She had never noticed the differences before. She started noticing that her classmates used to tease her for being "smelly", and ask her if it was true that her plumage was brown because she didn't shower. The hatchling's classmates would refuse to include her in games and projects. Soon, little hatchling meekly accepted that she was different, and sought out her fellow brown-plumaged hatchlings to play with. She was finally happy.

One day, the teacher told all the brown-plumaged hatchlings to report to the Principal's office. The hatchlings were petrified - what had they done??

The Principal eyed the hatchlings, and admonished them for segregating themselves from the rest of their classmates and refusing to mix with them. This was unacceptable, said the Principal, and directed that the hatchlings be arbitrarily assigned to groups in the class. The hatchlings found that her group-mates would frequently meet without her and would frequently fail to assign her duties, saying that they didn't think she'd know how to perform them adequately. They almost exclusively communicated in a language she did not understand, though it was a project for English.

The hatchling had never realised how different she was from the rest of her classmates and consciously tried over several years to fit in.

Many, many years later, she would realise that children learned prejudice from the world around them, including but not limited to their parents as well as the media. And it's true isn't it? If a child consistently hears its parents denigrating a member of a certain ethnic or religious group, it is likely the child will grow up harbouring that stereotype. Similarly, if the child grows up exposed to constant stereotyping in the media, then these stereotypes will continue to be harboured in the child's consciousness. Sensitivity in programming therefore has less to do with "political correctness" and more to do with engendering a substantive consciousness to eradicate such stereotyping. It is from "harmless" stereotypes that stems systemic racism.

Both parents and the media have a duty to not pass on this sort of mindless ignorance on to their children. But of course, the majority will never realise this, until they are an ethnic minority in perhaps another country. Believe this Turkey, she knows. And feels that perhaps, "family values" of this sort should be encouraged. You know, teach your kids to be colour-blind. Not tolerant in spite of differences.

Turn on, tune in, drop out of your seat: Denying the existence of systematic racism on national television?

This Cow does not watch much television, because she has a rather short attention span, and a lot of what she might see would make her a Constantly Choleric Cow instead of a merely gently Complaining one. So she missed the original television programme that caused one human to write the following letter on 14 November 2009 to local newspaper The Straits Times' Forum page:

How did ethnic stereotype go unflagged?

I WAS appalled when last Friday's prime-time drama series of MediaCorp's vernacular Channel 8, Daddy At Home, scripted in an ethnic stereotype.

Colleagues of the title character (played by Li Nanxing) joked that they should start calling him 'Aminah' as his character's job was reduced to a cleaner. The nonchalance with which the name of a Malay woman is used interchangeably with the role of a cleaner is insensitive and has encouraged in the popular imagination the equation of Malays to occupations of low income and menial labour.

How could such a glaring comment have passed the stages of checks, if any? Would the actors and crew on location not have realised this during filming as well?

I am a teacher, and such ethnic stereotyping worries me. Children who watch these shows are exposed to potentially racist sentiments which they could easily replicate in the classroom and in their interactions with children of different races.

Chow Pei Sze (Miss)

A week later, on 26 November 2009, what should this Cow see but the following response from another member of the public that made her spit out her half-chewed cud in incredulity and outrage:

MR ALARIC NG: 'Miss Chow Pei Sze ('How did ethnic stereotype go unflagged?' Nov 14) was outraged over a stereotypical reference on MediaCorp's popular Channel 8 series, Daddy At Home. She saw it as a racial slur. Certainly, stereotypes are wrong and should be discouraged. But why must every show be an educational lesson? Why can't we just appreciate a show's creativity and not disparage parts we find disagreeable? The show's characters could have been scripted to say what they did because the words reflected their personalities. What Miss Chow found outrageous, I found innocuous. Moreover, expressions, offensive or not, expose today's youth to how the real world behaves. Better to let them know than cloister them in politically correct ignorance.'

