Karishma Vaswani, Columnist

What a Rapper’s Sentence Says About Racism in Singapore

The discomfort with which Singapore talks about race means nuanced discussions aren’t happening.

September 10, 2023 at 9:00 PM UTC

Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia politics with a special focus on China. Previously, she was the BBC's lead Asia presenter and worked for the BBC across Asia and South Asia for two decades.

Promoting racial harmony.
Photographer: Sanjit Das/Bloomberg

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The first time I heard a racist slur directed at me, I was 18 years old, and traveling to a university lecture on a bus in the Midlands in the UK. Having just arrived from Indonesia, I was still trying to figure out pounds from pennies. As I fumbled around for the change, the bus driver shouted: “Why don’t you just go home you P***,” which in equal parts upset and confused me. I am not Pakistani, and home was Jakarta, so I had no idea what he meant.

Everyone who has experienced it remembers that kind of in-your-face racism. As a minority in a foreign country, when you look and sound different to those around you, it’s an unfortunate rite of passage. It’s unacceptable, but — you tell yourself — excusable. It is not your country, you don't belong there, it is not your home.