As part of making this blog more useful to people researching racism i'll be progressively adding some links to anti-racism organizations around the world.
The first one i have added is the "fight dem back" organization in Australia and New Zealand. They target neo-nazi and fascist organizations and have a wonderful track record in raising awareness of racism and preventing these groups from spreading hatred and spewing crap at conferences and meetings.
I've also posted a link to Asian Nation which has an excellent section on the racism that Asian peoples have faced in the United States with a load of academic resources.
As i find other organisations i'll post them here. Most anti-racism organizations out there deal with the nazi and kkk styled white suprememecy organizations, which is logical as they probably the most numerous and most violent organisations out there.
However, even though this blog is aimed at combatting asian racism, i still feel it's appropiate to link to organizations that combat racism in all it's forms and locations. I would like to re-iterate that in now way do i wish to demonize any ethnic group or belittle the racism caused by other groups such as white supremacist or, as another example, the ethnic elements behind the rawanda genocide.
I've focused on Asian racism because:
1. I live in Asia and i'm exposed to it on a regular basis.
2. I have personally experienced it
3. It is usually an 'out of bounds' topic for discussion in many asian countries media (with the censorship prevalant in many asian countries) hence the ability to highlight racist behaviors and policies and mobilize community support against them is limited.
I hope this collection of media clippings and academic reports will simply highlight that racism does occur in Asia, it is a growing problem and that by linking to other anti-racism resources community minded individuals in Asian can begin to develop grass roots programs similar to what is happening elsewhere in the world to stop this cancerous disease on human relationships.
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2 comments:
do you know what is ang moh? if not, go polish up your hokkien language if you know it. thanks, know your thing before you talk thanks
I suggest you research the history of racial slurs before you suggest to start telling people of a minority what they should think of a name.
For example, the word "Nigger" originally was only a descriptive name without any negatiave conotations but quickly became to be percieved by the people to whom it was applied too as derogatory.
Likewise the term "Ang Moh" is increasingly seen for what it is: a racial slur.
It doesn't matter how it is INTENDED, it matters how it is recieved and PERCIEVED.
As a cursory glance at both the internet and archives of the singapore staits times shows, many people of caucasian / slavic / baltic background who are described by this word find it offensive.
Indeed, even a number of singaporean bloggers have commented on the need to be careful when and where to use it as they have found through personal experience that it can, and does, cause offence to the people to whom it is used to describe.
Secondly, the origin of the term is it's self racist. It originally means "red-haired foriegn devil", which in the dialect it comes from had specific negative quasi-religious overtones.
This is not in dispute, any number of empirically based sources can cofirm this. It doesn't matter that the 'gui' has been dropped from the end, most caucasians / slavs / baltic people who spend some time in the areas of asia where this term is used quickly learn of it's origin and original meaning. As such, the term has baggage and lots of it.
A similar example is the phrase "Nip". Today this term is used as a racial slur against asians. It originally started as a simplification of NIPPON (name for Japan as a nation, in Japanese) but quickly became a negative name for all east-asians.
Like wise with the phrases "yellow man" (a simple physical description, yet offensive, just like Ang Moh), Nigger, Chink and a host of others have, at one stage or another, been used by a majority on the premise that they are a simple and inoffensive label.
They are not.
Ang Moh is a term that deeply offends an increaing proportion of non-asians in Singapore and Malaysia. The simple fact that even discussions about the words racist overtones crop up in official government controlled press in Singapore speaks volumes about the changing perception of the word.
I politely suggest it is you that need to polish up on your Hokkien language history before you defend a racial slur as something it isn't.
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