T
Tadakatsu Honda
Guest
ST Forum
Apr 7, 2010
Why pick on only Indian accent for cheap laughs on radio?
I WOULD like to hear from Harvey Norman, the sponsors of the traffic update on the English-language radio station Class 95FM, about what it thinks of yesterday morning's deejays reading a large portion of traffic news just before 10am in a mock-Indian accent. The deejays seemed to find it very funny to mimic the way Indians speak. And they have done it lots of times.
In fact, for most of Singapore's modern history, radio deejays who are not of Indian descent have enjoyed doing mock-Indian accents on English radio.
Members of the ethnic Indian population do not bring this up partly because they will be dismissed as lacking a sense of humour. So they grin and bear with it for years and years. And you have to tell yourself what your inevitable critics will say on radio tomorrow, 'Get a life'.
As someone interested in media, I also listen to Chinese, Malay and Tamil stations, and I am grateful to the deejays on Chinese and Malay stations for avoiding this easy path to cheap laughs. The defining factor is that I have never heard radio deejays on English stations mock Chinese or Malay accents. Is it that they think people of ethnic Chinese and Malay descent have less of a sense of humour than those of Indian descent? Or is it that they know in their hearts they are doing something distasteful and so pick on only those that they can?
Ravi Veloo
Apr 7, 2010
Why pick on only Indian accent for cheap laughs on radio?
I WOULD like to hear from Harvey Norman, the sponsors of the traffic update on the English-language radio station Class 95FM, about what it thinks of yesterday morning's deejays reading a large portion of traffic news just before 10am in a mock-Indian accent. The deejays seemed to find it very funny to mimic the way Indians speak. And they have done it lots of times.
In fact, for most of Singapore's modern history, radio deejays who are not of Indian descent have enjoyed doing mock-Indian accents on English radio.
Members of the ethnic Indian population do not bring this up partly because they will be dismissed as lacking a sense of humour. So they grin and bear with it for years and years. And you have to tell yourself what your inevitable critics will say on radio tomorrow, 'Get a life'.
As someone interested in media, I also listen to Chinese, Malay and Tamil stations, and I am grateful to the deejays on Chinese and Malay stations for avoiding this easy path to cheap laughs. The defining factor is that I have never heard radio deejays on English stations mock Chinese or Malay accents. Is it that they think people of ethnic Chinese and Malay descent have less of a sense of humour than those of Indian descent? Or is it that they know in their hearts they are doing something distasteful and so pick on only those that they can?
Ravi Veloo
