“Is it true that Singapore Malays are badly discriminated?” a Reddit user asked on the SingaporeRaw thread on Monday (Nov 14).
Surprisingly, when one Redditor answered, “Over here we only discriminate the poor. If you’re rich, it doesn’t matter what colour you are,” many agreed.
The post by Tiobanned had a screenshot of a comment from a fellow Reddit user, Just0rdinaryguy, who said that Singapore is “actually Malay worst nightmare.”
Just0rdinaryguy went on to say that despite there being a lot of capable Malay leaders in Singapore, “none will be the PM.”
“The vote just purely based on race.”
He ended his post by writing, “being minority Chinese in Malaysia was better (than) being minority Malay in Singapore.”
The post sparked a lively discussion, and when Reddit user IvanThePohBear said discrimination in Singapore is against the poor, many others chimed in.
“Those people complaining about being racially discriminated never realised that they are being discriminated for being poor, not being brown. The rich malays do just fine,” IvanThePohBear later added.
However, one commenter added that this doesn’t just happen in Singapore, writing, “That’s true pretty much everywhere in the world.”
Others, however, disagreed that discrimination is only an economic issue.
“Are you sure it’s the rich? I thought it’s the sandwich class,” another wrote. One opined, “Singapore is a classist society that is ruthless if you don’t adapt. Look at how the Chinese-educated got marginalized as Singapore modernized.”
A Malay guy also weighed in.
“Malays are very much capable of racism too,” another wrote.
/TISG