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.

International Burn A Koran Day

Oh chickadees. Haven't we been over this before with the whole "Draw Mohammed" fiasco? Haven't I already explained why "protests" like this are really just thinly veiled excercises in xenophobia and racism?

Obviously I need to go over this again.

By violating objects and ideas that are held sacred by marginalized populations with an eye to upholding your own privileged hegemony you are doing harm. You are doing harm by normalizing and celebrating violence (for the violation of the sacred is a form of violence) against an entire population of people. You are doing harm by courting a negative reaction from this population that will then add to the fire that caricatures Muslims as reactive and unreasonable. You are doing harm by using your position of privilege to publicly deride an already marginalized population.

Sure, I realise this time this display of ignorance and prejudice is being organized by a fundamentalist non-denominational church in Florida (that has previously joined with the Westboro Baptist church, a punchline in and of themselves, to protest homosexuality) so commenting on it is like shooting fish in a barrel, but the Poultrygeist over here just sent me a link to the goddamn Facebook page for the "event" and over 1200 people have liked it.

Thank you humanity for this current fail that I may use it as an education tool. Hopefully. And I pray to whoever the fuck cares to listen that this time MY LESSON WILL STICK. Yours in faith, Cat.

P.S. If you are tempted to leave a comment about how no one has the right not to be offended and this is all about free speech, please read the comments on the "Draw Mohammed" post first, as I've spelt out a reply to that quite clearly. If you want to continue the conversation, by all means, but just make sure you read that first. I really don't like repeating myself.

No You're Racist, and Sexist and I'm AWESOME

You may have noticed a cute new webpage floating around the internets called "I Write Like" (not linking). It's a page with a text box where you have to copy and paste (or compose on the spot) a few paragraphs, press a button and you'll get a something you can paste on your blog or Facebook to let everyone know which famous writer you write like. (In case anyone was wondering, I got Margaret Atwood - YAY! - and Dan Brown - kill me now.)

If you've heard of the website, you may also have caught wind of the kerfuffle around the fact that when it first launched, there weren't any female writers in the database of writers you could resemble. A week or so later, there are now 3 female writers (to 37 male writers) all of whom are lily-white. Now I understand that this is just a silly-for-fun website for people to feel briefly thrilled that their name can be used in the same sentence as a famous (or infamous) author (sorta Nicholas Sparks vis-a-vis Cormac McCarthy style), but representation matters, even in trivial things.

Representation matters because our actions are shaped by our environment. Our environment primes us on levels so far below our consciousness that even if we are asked about our motivations, we come up with narratives that, while consistent with how we view ourselves, have nothing to do with reality. A website that uses only white, initially all-male writers to represent how the internet writes, well, the implicit message isn't even all that subtle there.

So people start to comment. Some people cut and paste female writers' texts into the boxes and lol-sob at the male writers they are called instead. Eventually tea berry-blue wrote to the guy who runs "I Write Like". She describes the disheartening and miss-the-point exchange well, but what I want to talk about specifically is this:

Tea,

Thanks for your reply. I’ve added more writers into the database
recently. But I *absolutely* will not add people into the database due
to their race or gender. I will not search for lists of white, black,
Asian, Hispanic, or any other types of people that you _took care to
differentiate_. All people are equal to me, and equality means not
looking at skin color or different types of chromosomes.

I think the question is closed.

–
Dmitry Chestnykh
I Write Like

In other words, it's the I don't think people are different...and since you seem to, YOU'RE SEXIST and also racist.

Honestly, if everyone was so damn equal, why did you only have one kind of person represented? If everyone was all the same to you, then your sample should have approximated what the sampling of writers out there was really like. Include writers like Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Amy Tan, Candace Bushnell, George Eliot, A. S. Byatt, Zadie Smith, Helen Fielding, Monica Ali, Stephenie-frikking-Meyer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Miriam Toews, Tamora Pierce, Holly Black...I could go on. That's just off the top of my head and includes a nice sampling of award winning authors, classics, pop fiction, all women, some of colour. NOT THAT HARD. If gender and race were non-issues for this person, then why the glaring omissions?!

It's because it does matter. And I want to make it very clear that I'm not blaming Dmitry Chestnykh for it in the least. Like the rest of us, he grew up in the same damn world we all did. A world in which whiter is better and where men are main characters. I was talking about priming earlier yeah? Well, we've been primed our whole damn lives to not notice that despite the actual diversity of the world around us, the white male is always the assumed default (Tasha Fierce breaks down the assumed default even in activist circles here). A world in which the only people who don't notice race or gender are the only ones who are the default, and therefore are privileged enough not to. It is also, ironically, a world where we are taught that racism and sexism are bad and that you are a bad person if you're racist or sexist. So people are scared to talk about race or gender. First because any time a light is shone on privilege it does get pretty damn uncomfortable. Secondly because it's as though noticing that people are different qualifies you as some sort of reprobate.

