Singapore prides itself as a multicultural country that is racially cohesive. But in recent days, the city-state has been wrestling with the escalating fallout over an “offensive” rap video that has ignited public outrage - stirring racial undercurrents.
In a condemnation of the inflammatory video – titled K. Muthusamy – as an attempt to stoke racial tensions, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said a line has to be drawn on videos that "attack another race".
"When you use four-letter words, vulgar language, attack another race, put it out in public, we have to draw the line and say not acceptable."
The three-minute video was posted by two ethnic minorities – Preeti Nair, a social media influencer popularly known as Preetipls and her brother Subhas Nair, a rising local rap artist. The siblings, currently under police investigation, have complied with orders to take down the “offensive” video from all social media platforms. Prior to that, it was watched by more than 40,000 times on Facebook. It was also uploaded on YouTube and a portion of it was posted on Instagram.
The issue has been a talking point on the Facebook group BIGWIG - an initiative led by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, with several people making comments on the matter.
Meramat Tajak urged the authorities to be less patriarchal. “Let the rap video and advert be free of government intervention,” adding talking about it openly will help in “improving race relations rather than suppressing it.”
On the other hand Veron Chan, argued the incident “seems to be a selective, hypocritical and manufactured attempt to achieve a "teaching moment" to impose radical left norms on mainstream Singapore society.”
The video was made in response to a controversial “brownface” advertisement that featured Chinese actor Dennis Chew from state-broadcaster Mediacorp, portraying individuals from Singapore's four main races.
Chew darkened his skin tone to act as an Indian man and as a Malay woman wearing a headscarf. It also showed him cross-dressing as a Chinese woman. The ad sparked a backlash online.
“Brownface in a Singaporean ad in 2019. I thought we already went over this,” magazine editor Ruby Thiagarajan noted on her Twitter post, which went viral. “Brownface” or “blackface” are terms referring to the practice of darkening an actor’s skin to portray a person of a different race.
To quell public anger, Mediacorp swiftly pulled the ad and promptly apologised “for any hurt that was unintentionally caused”.
In an effort to deflect criticism over the government’s handling of the “offensive” video, Mr Shanmugam underlined the city-state “cannot allow these sorts of attacks”.
“People can also say, why should we take this so seriously? Surely one video, it's not going to lead to violence? Surely people will laugh this off?” he noted. “Maybe so. What do you think will happen to our racial harmony? Social fabric? How will people look at each other?”
Online vitriol reflects outrage culture
The controversy lays bare the current climate of outrage culture that is made worse by social media. More fundamentally it raises the question on virtue-signalling – where we’re calling things out to serve a greater good.
An online petition, for example, has been started on Change.org demanding that Mediacorp and the creative agency issue an “unequivocal and unconditional apology to the public, published in all major newspapers and online news websites in Singapore”, for producing and releasing the “brownface ad”.
In fact, since the “offensive” video story broke the online reaction has been visceral with supporters of the duo questioning whether the government in the context of political correctness - using words or behaviour which will not offend any group of people - has gone too far.
On social media, many slammed the authorities for its unfair treatment on the Straits Times’s Facebook page. They pointed out how Mediacorp got away for their ad with just an apology, but the siblings got a stronger reaction from the politicians.
In his Facebook page, prominent local playwright Alfian Sa’at wrote a lengthy post on the episode criticising that “the ones perpetuating racism get a wrist slap, the ones who call out acts of racism have the instruments of the state used against them”.
“I'm really tired of witnessing this ugly dysfunction where a majority keeps on insisting that they should get to define what is funny, and what is offensive, and that their views should become the norm.”
Righteous anger a double-edged sword
In an op-ed, writer Raveena Chaudhar argued that sometimes “angry tweets do more harm than good”.
“People on social media platforms constantly rage against one another and relish taking offense to everything to societal detriment. This causes outrage culture to devalue the importance of sharing ideas and tolerating different opinions.”
Too much virtue-signalling could come across as disingenuous after some time. And do we really care, or are we calling out the faults of others as a way to signal our own virtue — to insist on our righteousness?
Righteous indignation can be a double-edged sword and may not always lead to the desired outcome. It could cloud judgement, and conversely lead to blocking constructive debate over sensitive issues such as race.
Instead of avoiding conflict at all costs, frank discussions about racial differences may have more meaningful impact in the wake of the current controversy – to reflect and think deeply about the issues.
As Pritam Singh, leader of Singapore’s opposition Workers Party argued, while it is “very difficult to find the sweet spot of equanimity” on matters of race and religion, “it is important to have such discussions” despite the sensitivities.
“Every so often, progress on race and religion occur precisely because an issue surfaces,” said Mr Singh in a Facebook post in reference to the video incident, noting there is “no magic bullet” in tackling questions on racism.
“Addressing racism requires constant attention and an acknowledgement that strengthening the Singapore core is a collective responsibility, with every race an important part of the conversation.”
What is your opinion? Continue the conversation on the Facebook group BIGWIG
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