Let's try to work out what Mr Ng is actually trying to say in his pithy missive, shall we?

1) "But why must every show be an educational lesson?"
"Why must your inconvenient questioning of widely-perpetuated, tired, old racial stereotypes and pointing out of the underlying racism interfere with my mindless enjoyment of a TV show?"

2) "Why can't we just appreciate a show's creativity and not disparage parts we find disagreeable? The show's characters could have been scripted to say what they did because the words reflected their personalities."
"This is arts and entertainment! It's the writers' job to reflect the real, diverse personalities we encounter in our everyday lives. Of course, in my everyday life, I only encounter nosey Indian shopkeepers, incompetent Malay police officers, evil mother-in-laws, helpless disabled people, meek victimised wives.* In my real world, no one ever questions casual and systematic racism. In my real world, no one whose skin is brown could ever do jobs other than cleaning, and in my real world, cleaners should be looked down upon because they're so lazy and stupid, that must be the only reason why they ended up doing that job, plus they are dirty! (Of course they are, after a whole day of being on their feet cleaning up after the mess I leave at food centres.)"
* I know these stereotypical characters have been inflicted upon TV viewers over the years; but the Police & Thief and Little Nonya examples were the only ones where I actually remembered the name of the offending TV show. Please comment below this post if you know of the others; I am nothing if not an assiduous striver for complete references sources.

3) "The show's characters could have been scripted to say what they did because the words reflected their personalities." ... "Moreover, expressions, offensive or not, expose today's youth to how the real world behaves. Better to let them know than cloister them in politically correct ignorance."
"The writers can be content just to reflect our own racism and prejudices back at us, and neither question them, directly or indirectly, nor offer countervailing examples and influences. Because the youth never observe such racist behaviour in the Real World, TV must shove it in their faces, otherwise they will grow up thinking that everyone is accepted and respected for who they are, instead of being treated as inferior for some innate qualities that they were born with! And they might grow up thinking the former is how they should treat other people, and that would be bad because then I wouldn't be able to comfortably enjoy my mindless, offensive TV shows!"

4) "What Miss Chow found outrageous, I found innocuous."
"Because I am a Chinese person*, and the offensiveness of such remarks don't touch me personally! (And the privilege of being in the majority race has nothing to do with this! I am only an objective TV viewer!) I can't see why they should touch anyone else?? Or maybe, what I am saying is, I don't care if you are offended by racism???"
* "Ng" is a Chinese surname common in Singapore.

++++++++++++++

The question of what constitutes offensive remarks (whether meant in jest or otherwise), and whether they should be allowed in national media, is one that vexes other societies too. This is natural as the composition and values of societies change over time. However, an acknowledgement that there should be debate over the acceptability of certain forms of humour is not the same as a blanket dismissal that we should question the acceptability of offensive humour at all, which is what Mr Alaric Ng is advocating.

Some of those examples linked in the preceding paragraph were of jokes made at the expense of marginalised groups with direct reference to the very fact of their marginalisation; others were at the expense of certain individuals, which made them specifically offensive about those individuals, as well as pointing to underlying attitudes towards certain social groups that those individuals belonged to.

However, there are some notable points to be observed about the response to the complaints of offensiveness:

1) There was a formal mechanism provided by the media organisation by which complaints by members of the public against media content could be lodged, recorded and addressed by the organisation. MediaCorp Singapore does not provide such a formal mechanism (or if it does, it is a very well-kept secret that Google is unable to ferret out, and if Google can't find it, it doesn't exist on the internet rite???), which is why Ms Chow Pei Sze had to write in to the ST Forum to get her views heard.

2) There was a willingness to acknowledge that offense could be taken (i.e., that not all arts and entertainment content exists in a value-less vacuum where anything can be said or done as long as it entertains some people), and that the offended person did have a right to be offended, and to express that he/she was offended. Instead, we have people like Mr Ng writing in to ST Forum to tell us we shouldn't be offended, and that we should just shut up if we are.

