We apologise for adding another despondent note to your Monday blues, but it’s an important discussion regarding one of Singapore’s more deplorable traits.
Meet 28-year-old Jennifer Anne Champion, performance poet and cat-obsessed writer and educator. A constant presence in the literary circuit around the country, her latest work saw her publishing a moving essay on Facebook — a poetic retelling of an experience with a disgustingly racist fellow Singaporean at Changi Airport.
It won’t do Champion’s powerful prose justice at all to condense it all in a TL;DR summary, but in case you just want to know the basic points of her viral Facebook note:
- Champion was waiting for her partner at the Changi Airport Terminal 2 arrival hall on Jan 10. A Chinese Singaporean man in his forties was waiting next to her.
- A Filipino woman exited the arrival gate, greeted by her family nearby. A child — happy to see her — ducked under the rail to hug the woman.
- The Singaporean man got angry for some reason and scolded the family. “No hugging here. Can you see? This is Singapore. Go hug outside,” he said brusquely.
- Everyone was shocked. The man in the Filipino family calmly replied: “You could have said that nicely.”
- The Singaporean blew up, spewing hatred. “This is Singapore. You Filipinos, go back to the Philippines. This is Singapore.”
- Champion confronted the racist man, telling him that she was ashamed of his words as a fellow Singaporean. The man refused to reciprocate.
A short (but disgusting) exchange indeed, but really, we cannot stress enough that you need to read Champion’s whole prose.
“In my Singapore, the invocation “This is Singapore” as a way of excusing bigoted behaviour in public is not regrettable, but punishable. Because the people of Singapore are a result of never-ending waves of migration. We don’t deport people for wrongful hugging. Instead we ask them to embrace the odd but ‘necessary’ CMIO frame that serves to protect minorities. We are a lot of things, but the one thing our historical, cultural, societal make-up does not allow us to be is bigoted. More than any other crime in the state, bigotry is the most evil.”
Champion’s note blew up on social media; even more so after The Straits Times picked up on it.
“I didn’t write that post to shame that man; I wrote it because I wanted to start a conversation — and it has,” she said in a follow-up Facebook Live video. “I couldn’t be happier, I really couldn’t.”
#ChampionsAgainstRacism was started (probably in jest) by a netizen (you know, because of her name) but Champion wholeheartedly ran with it, encouraging others to champion against prejudice as well. And you should.
