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A despondent mother who witnessed her daughter being bullied by other children on a playground recently took to Instagram to voice her complaints about what she believed to be racism.
On Monday (August 31), her husband shared his Instagram stories in a Facebook post that has since gone viral.
The mother had related an incident that took place while her 19-month-old daughter was playing in a playground, where the girl apparently “had her first encounter with discrimination.”
According to the father, there were two older Chinese girls and another Chinese girl who was younger than his daughter, who is of Indian-Muslim descent.
Finally, the four children went to play in a four-seater rocking chair. When the Indian boy climbed into one of the rocking chairs, the mother noticed that the two older Chinese children “got off immediately” and “started laughing at each other.” It was said that one of them approached her daughter and said “I don’t like you” with a smile.
“My heart clenched for my daughter when I saw her trying to understand what the girl had just told her,” the mother wrote. Although she was angry, she pulled herself together and told the girls that it was “not a very nice thing to say” before they left.
“It may not seem like a big deal to many people, but as someone who belongs to one of Singapore’s minority groups and who has experience teaching intercultural communication, I know and recognize the signs of discrimination and racism when they happen”, stated in his post.
The mother acknowledged that the Chinese children she reprimanded were too young to know better and blamed their parents.
“Children pick up careless comments from their parents and broadcast them in places like the playground, which are supposed to be safe spaces for children to play and have fun,” he wrote.
He ended by urging parents not to pass on their prejudices to their children and clarified that his daughter has had incredible experiences with other Chinese children and parents who have been more welcoming.
Her story’s new post on Facebook has gone viral, garnering over 2,000 shares and hundreds of comments at the time of writing.
But there were also doubts. More than a few netizens questioned the story, asking what exactly of the children’s actions was determined to be racist.
Some told the mother and other commenters that it was more a case of bullying than outright racism.
Regardless of whether this particular incident involved racism or not, it is clear that outright intolerance is a problem among children. Numerous anecdotes recounted by ethnic minorities in Singapore on the @minorityvoices Instagram page show a disturbing pattern: incidents of informal bullying based on racial lines are commonly experienced from primary school.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDa-i6el7tI/
In March, a case of racial harassment that took place at the Mee Toh school went viral, prompting then-Minister of Education Ong Ye Kung to issue a statement against the “unacceptable” behavior.
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