Kopi with Bertha: Careful when you cry racism

by Bertha Henson

SO PRIMA Deli worked very fast to dismiss its racist “head of the baking department” – at least that’s who I think it is because it would only say an employee has been sacked. It’s sad to think that people in power would bring their personal prejudices into play when deciding on someone’s future.

Here you have an applicant who wants to be a cake decorator and her appearance and skin colour went against her. How that matters to the job of decorating cakes is beyond me. But there’s also what the guy said about “over-promising’’. Evidently, he’s had some Malays who over-promised and under – or don’t deliver. So he decides that’s enough evidence to tar every Malay, or Malay-looking, person with the same brush.

Perhaps, if he had said this to millenials, it would be less offensive. You know, the usual complaint that members of the strawberry generation don’t work very hard and want instant gratification. Age-ism appears to be less of a sin than racism. At least, age-ists can blame young people’s upbringing and the environment, but you’d be talking about genetics and culture when it comes to racism.

Besides being racist, that head of the baking department was also silly enough to display it so openly. How can he even reach that position without an inkling that people are looking out for signs of job discrimination in this tight labour market which now has fair employment rules governing it?

I suppose if he had his way, he would have advertised for a Mandarin speaker, but what has baking got to do with language? The advertising rules wouldn’t have allowed it. In fact, Prima Deli operates a halal bakery and certification requires that some Muslims are employed who can be part of the halal team needed to oversee operations.

The guy said openly that there are plenty of Chinese working in the company so presumably, and this is me being generous, he was worried about communication problems. The applicant, in fact, did say she had problems with the person who was told to supervise her cake decorating try-out.

But she understood enough Mandarin to know that she was being given the short end of the stick. She was supposed to be shown a sample but wasn’t. Again, erring on the side of generosity, it could be a “communication’’ problem. Or it could simply be a way to make sure she failed or that the bakery can’t be bothered whether she was a good cake decorator or not. Maybe, it has a queue of applicants.

The baking head would probably take his attitudes to the next workplace but will probably watch his mouth.

Racism is hard to root out from a person. Individuals, especially when they have “backup’’, like working in a Chinese-dominated bakery, will always want to feel superior to others. So a guy thinks a female boss is a bitch and a bimbo. Malays might categorise the Chinese as pork-eaters and Chinese might dismiss Indians as alcoholics. Old people will say that young people don’t know the value of money and Singaporeans will think that every foreigner is out to take his or her job.

We have a stereotype for every group of people. Some people think that a woman cannot be prime minister in case she gets PMS (yes, that has been said to my face) or that an Indian will find it hard to be an MP because the Chinese won’t vote for him (hence, the GRCs). You won’t find a woman saying the former, or a non-Chinese agreeing with the latter. Each individual will want to defend their own kind, and I don’t just mean ethnic-wise.

When I was growing up, everyone assumed I was a laidback, not very bright Eurasian girl from a convent school who cares more about singing and dancing than studying. At a job interview with a bank, I was asked if I could speak Mandarin. I get snide remarks about being a sarong party girl and told that I was a mongrel because of my mixed parentage.

Now that I am much older, I can give back as good as I get. I ask how my age or gender or race has anything to do with the issue at hand.

But I was a bit perturbed at an earlier “racist’’ incident when a police report was made against Tampines 1 mall, because an employee had rejected an applicant who wanted to run a Malay roadshow “as our target audience are (sic) mainly Chinese’’.

It could have been written more sensitively but the mall is well within its rights to decide what sort of roadshow to hold. It wants to cater to its audience. So it doesn’t think a Malay roadshow, however excellent the performance, would work. In the same way, a mall in Geylang Serai might turn away a Chinese roadshow on the same grounds.

It’s not a question here of merit, like cake decorating. In this instance, race and culture do come into play as mercantilist considerations. Of course, we can always get on a high horse and say that malls should promote multi-racialism and showcase different cultures. Well and good if they do, but it’s not wrong if they don’t.

We’ve got to be careful about crying “discrimination’’. In my view, not having a Malay roadshow in a mall is not as bad as having no halal stall in a big hawker centre or coffeeshop. But then, I can go to a halal bakery…

In this column, consulting editor Bertha Henson muses about life and living – and makan – through the scenes she witnesses in her neighbourhood.

 

Featured Image by Natassya Diana.

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The post Kopi with Bertha: Careful when you cry racism appeared first on The Middle Ground.

- Bertha Henson