But of course everyone notices race. It starts when we're children, mainly because our parents don't talk about it. It's the same for gender too. Noticing it and talking about it and discussing the deleterious effects of it is how we can fight this shit. It's the opposite of being racist or sexist.

Let's recap. We're not all bad people just because we've grown up drinking the Kool Aid. We're not bad people for noticing differences and diversity. It's not racist or sexist or any-other-ist to make an effort not to under-represent entire populations of people. People that exist in this amazingly diverse and challenging world of ours. The same people whose lives are made worse because we are assumed to be uninterested because we're not talking about it. And while it can be awful to get called out, particularly if you already make efforts to not be racist or sexist, listen because we all have something to learn. Don't just fling it back and start name-calling.

Update: Shakesville's SKM Biblio-vore whose blog can be found here did a quick experiment on "I Write Like", plugging authors' actual works into the engine and seeing what comes out. Interesting and insightful!

Drawing Mohammed

I hope it goes without saying that I think Draw Mohammed Day (scheduled initially for the 20th of May 2010 and then rescinded when the progenitor of the idea got freaked out by the responses to it) is an unmitigated bad idea.

"But Cat!" you say, "You blaspheme right along with the best of them! Isn't this just organized blasphemy?"

Christ on a cracker. Have we taught you nothing here at the Barn?

You do not piss on ideas that other people hold dear. Now, I will defend to the death your right to free speech and I do not think that the violence committed against cartoonists who have depicted Mohammed is justified in any way. But that being said, it wasn't a very nice thing to do now, was it?

To me, the situation at hand is not about blasphemy or free speech. It's about privilege, racism and xenophobia. This is the Western world uniting to do something deliberately incendiary towards a group of people often caricatured and marginalized within their societies.

Muslims are not an empowered group in the Western world. That should go without saying. The ghettos they are corralled in in Europe (a breeding ground for discontent, and a whole other post), the rhetoric flung at them in America post-9/11 (that has ended up affecting not just Muslims but any dark-skinned group that wears turbans), the carefully crafted news segments portraying violent and loudly unintelligible foreigners that splash across our consciousnesses - this is the position they occupy.

This is the position, underrepresented and over stereotyped, from which they are to respond to any actions taken to deliberately cause affront to symbols they hold dear.

OF COURSE SOME OF THEM WOULD FREAKING FLIP THE FUCK OUT. Not that I condone that response - but seriously, all sorts of populations lose their shit when confronted with things that contradict closely held values. We're just not constantly telling their stories as part of the "villan" bit in our societies' narrative.

This "Draw Mohammed Day"? The cartoonist, Molly Norris, has said that "this is not meant to disrespect any religion, but rather meant to protect people's right to express themselves." Fuck you Molly. Really.

Because this isn't about freedom of expression. Not by a long shot. This is about adding to the cultural drumbeat of "Muslims as bad, irrational and violent. Look! They're responding angrily to my wanting to draw something!" that's been building for a long time now. Shame on you. Shame.

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".

Don't stereotype, yo! Just don't!

Yes, that woman in her drop-neck, low-back halter dress doesn't need you to undress her with your eyes, or be told how horny she's made you feel.

Yes, her showing skin doesn't mean she's out to have "good time" with your scruffy hands, nor does she want your money.

Yes, that Malay person is not mathematically-challenged, ze's also doesn't own a guitar nor want to rock out with you.

Yes, that woman doesn't believe her 'yes' or 'I do' at the altar means a 'yes' and 'I do' everytime her husband wants to have sex with her.

Yes, that Indian woman doesn't speak Tamil, Hindi or whatever limited knowledge of Indian languages you have.

Yes, that Indian guy who's really interested in you isn't going to be a drunkard deadbeat who plummets you when he returns home late at night.

Yes, this Chinese guy doesn't speak no Chinese not because he's an elitist bastard, but because he's just not very good at languages.

Yes, that Chinese guy who speaks Chinese doesn't mean he's wrapped up in his own world and doesn't really want to connect to other people.

Yes, just because they're Filipino and Mainlanders, it doesn't mean they're not going to be able to do their jobs well as service staff.

Yes, just because they don't speak much English doesn't mean that they can't do their jobs!

Yes, that pious Christian friend isn't a homosexual-hating, pro-life fundamentalist.

