Essay

Minority rules

By Samantha Loong

For an octogenarian who has witnessed horrific war atrocities and survived race riots, my grandmother often surprises me with her tolerance and acceptance of other cultures and races. Every now and then however, she says the darndest things.

While flipping through a fashion magazine one afternoon, she said to me, "These white folks, with their blue eyes, scare me. Look at this one." She emphasized her point by jabbing her finger at a female model whose eyes were indeed very blue.

I made an effort to explain to her that white people don't ALL have blue eyes, and that she probably feels unsettled by blue eyes because she's not used to them. And that being an advertisement, the blueness of the model's eyes was probably exaggerated.

I can only hope that after hearing my grandmother's comment, others don't immediately think that all Chinese octogenarians feel the same about blue-eyed white people. Because it would seem that humans have a strong urge to lump things into categories.

With the most recent events of the ongoing whaling/dolphin hunting debate, I worry that the average white person wanting to visit a fishing seaside town on holiday or for family reasons will be met with hostility. Or that the average Japanese person will be unfairly labeled as pro-whaling by others. Being stereotyped, at its most benign, can be irritating, but is also isolating and hurtful. Taken to its extreme, it can be dangerous.

Having lived in a number of countries as a Malaysian and a New Zealander, I often find myself on the receiving end of some bewildering assumptions. There are those who, based purely on how I look, assume that English is not my native language and state how impressed they are with my grasp of it. And then there are the comments about how I couldn't possibly be Malaysian because I'm "not dark enough" -- believe me, I wouldn't mind getting a little more sun!

Being too dark comes with its own problems. My dear grandmother once told me that she found dark-skinned people more frightening than white-skinned people. "I see them on TV, in movies and on the news doing bad things," she added.

Sadly, people much more educated than my grandmother make these same assumptions and hold these stereotyped views of others. It's unfortunate that it only takes a minority to make an impression on the majority of others.

My grandmother was hesitant to believe what I said about white people not being creepy, and was adamant on going through the magazine to find me an even more terrifying blue-eyed example. But as she turned the pages, she stopped on an image of another blue-eyed, white-skinned model. "Oh, this one isn't too bad," she said, and finally began to enjoy the magazine.

Shukan ST: April 16, 2010

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