3) The organisation responsible for producing the offensive content apologised. In Singapore, the usual way for private citizens to air protests against organisations (from the government to media to private companies) is by writing a letter to the ST Forum, and the usual way for organisations to respond, whether to defend themselves or apologise, is to reply via the ST Forum. (Strange, I know; we let a commercial newspaper with well-known pro-government biases be the mainstream medium for our civic discourse.) MediaCorp Singapore has not issued a formal response to Miss Chow's letter (neither in ST nor on its own website), let alone a formal apology for this and the many other instances of racist, sexist, classist and homophobic representation that abound in its programmes.

Stereotypes say less about the people who are purportedly portrayed by the fictional characters, and more about the producers of the media content and their cloistered interactions with and close-minded attitudes towards people. Such representation is offensive not only to the groups which are made fun of, but damage our society when they become a crutch which props up our impaired interactions with people who are different from us, and obscure our ability to relate with people on the terms of who they actually are, rather than social groups of which they have membership.

Besides, unquestioned stereotypes which are hackneyed and stale embody the complete opposite of creative humour. In this specific instance, MediaCorp Singapore should apologise for its racism, but that's only the first step to correcting the many, many howlers it has perpetuated. The next step is to hire better writers, and really push them to create humour which doesn't rely on slurs against already marginalised groups to draw laughs out of the audience.

This goat will give you her soul if you'll leave her name alone.

So I was somewhere work-related the other day, where several other goats congregate. After many hours, I left with a fellow goat, who asked me why I was in a bad mood.

Goat 1: "Goat 2, I had my name mispronounced five times. FIVE TIMES. Even AFTER I corrected them."
Goat 2: "Oh dear, Goat 1. One of those things."
Goat 1: "The next time someone mispronounces my name after I have corrected them or asks me for a short-form, I am going to cry. Or scream. I don't know."

I'll add a caveat here: there are a good number of people with really long names who will request that you call them by a different, shorter name for also a good number of reasons. Perhaps one was named for a grandfather and in certain cultures, using that name would be taboo. Maybe one's name is just really freaking long. That's obviously a personal choice and I am nothing if not a reasonable goat of very mild temperament.

My pet peeve is with people who find brown names in general unfamiliar and/or long, and would rather just call you by a contracted form of one's name because of that egregious, cringe-worthy stereotype: "OMG brown names very hard to pronounce and remember!". So they either ask you for a short form of your name (ugh), simply pronounce it wrongly because it's easier that way (double ugh) or worse still, offer creative iterations of their own (triple ugh).

I have a nice name. It's aspirational and it sounds very pretty. It's also three syllables long. I have many friends and colleagues who never heard the name before they met me and manage to pronounce it just fine. Still, I get a good number of people who either pronounce it wrongly or ask: "That's, uh, kind of long. Can I just shorten it to X?"

*facepalm*

About seven years ago, I started using the contraction of my full name to introduce myself. You know, to make it easier for people to remember my name. What's your name, they ask. And I will say, XYZbutyoucancallmeZ, it's easier to remember.

Eventually I stopped, mostly because: wait a minute, Z isn't my name at all. It's XYZ! Why, exactly, am I doing this again?

And so I realised:-

1) To offer a shorter name because someone might not want to take the effort to learn or pronounce it fully simply doesn't make sense: people with a modicum of respect for others will make the effort to learn.

2) The remaining ones should realise - and as often as possible, until they get the message - that living in a multiracial society (as we like to remind ourselves often) means you sometimes have to accommodate other ethnicities and not expect them to accommodate you (and your self-professed limitations) all the time.

3) A sense of proportion can be very illuminating at times like these: Advanced calculus? Hard. Climbing mountains? Very hard. Brown names? ARE NOT.

Splitting up a name helps. Asking the be-monikered how the name should be pronounced also helps. Shortening it on your own initiative does not help: at best, it is annoying; at worst, it could mean something vulgar.

