Singapore — The Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) Bryan Lim Boon Heng shares an incident regarding racial intolerance that one of his previous lecturers experienced.
Mr Lim previously put up another post on Facebook in which he recounted an incident that happened to himself around two decades ago.
In his post, he shared what those around him experienced instead. During his tertiary education, he had an economics lecturer who recounted an incident that occurred while he was aboard for a vacation.
The lecturer had travelled to Australia and was walking down a street. A local family was approaching him since they were walking from the opposite direction. When they passed by him, the parents in the family started to spew racial vulgarities towards him and even spat at him.
The lecturer was rudely shocked as the couple’s teenage son acted the same way towards him. Instead of admonishing their son, the couple praised him for the way he acted instead.
Mr Lim says that attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviours of children are moulded when they are still very young. They are quick to learn and pick up concepts regardless of what they’re learning is socially beneficial or detrimental. Over time, their experiences will shape the way they think, which can be very difficult to change.
As such, parents and adults who interact with children play a major role in tamping down on racism and discrimination. To prevent a child from adopting socially detrimental behaviour, parents should be proactive in reproaching their children and teaching them that saying racist or discriminatory things is frowned upon.
Towards the end of his post, Mr Lim highlights the importance of teaching children through words and action that the colour of our skin does not dictate our worth as a human.
A few netizens agreed that it was important to educate children from a young age when they are at their youngest and most impressionable.
You Zi Xuan is an intern at The Independent SG. /TISG