https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/crazy_rich_asians/
VS
Sangeetha Thanapal
April 28 ·
This post is about Cr*zy Rich Asians. I've been seeing a lot of people being excited about it and I think it's because they don't know what Singapore is actually like. I understand that many in the Global North, especially Americans, have no real understanding of the complications and nuances of race in other parts of the world. So I’ll give you some context.
Singapore is a terribly racist country. The state embarked on a form of eugenics in the 1980s meant to displace its indigenous population and replace it with settler colonial Chinese people. Minorities find it hard to gain employment. Muslim women in hijabs are kept out of certain civil service jobs because of their headwear. (This is government policy that the state has openly defended). Malay-Muslims are told they cannot be trusted in the military because they are Muslims with loyalty to other states. This is really ironic when you think about the fact that Malays are indigenous to the land. Indian construction workers are killed on site due to lax labour safety laws, and instead of being sent home to their families, are buried underneath those skyscrapers y’all love so much about Singapore. Minorities are stereotypically represented or never represented. Chinese people wear Indians in ‘brown face’ and Hinduism is considered something to mimic for Halloween. Minorities are called slurs on a daily basis, and Chinese people proudly say they are racist and don’t care to be otherwise. Scholarships are reserved for the Chinese, heck, entire schools are reserved for them, and these are paid for with taxpayers money. Imagine a purely white school only for white kids that the state pays for with your money, and then tells you that these schools are necessary for the future of America. Cos the Chinese supremacist state of Singapore constantly tells us that the Chinese are what makes Singapore successful, that Malays are lazy, that Indians are violent and that only Chinese people can save Singapore.
In case you think I’m making this up, I’ll tell you a few things about myself. I am a) Singapore’s most well-known anti-racism activist. B) I have written extensively on racism in Singapore, and I coined the term and theory around what is now called “Chinese Privilege.” C) I am doing a PhD on Chinese privilege, Chinese supremacy and racism in Singapore. D) I had to run away to Australia because I was being threatened by the Singapore state with sedition for speaking out about race. (Think about the fact that Australia is safer for me than Singapore.)
So when you celebrate this movie, ask yourself who you are complicit in erasing. It is the minorities who have been told every day that we are worthless, ugly, lazy, unworthy of being represented. That we deserve to be treated as second-class citizens in our own country. You are celebrating a novel that barely made a splash in Singapore because Chinese people writing about being Chinese and rich is so fuckin' commonplace here.
What people celebrating this movie are doing is bringing a Western racial framework to bear upon a Singaporean one. Chinese people in Singapore aren’t oppressed in any way, in fact, they are the oppressors. Asians in the Global North are so happy to see themselves that they don’t care about the context in which this is happening. CRA is set in Singapore and only has Chinese people in it. This isn’t new or refreshing, this is the EVERYDAY FUCKIN LIVES OF MINORITIES. It is only diversity FOR YOU. Why should Western Chinese representation come at the expense of minorities in Singapore? Why is it that so many POCs in America, Europe and Australia lack such compassion for the suffering of minorities in the Global South?
If a movie was set in NY and it only featured white people, you’d call it racist. This is set in Singapore, a country where already Chinese people are the only ones who are visible and represented, and where Chinese people hold all economic, social and political power, a state of affairs this movie perpetuates. Yet, this is perfectly all right for many of you.
I have been triggered in so many ways these past few days seeing how little Asians in the West care to research or read the things they unthinkingly support. This is my life that y’all think should come second to your ability to be represented.
Seeing post after post on what an achievement this movie is really difficult for us because you’re doing what Singaporean Chinese have done to us our whole lives-erase us, talk over us and dismiss us.
For god’s sake, for once in your lives, think about the consequences of the things you support.
You're not the only people who deserve to be represented, and when you support this movie, that's actually what you are saying.
Sangeetha Thanapal
3 hrs ·
The Singaporean Chinese racists (and the minorities who suck up to them) have come out of the woodworks, calling me names, and accusing me of lying and making it all up. Again and again, they keep demanding 'proof' despite the fact that I and other minorities have been giving it to them both on the post on racism in Singapore, and for years before.
