Psuedo Chinese Privilege

Hi! I came across your tumblr which was shared by a Facebook friend. I never knew how bad racism was in Singapore and I felt obliged to write in to both apologise for the rampant cluelessness of the local Chinese here and to give my two cents worth on Chinese privilege.



I’m actually ethnically Eurasian. However, because my mum is Chinese and my paternal grandmother is Chinese, I all but pass for Chinese and the only thing setting me apart is when people see my surname or when I have to tick ‘Others’ on a data form.



Although I’m technically classed as a minority, because I pass for Chinese and grew up with Chinese best friends, I unfortunately had my eyes blinded to my (pseudo?) privilege.



Off the top of my head though, I can still pick out certain incidents that have left me embarrassed and somewhat glad I can say ‘No, I’m not Chinese.’ (Although that’s just me with a handy excuse..)



1) Chinese privilege is laughing it off when your brother tells you not to date Indians because they’ll ‘beat you and get drunk every day’.



2) Chinese privilege is having your boss tell you in confidence that ‘You know, I hired minahs before and they were so lazy. I’m scared to hire them again.’



3) Bonus incident: I started using tinder a few days ago and swiped right on a few guys I thought were good/decent-looking and had interesting profiles. One of them was an Indian national who’d been in Singapore for about 6 years now. He was genuinely surprised that I matched with him because according to him ‘your chances on tinder are slim when you have dark skin’. When I told him he was pretty cute, he shrugged it off like he genuinely couldn’t believe a girl with fair Chinese-esque skin could find him attractive. He also told me how Chinese people stare at him on trains and refuse to sit next to him on buses because ‘smelly’. I really couldn’t believe what I was reading because I genuinely never knew how terrible we could be as the majority.



Again, I apologise for anyone and everyone that has ever even had an ounce of stereotype or hate for you. That includes me.

Submitted by Anonymous

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