++

Oh, and hello there! My name's Oh My Goat, and it's very nice to meet you. My services include occasionally dispensing pearls of what one hopes is wisdom, and eating your homework. All at a nominal price, of course.

(Credit to The Crucible for the title: I have appropriated John Proctor's words for my own admittedly lesser-anguished purposes.)

When you're too good not to be white(r).

This is a post on three instances when you're too good not to be whiter.


(Taken from Otago Daily Times.)
Story 1 - That's Jeff Ma on the left.

He was a very smart Asian-American kid, who at some point of his life at MIT decided that he could outsmart the the game of 21 by counting cards. So he and some other very smart Asian-American mates bandied together, headed down to Las Vegas to count their way to riches.

It was. A. Lot. Of. Money.

Enough of a-lot for someone to write a book about him, which led to Hollywood making a movie about the book, lead starring the very cute Jim Sturgess, who's on the right in the photo. Resemblance between Ma and Sturgess?

Not much.

Because somewhere along the line, someone exercised a little creative genius and rewrote the story: Kevin Lewis (in-book)/ Ben Campbell (in-movie) is a very smart Caucasian-American kid, who at some point of his life at college decided that he could outsmart the game of 21 by counting cards. So he and some other mates (mostly Caucasian-American) bandied together, headed down to Las Vegas to count their way to riches.

It was. A. Lot. Of. Money.

Enough of a-lot for people to want to rewrite your identity into something more palatable for the general masses who have been told that only certain identities and looks have more selling power.

Well, at least they kept the penises. Farmer help us should they'd gone all crazy by reimagining a woman there instead.


Story 2 - In a more fictitious universe, there's the Nickelodeon cartoon series, "Avatar: The Last Airbender". The story has all sorts of culturally period Asian settings and mysticism, with the key character, Aang, looking quite a bit like a Shaolin monk (see picture above; dude who looks quite a bit like a Shaolin monk--yeah, doesn't take a PhD in anthropology to spot, ya?). Not to mention, Chinese calligraphy and pugilistic moves are featured throughout the show. There's also a strong hint of Inuit identity in two of the major 'Water Tribe' characters as well.

It's a very popular show, so like any popular work of art, book, cartoon, comic, video game, stage performance that has an inkling of a narrative, it has to translate into a celluloid blockbuster. (Of course, it has to! What do you mean why!? Question does not compute...) However, during that translation, Asian and coloured actors and actresses died of what comedienne, Margaret Cho, terms SARS (Severe Asian Racism Syndrome), so the producers and casting crew ended up with this:


(Image from Racebending.com.)
Oh.... All the coloured artistes who could have more important roles died, but lots survived for the minor roles of bad guys, of course. As is anti-hero Zuko's role, played by Dev Patel of "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008) fame. Because darker-skinned people evoke more terror in the hearts of many people, ya?

(Question: who scares darker-skinned people? Racists, I wager.)


Story 3 - That's a movie-still of the most divine Jake Gyllenhaal and the very pretty English actress Emma Arterton, in their respective role as a Persian prince and Indian princess. (True fact: Persia's current day Iran.) They're from the movie "Prince of Persia" (2010), which is based on--if you have been following my point about 'good anything = good movie'--the very popular computer game of the same name from the 1990s.

(Images taken from Jordan Mechner.)
True, the computer game was no history lesson to take home to your kids. In fact, judging by the cover art of the game itself, this was just some Orientalist's dream, where you get all the culture and food of an exotic place without having to actually have the burden of factoring in the people from this place too much. (Maybe video games really aren't all that good for kids?) But in the two decades between 1989 and 2010, you'd think people have figured out that there's something really wrong about the Prince of Persia arch.

Oh, by the way, they did of course cast Sir Ben Kingsley, of half-Indian, half-white parentage as Teh Ev!l guy Nizam in the movie. He gets the dark under-eye liner, menacing goatee and doubly ornate wardrobe evil exotica treatment. Kinda like Boris Karioff's Fu Man Chu from the "The Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932).


