In an Instagram story, Ms Sarah shared a post by @jeanpsychologist who thanked her for her stand about the incident and “called for Chinese Singaporeans to educate ourselves on our conditioned racism”.
In multicultural and multi-religious Singapore , it is always good that all of us - regardless of whether we are from the majority or minority race - try to learn everything that can be learned of other cultures and religions other than our own.
This will help us to avoid misunderstandings and misrepresentations.
Few dare to claim that they are so knowledgeable of other cultures that they never make mistakes about others' culture.
Some of us may even be ignorant of certain aspects of our own culture. But we can hardly be accused of being racist towards our own race when we make mistakes about our own culture.
Mistakes are made and not every mistake pertaining to race and culture has to be motivated by racism.
Something is racist when it seeks to suppress, discriminate or cancel.
These elements are all absent in the PA incident. It was meant to be a happy occasion, for people to express their joy.
We should be careful how we phrase an incident because how we phrase it affects how it is perceived. And the race card is not something we want to wave so freely and easily.
Let every ignorance be a teaching moment so that we can be a better people for we are always work-in-progress.
Would be good to start a quiz programme where different races can participate and answer questions on each other's culture and traditions, make mistakes, laugh at them without fear of being accused of racism and come away, more enlightened, more knowledgeable.
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