They aren't interested in proof. They are interested in denying their racism. They are terrified that the nice, sanitized image of Singapore that other people have had for years is crumbling. They are terrified that people all over the world are realizing what Singaporean minorities have always known-- that Singapore is a Chinese Supremacist state where Chinese Singaporeans hold all economic, social and political power.
They are terrified that I am naming them as the agent behind our oppression. They are terrified that I am showing to the world what Chinese Privilege in Singapore really is.
And so they deny, deny, deny. They obfuscate and deny. They are helped by the Uncle Tans (Singaporean Uncle Toms) who are more than willing to be complicit in their own oppression in order to gain Chinese approval and patronage. These people who are so foolish as to believe that throwing your own people under the bus will get you ahead.
In the past week or so, Chinese Singaporeans have shown themselves to be exactly what they always were: the white people of Singapore.
Sangeetha Thanapal
November 3 at 6:57pm ·
Just thinking about the conversation friends and I were having yesterday about colourism.
Light-skin/white passing privilege is real. It has material benefits-in employment, in dating, in healthcare, in education, and mostly in representation. Are we just going to sit around and pretend as if it is just coincidence that it is always the lightest skinned amongst us that gets to represent us and has the most visibility? Maybe they just happen to be the most talented amongst us. How convenient.
Acknowledging this is NOT a denial of the oppression of millions of POC who are erased. It is not a denial of any other oppression either, cos you know, intersectionality exists.
It just means we have different experiences because we are read differently.
There is such a failure of intersectionality when two narratives cannot exist at the same time. Why can't they? They should-because we are a people who contain multitudes and because conversations around oppression and power need to be nuanced and complicated.
My dark skin is a huge part of me, and a huge reason why I am oppressed. To deny this is to deny my lived experience, and who are you to dare do this? I'm so happy that you've lived a nice, light-skinned life where you don't understand what it means to have dark skin, but that is not a luxury I have had.
Don't ever tell me you are a better witness to my experience than I am.
Keep your fucking revolution. It is a false consciousness that seeks to weaponize your identity to deny my oppression. A revolution in which proximity to whiteness is not addressed, in which the daily little humiliations heaped upon dark-skinned people of every race and culture is denied, is not one I am interested in.
Fuck any revolution that addresses the colour of my skin in whispers.
VS
Sangeetha Thanapal
April 28 ·
This post is about Cr*zy Rich Asians. I've been seeing a lot of people being excited about it and I think it's because they don't know what Singapore is actually like. I understand that many in the Global North, especially Americans, have no real understanding of the complications and nuances of race in other parts of the world. So I’ll give you some context.
Singapore is a terribly racist country. The state embarked on a form of eugenics in the 1980s meant to displace its indigenous population and replace it with settler colonial Chinese people. Minorities find it hard to gain employment. Muslim women in hijabs are kept out of certain civil service jobs because of their headwear. (This is government policy that the state has openly defended). Malay-Muslims are told they cannot be trusted in the military because they are Muslims with loyalty to other states. This is really ironic when you think about the fact that Malays are indigenous to the land. Indian construction workers are killed on site due to lax labour safety laws, and instead of being sent home to their families, are buried underneath those skyscrapers y’all love so much about Singapore. Minorities are stereotypically represented or never represented. Chinese people wear Indians in ‘brown face’ and Hinduism is considered something to mimic for Halloween. Minorities are called slurs on a daily basis, and Chinese people proudly say they are racist and don’t care to be otherwise. Scholarships are reserved for the Chinese, heck, entire schools are reserved for them, and these are paid for with taxpayers money. Imagine a purely white school only for white kids that the state pays for with your money, and then tells you that these schools are necessary for the future of America. Cos the Chinese supremacist state of Singapore constantly tells us that the Chinese are what makes Singapore successful, that Malays are lazy, that Indians are violent and that only Chinese people can save Singapore.
In case you think I’m making this up, I’ll tell you a few things about myself. I am a) Singapore’s most well-known anti-racism activist. B) I have written extensively on racism in Singapore, and I coined the term and theory around what is now called “Chinese Privilege.” C) I am doing a PhD on Chinese privilege, Chinese supremacy and racism in Singapore. D) I had to run away to Australia because I was being threatened by the Singapore state with sedition for speaking out about race. (Think about the fact that Australia is safer for me than Singapore.)