(Nizam from IMDB; Fu Man Chu from Racebending.com.)
The problem here is that Hollywood is a really big machine that churns out so much material that is so widely marketed and shown everywhere. The Hollywood content is not some accidental, small option at the movies, instead they are the main spread in our movie culture for a lot of people. That sort of long-term normalising is the reason why, even though we still don't have a lot of Caucasians in our midst, it is really difficult to not factor them in our imagination, hence the prevalence in seeing Caucasian models selling anything and everything. And it has seeped so deeply into our consciousness that it's actually not a big deal when we do meet them living in our neighbourhoods or working alongside us as well.


Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, spoke quite recently about her experience with "the single story", of growing up reading English books by English and American authors, meeting other people outside of the Nigeria who have perplexing impressions of her and where she comes from. In the middle of it, she points out quite correctly, I think, the (suggestion) of power that gets embedded in the narrative, which really isn't a new idea but I guess it bears minding:

It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is "nkali." It's a noun that loosely translates to "to be greater than another." Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali. How they are told, who tells them, when they're told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.

Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story, and to start with, "secondly." Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have and entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story.

I recently spoke at a university where a student told me that it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had just read a novel called "American Psycho" and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers. Now, obviously I said this in a fit of mild irritation.

I would never have occurred to me to think that just because I had read a novel in which a character was a serial killer that he was somehow representative of all Americans. And now, this is not because I am a better person than that student, but, because of America's cultural and economic power, I had many stories of America. I had read Tyler and Updike and Steinbeck and Gaitskill. I did not have a single story of America. ("The danger of a single story," Jul 2009)

In summary, don't be a Stupid Gherkin you people in your boardrooms talking up ideas about the next movie, television and story. The world is full of stories to be told, and contrary to what you think, a good story can probably sell itself without your white-washing it--not just simply by putting only white people on screen, but also making everyone look a certain type, or talk a certain way (Singapore, I'm looking at you too!). The exposure to more representation can only be a good thing, then maybe brown spectre turkeys don't have to protest against the rail-thin, snow-white fair beauty regiment of contemporary culture, cats don't have to deal with daily racists pretending that they're beyond racism (or "micro aggressive racism", if you will), and you wouldn't have to change a goat's name because it doesn't fit right inside your little non-United Colours of Benetton world. And a badly-drawn, male unfeminist pig feels obliged to write a whole meandering blog post, on top of looking for matching pictured about this.

Now, imagine that!

+++

Racebending.com is the official international protest movement that's calling for a boycott of the movie "Avatar: The Last Airbender". Pledge your boycott if you agree that the movie-makers have quite a serious case of all-sort-of-fucked-up, and believe that there's room for other coloured folks to take up screen time in more diverse roles.

18 Mighty Mountain Warriors urges best in this skit:

“Everyone’s a little bit racist, right?”

Sure. But what are you actually trying to say?

Every so often I decide to court my family history of high blood pressure and heart disease by engaging in a conversation about race and racism with friends in a casual setting. (Once I tried to do it at work, but that just made everyone really uncomfortable and it was awkward for at least an hour after the conversation had evaporated into the ether so I’m probably not going to do it again.) First you get the “No one’s really racist anymore, I mean I have [insert minority] friends.” Then after you provide a rough overview of the effects of systemic racism you get the shrug and the, “Well, so everyone’s a little bit racist, really nothing you can do about it, I mean it’s how we were raised right?”

Ahhh. The Carrie Prejean excuse. The “I’m so intellectually cloistered and slothful that I haven’t looked past the preconceptions my parents held and have unquestioningly accepted them as my own” excuse. The “I’ve consistently shown that I’m smarter than this, but I still think it’s a valid excuse” excuse. The “You can’t rebut this so I’m going to use it” excuse.

Like hell I can’t rebut this.

