Somebody has to say this, why hasn't anyone said this? The Dark-Skinned Malay and Indian Minority are being discriminated by the light-skinned Chinese Majority. Malays and Indians have been fucked over for the past 60 years. Their discrimination in Singapore, is similar to the discrimination against African Americans in the United States. But unlike Black Americans, Brown people in Singapore have been voiceless and been silently discriminated by the chinese, without anyone helping them.
Malays and Indians even though they are a Minority (making up 15% and 10% of the population respectively, compared to the 75% Chinese), they are far more likely to be low-income (making less than 3000 dollars per month). There's a much smaller percentage of Brown people in top-schools and who have college degrees (partly because they are poorer and can't afford educational resources and the $50 an hour to get a tutor to help improve their exam results, even if they wanted to). That leads to brown people being far less likely to find jobs, but even when they have the same qualifications as a chinese, it's still far harder for brown people to get a job (because many jobs have a bias to Singaporeans who speak chinese). It is far harder for them to get rent for a HDB flat because Chinese people own most apartments, and Chinese landlords are more likely to have Chinese biases.
When I was in Changi Prison, it felt like 80% of the prison population was dark-skinned Indian or Malay. Everyone around seemed to be Brown. Likely, Malays and Indians are more likely to be charged for crimes, and have harsher sentences compared to the Chinese, even if both the chinese and malay commit the exact same crime. And the Singapore police, are more likely to target areas with more brown people, and carry out more spying and drug busts, while neglecting areas that are mostly chinese, even if in certain places chinese are as if not more likely to commit the same crime.
Now we're not even fully sure how big the scale of the problem is, because the Government does not publish statistics on the poverty rates based on race, the prison population based on race, whether certain races are punished more severely for the same offences, or any such relevant stats about race. And the Government claims they don't want to make these stats public to prevent stirring up tensions among the races. But the thing is: the Government is hiding these statistics precisely because it will stir hatred among the races, because it will reveal that Lawrence Wong and the PAP, and the Chinese majority in Singapore, have been discriminating against the Indians and Malays
If Singapore is truly a multiracial country based on justice and equality, since the population of Chinese people is about 5 times that of Malays, there should be 5 times the number of Chinese who are making a low-income, and 5 times the Chinese in prison. But no, it's more than likely the stats would be in the opposite direction, where the chinese make up 5 times the population, yet there are 5 times the number of Malays who are in prison and are poor!
It's not simply that there are more Chinese people, so more of them can get a better education and a better job. Among the rich and highly educated, you hardly see a brown person. Brown people make up 3 out of 10 Singaporeans, but among top students and the rich, it's like they make up 3 out of 100.
This disparity is not because the Chinese are much more smarter and hardworking compared to Indians and Malays, it's because of racial discrimination. It's because since the day they're born in Singapore, Malays and Indians, have had lesser money, lesser opportunities, and harsher environments to overcome, so that even if a brown person was as hardworking and as intelligent as a Chinese, he'd still end up far less likely to get a degree, far less likely to get a job, and make thousands of dollars a month less, compared to a chinese.
The discrimination against Brown people in Singapore would probably be as bad if not worse than Black people in America. Because unlike in America, Singapore has no freedom of expression, so you can't even speak up and publicly protest and march for racial equality, without being sent to prison. Fortunately I am not scared of prison, and especially as a privileged upper-middle class Chinese person, I must speak up for my Indian and Malay, sisters and brothers. Malays and Indians have been the mistreated and the voiceless, let them be heard