trying not to be racist

old habits die hard but not impossible

Here's one conversation between us, 4 jokers in a tiny office space, back in my previous company.

This tiny space was actually a conference room located behind the receptions; which means, we were indirectly watched by 2 pairs of eyes (receptionists) whenever we walk in and out of the room to the elevator, toilet, morning/afternoon coffee, lunch, go home, etc.

It's up to a point where they could guess if we got our coffee from the cafe in our building or the opposite building or anywhere else in North Sydney - just by timing how long we took to get those coffee.

Out of the blue, a new receptionist, Maria came to temporarily replace Diane who went on a 2 months holiday. The new girl was from the UK and still has thick British accent.

Our little office space was meant to 'exist' only for a couple of months but the project went on longer than expected. The receptionists were getting anxious as well because they ought to know when the room will be vacant for meeting purposes.

One day, Pete (who wasn't familiar with this office as he was not originally from our office) went to get coffee alone. On his way out of the elevator, Maria caught him and they chatted. She asked if we're completing the project any time soon and blablabla...

He entered the room and told us about the conversation he just had with the 'new receptionist'.

Pete: The receptionist says that this is apparently our last week here.

Me: Oh really???

Big: Who receptionist?  How does she know when we don't?

Pete: Ermmm.....not the usual one, the other one?

From Pete's reaction we kinda guessed who he was talking about but we couldn't find the right word to describe this receptionist and we also forgot her name since she was new.

Big: Ohh, the other one? You mean....hmm...the one who is...ermm..

Me: Ok. I think I know which one.

Ron: The one with....

Big: The one who has experienced slightly higher pigmentation than us?

Me: What?! Pigmentation? Lol.

Pete: ....yeh you can say so.

Me: The one with slightly different accent you mean?

Big: (still trying to find the right description) The one who's on a darker shade pallette...well...

Me: Okokok...

Pete: Yeah. You know which one now?

Big: Oh man! I'm not a racist but man it's hard to describe this one. Higher pigmentation? More severely tanned skin? I don't know...

Me: Tanned? Hahaha. I know it's hard. Thanks for trying though. You know in Malaysia, we would have just said BLACK.

Big: Now that's RACIST!

Yeah. Now you know who Maria is.
I've heard people say that Aussies are racist people but I've never really come across any 'serious' ones throughout my 8 years here.
In fact, in Australia, people are educated and civilised enough to make this country the place to be for everyone of all races, cultural, and religion background.
Undeniably, there will be few nasty people around but it happens everywhere we go, not just in Australia.

Thinking back, there are actually more racist people in Malaysia than anywhere else because we are used to using colour, religion, race, cultural practice, etc to describe people whom we come across in daily life.

If you met a slow driver on the road, would you say 'the slow driver's holding up the traffic' or 'the slow CHINESE is holding up the traffic'?

When there was traffic jam around a mosque on Fridays, due to people parking illegally and randomly by the road, would you say 'people who are going to pray are causing this traffic' or 'those MALAYS are causing this traffic'?

It's an ongoing issue in Malaysia where people put colour on every skin and race on every person. They don't realise they are actually practising racism in everyday life by doing so. Perhaps they realise but they don't think it's an issue.

Even the ministers always stress on how the Chinese are doing blablabla to the Malays, how the Indians are blablabla to the Chinese, the Malays are blablabla, etc........
Each time an issue happens, all they see are colours.
So good, they could pass all the colour-blind tests.
Curb the problem, not the races!
Is Malaysia ONE country, or 3 countries combined into one?
Are there 3 leaders to represent 3 different races or just one leader for ALL?
Would this ever come to an end for Malaysia?
Would you ever want to develop and grow out of this never-ending issue?

From today, practise mindfulness in your speech.
Take out the malay, chinese, indian, amoi, keling, bangla, black, white, from your every day sentence.
If you really have to use it, give a heads up that you're gonna use it and disclaim why you have to use it (shows that you're aware and not using it for racist remark).
Don't complain about racist people when you're one of the many out there.

A better tomorrow always starts from no one but yourself.