Discussions of race understandably make people nervous and frankly I blame the “Racial Harmony Day” level of discourse that we’re presented in schools. It frames racism as an attitude held by an individual and posits that racism can be countered if you eat enough foods from other cultures. It doesn’t teach that the power of racism is in the fact that it’s institutionalized, ingrained and practically invisible. It’s this more sinister (but in turn more accurate) model of racism that gets to hide behind the henna doodles and misplaced bindis, the stiff Chinese collars and the just-for-a-day songkok. It’s because no one sees the man behind the curtain (again, apologies for anthropomorphising the kyriarchy) duping all of us into believing that as long as we have [insert minority] friends, we can address any and all “race-related issues”.

It’s because of this complacency that we allow ourselves to tell racist jokes, to share Russell Peters videos and to guffaw at Tokyo Breakfast (guilty as charged). Sure, some of us are laughing because we understand this to be a send-up of the respective stereotypes, but given the Archie Bunker effect (see Mary Beth Oliver’s lecture on race in the media where she points out that some people were laughing at his bigotry and other were laughing with) and the frankly piss-poor understanding of racism-proper it’s just irresponsible to tell and laugh along with these jokes unless you have explicit knowledge of your crowd’s level of awareness. But how to bring it up without actually ending up calling all your friends and co-workers racist (the one sure way to impugn their honour, y’know)? Jay Smooth breaks it down very well:

So yes. Everyone’s a little bit racist because we all participate in a racist society where we are subtly conditioned through regular rewards for upholding the order of things. But that’s not an excuse to stop talking about it. That’s not an excuse to not examine your own actions and eliminate those which may be contributing to the unhealthy race-smog we breathe in daily. That’s not an excuse to change the subject whenever someone tries to point out that you’ve done/said/laughed at/been complicit with something racist. In fact, that everyone’s a little bit racist is why we need to be pushing this conversation into every social circle we’ve got because this shit has got to change.

Get out there and consciousness-raise! Fly my pretties! Fly!

too brown for this town

This spectral turkey went shopping the other day and was not impressed. Though considered "white meat", it must be said that The Poultrygeist is more a glorious shade of brown. A bit like teh tarik if you will. However, even us spectral turkeys have to look professional on a day to day basis.

But enough of the third person narrative.

I started attempting to use make-up at the ripe old age of 19. Since then, i've scoured the country for a foundation suitable for my skin tone. Each suitable shade has since been discontinued - because it's "too dark, so not popular". I've noticed that stores (all, save one) here don't stock foundation or concealer for the darker skinned. In fact, they are blissfully unaware that darker shades even exist, to the point that they pig-headedly (sorry!) insist that a particular popular brand does not manufacture that dark a shade. Yes, they do you guys! They're just not stocked in Singapore.

Now mind you, i'm not even that dark, in the grand scheme of things. But what exactly is our society's obsession with being fair-skinned? The very fact that I am not quite on the right side of beige automatically makes me a target for peddlers of "instant skin whitening" products. Isn't there something wrong with the ideal that's being projected all over Singapore in the form of advertisements, television shows and even celebrity endorsements? Just once, I'd like to see our racial minorities cast in mainstream television as something other than the usual stereotypical policemen, makciks and overly protective wide-girthed mothers with a flair for the melodramatic.

The ideal of beauty has taken the form of a thin, pale complexioned straight-haired mannequin of homogenised chinese/japanese/korean descent. And so i get repeatedly asked if i'd like to tame my stubborn curls with a re-bonding treatment; or if i'd like a skin whitening facial; or informed peremptorily that i need to lose 15 kilograms.

The irony is that it is only in Singapore, the place I grew up in, and which purports to be my "home" that I have felt conscious about my appearance and the colour of my skin. We are repeatedly reminded during the annual build up to the 9th of August that it is Singapore's diversity that makes her unique.

Save for those 2 months out of a year, I see very little celebration of this allegedly revered "diversity".