Yes, that Muslim man isn't out to marry multiple wives to save sex workers and single women from some elusive plight.

Yes, this fat people isn't an indolent creature who lacks resolve and self-esteem to look like everyone else.

Yes, fat people are quite aware of their being fat.

Yes, that gay person isn't seeking the next quick-fuck or out to turn your kids gay.

Yes, this effeminate man isn't gay.

Yes, that effeminate gay man isn't seeking a guy who'd make him feel like a natural woman.

Yes, that bisexual person isn't sitting on the fence because ze wants an easy out of ostracisation.

Yes, this feminist has a 2.1-kids-two-heterosexually-married-couple home.

Yes, that feminist is not looking for something to get angry about.

Yes, that gay person doesn't actually have liberal opinions.

Yes, your big fat dick isn't something people all want to worship.

Yes, my sub-par intellect doesn't mean that I'm an empty vase.

Yes, ze's really good looking, but it doesn't mean ze doesn't have anything interesting to tell you.

Yes, her speaking lousy English doesn't mean that the content of her message isn't itself good.

Yes, that single person doesn't actually care to hook up with your cousin's cousin, friend's friend, mother's friend's or colleague's neighbour's loin-fruit.

Yes, that single person has quite a full and happy life because ze's single.

The reality is that no stereotype can be considered light-hearted and humorous. A stereotype is defined as “an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group.” Stereotypes are negative. Even “positive” stereotypes are ultimately detrimental to the groups that struggle to find a sense of self within the narrow parameters of society’s vision. (Latoya Peterson from Racialicious).

Resolution for 2010: don't stereotype, yo! Just don't!

Happy 2010!

ETA:
Commenters have chimed in with their stereotypes (thanks!). Everyone's encouraged to add zie's in our comments section! :)

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.

Public Service Annoucement: "To have self-esteem."

My turkey spectral pal's really awesome and very sad moving tale of her first encounter with pedestrian racism has really put me in such a horrible mood. I'm bowled over by the sort of shitty things parents, guardians and mentors can teach children in the name of love and the latter's self-interest. As I said in the comment section there, I'm reminded of my own experience in having to listen to the sort of bullshit about race and "bad animals" that my elders tried to inculcate in me, which for some reason never really stuck because I was and continue to be doubtful of authority figure and authoritative--and worse, authoritarian--tones.

Unlike many other people, I was always in the company of authority figures who fought a lot with each other, make all sorts of mistakes and cause all forms of hurt behind closed doors. That slightly dysfunctional background led me to understand intuitively that even purported role models are not always right. As my feline friend discovers, older people are not necessarily relevant in their 'wisdom'. By all means respect your elders as you should other people, especially with the common decency that we should accord all human beings (see: Human Rights), but screw that listen to your elders unremittingly bullshit.

This is going to be hard to accept, but even we on the barn makes mistakes for the simple reason that nobody's perfect. (Though, we're still pretty damn close to cutesy perfection, yo!)

So dear searching kid, teenager, jia-buey-tua (literally: eat no big) adult who feels different and alienated from the majority, please find delight in the fact that the sagely ones and even your media bigwigs might be wrong, but that you are capable of change and differing from them. Therein making you a little more real (human or otherwise), and a little more prepared for a life of infinite betterment.

Finally, I dedicate the following clip to Poultrygeist and all the other barnmates for showing us that one can actually wade through all the misogynistic, anti-gay, racist, et al bullshit to come out stronger, wiser and brimming with such admirable self-esteem. This is by yet another American comedienne, Margaret Cho, whom I mostly piggishly love, from her stand-up "Notorious C.H.O." (2002):

And I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing 'cause I'm probably somebody who wouldn't necessarily have a lot of self-esteem as I am considered a minority.

And if you are a woman; if you are a person of color; if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; if you are a person of size; if you are person of intelligence; if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world.

And it's going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere, especially women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to a look certain way, or else you're worthless. You know when you look in the mirror, and you think: Urgh! I'm so ugly! I'm so fat! I'm so old!

Don't you know? That's not your authentic self?

But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising, magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard-earned money, and spend it at the mall, on some turn-around cream that doesn't turn around shit!

If you don't have self-esteem, you'd hesitate before you do anything in your life.

You'd hesitate to go for the job you really wanna go for.

You'd hesitate to ask for a raise.

You'd hesitate to call yourself an American. [BDP: please feel free to substitute this with your appropriate nationality.]

You'd hesitate to report a rape.

You'd hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender.

You'd hesitate to vote. You'd hesitate to dream.

For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.

XOXO

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.