Opinion | From Indonesia to Hong Kong to Singapore, an ongoing battle against racist stereotypes
- A Singapore children’s book depicted a school bully as dark skinned while other pupils were fair. It’s just one of many racist tropes in media and literature
- Psychologists say even simple images reinforce unconscious biases that if left unchecked, are of great detriment to society
Marshall Cavendish Education said it had no intention to “produce content that promotes discrimination in any way”.
Its response came after a Facebook user asked what “possessed” the publisher to print a book where the “sole dark-skinned character is irredeemably nasty – especially when his appearance is irrelevant to the plot?”.
The user had earlier returned the book to the public library with a note stating her concerns and the National Library Board immediately removed all copies of the book from its shelves, pending a review.
An internet search for the book, titled Who Wins by Wu Xinghua, showed it was in the collection of at least one school library, while another listed it as recommended additional reading for children in 2018/19 by Singapore’s Committee to Promote Chinese Language Learning.
The committee, currently led by a member of parliament belonging to Singapore’s ruling party, has not commented on the book.