So when you celebrate this movie, ask yourself who you are complicit in erasing. It is the minorities who have been told every day that we are worthless, ugly, lazy, unworthy of being represented. That we deserve to be treated as second-class citizens in our own country. You are celebrating a novel that barely made a splash in Singapore because Chinese people writing about being Chinese and rich is so fuckin' commonplace here.
What people celebrating this movie are doing is bringing a Western racial framework to bear upon a Singaporean one. Chinese people in Singapore aren’t oppressed in any way, in fact, they are the oppressors. Asians in the Global North are so happy to see themselves that they don’t care about the context in which this is happening. CRA is set in Singapore and only has Chinese people in it. This isn’t new or refreshing, this is the EVERYDAY FUCKIN LIVES OF MINORITIES. It is only diversity FOR YOU. Why should Western Chinese representation come at the expense of minorities in Singapore? Why is it that so many POCs in America, Europe and Australia lack such compassion for the suffering of minorities in the Global South?
If a movie was set in NY and it only featured white people, you’d call it racist. This is set in Singapore, a country where already Chinese people are the only ones who are visible and represented, and where Chinese people hold all economic, social and political power, a state of affairs this movie perpetuates. Yet, this is perfectly all right for many of you.
I have been triggered in so many ways these past few days seeing how little Asians in the West care to research or read the things they unthinkingly support. This is my life that y’all think should come second to your ability to be represented.
Seeing post after post on what an achievement this movie is really difficult for us because you’re doing what Singaporean Chinese have done to us our whole lives-erase us, talk over us and dismiss us.
For god’s sake, for once in your lives, think about the consequences of the things you support.
You're not the only people who deserve to be represented, and when you support this movie, that's actually what you are saying.
Sangeetha Thanapal
3 hrs ·
The Singaporean Chinese racists (and the minorities who suck up to them) have come out of the woodworks, calling me names, and accusing me of lying and making it all up. Again and again, they keep demanding 'proof' despite the fact that I and other minorities have been giving it to them both on the post on racism in Singapore, and for years before.
They aren't interested in proof. They are interested in denying their racism. They are terrified that the nice, sanitized image of Singapore that other people have had for years is crumbling. They are terrified that people all over the world are realizing what Singaporean minorities have always known-- that Singapore is a Chinese Supremacist state where Chinese Singaporeans hold all economic, social and political power.
They are terrified that I am naming them as the agent behind our oppression. They are terrified that I am showing to the world what Chinese Privilege in Singapore really is.
And so they deny, deny, deny. They obfuscate and deny. They are helped by the Uncle Tans (Singaporean Uncle Toms) who are more than willing to be complicit in their own oppression in order to gain Chinese approval and patronage. These people who are so foolish as to believe that throwing your own people under the bus will get you ahead.
In the past week or so, Chinese Singaporeans have shown themselves to be exactly what they always were: the white people of Singapore.
Sangeetha Thanapal
November 3 at 6:57pm ·
Just thinking about the conversation friends and I were having yesterday about colourism.
Light-skin/white passing privilege is real. It has material benefits-in employment, in dating, in healthcare, in education, and mostly in representation. Are we just going to sit around and pretend as if it is just coincidence that it is always the lightest skinned amongst us that gets to represent us and has the most visibility? Maybe they just happen to be the most talented amongst us. How convenient.
Acknowledging this is NOT a denial of the oppression of millions of POC who are erased. It is not a denial of any other oppression either, cos you know, intersectionality exists.
It just means we have different experiences because we are read differently.
There is such a failure of intersectionality when two narratives cannot exist at the same time. Why can't they? They should-because we are a people who contain multitudes and because conversations around oppression and power need to be nuanced and complicated.
My dark skin is a huge part of me, and a huge reason why I am oppressed. To deny this is to deny my lived experience, and who are you to dare do this? I'm so happy that you've lived a nice, light-skinned life where you don't understand what it means to have dark skin, but that is not a luxury I have had.
Don't ever tell me you are a better witness to my experience than I am.
Keep your fucking revolution. It is a false consciousness that seeks to weaponize your identity to deny my oppression. A revolution in which proximity to whiteness is not addressed, in which the daily little humiliations heaped upon dark-skinned people of every race and culture is denied, is not one I am interested in.
Fuck any revolution that addresses the colour of my skin in whispers.
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