Casual racism, other race-related issues raised by students at dialogue

Casual racism should not be tackled with more laws, but by helping people understand it is not acceptable in Singapore.

- Samuel Devaraj

Responding to a student during a dialogue session on July 12 at Republic Polytechnic, Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth David Neo said it is more important to let people know why casual racism is not acceptable.

The student had asked if casual racism should be tackled by implementing more policies in Singapore, or by a greater focus on engendering heightened sensitivity among Singaporeans.

Mr Neo said: "I personally really don't think that the way forward is to throw in more rules, more policies, more laws to catch people. I don't think that's the kind of Singapore we want to live in.

"Rather it's about building the understanding, getting more people to understand why casual racism is not okay, why it is not acceptable, and getting more people to subscribe to this idea that we need to be respectful of every single race, and we need to be careful of what we say."

Students also raised other issues, such as the relevance of Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools and Singapore's Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others (CMIO) system of ethnic classification.

The dialogue session was part of the HarmonyWorks! Conference organised by racial harmony advocacy group OnePeople.sg.

Around 200 participants and facilitators attended the conference themed Hands Of Humanity, Shaping Our Future.

Most of the participants were students from post-secondary institutions, madrasahs and SAP schools.