My friend, Space, is worried [
link] about racial discrimination in Australia.
Well. Let's put everything on the table. Till date I've never written anything about the topic of racial discrimination here. I've received emails from humans and trolls about this concern and I tried my best to reply to each of the former. I'm willing to share if someone is willing to learn with an open mind. I've always find it odd that people still go around asking for opinions when their minds are set. Racial discrimination exists in two forms. Real discrimination and perceived discrimination. I'll like to share a bit about the latter first. To me, this is a much more important area to address.
The thing was, being Singaporean, every guy here was probably of a different race to me. In my previous company, we had Aussies, Pommies, Kiwis, Kimchis, Sinkies (only me) and a long list of whatever races I couldn't recall. One lesson I learnt here. If you are an asshole, nobody will like you, whatever race you are. When a Singaporean gets a lashing for littering, or failing to signal at a roundabout, they attribute that to racism. We need to first differentiate between racism and assholism. Then we can start talking. I hope this is clear.
I'll start off by sharing an incident during my stint with the steel company, my first job in Australia.. Since this topic was motivated by Space, I'll talk about space. In the workshop, we would do the work anywhere in the workshop where there was space. We fought for space, normally on the first come first serve basis. Sometimes the Koreans workers or myself would be asked to move to another space we initially occupied. It was easy to decide it was racial discrimination in such a situation. In reality, it was about priorities, seniority and tenacity. When a more important job required the best space with easy access to resources, it was common sense to allocate the guy that space. The same goes giving up space for seniors, unless you think it is your birthright to question seniority at your work place. If you think you are being pushed around for racial discrimination in such a situation, perhaps it is a better idea to stay in Singapore to work and learn further.
There was times where people tried to be funny with me. Over time, even a slow guy like me could differentiate when someone was pulling a fast one or trying to be an asshole. There was a night I was assigned the most physical job in the shift. It was to grind down a very thick machine weld by hand. Newbies would probably spend an hour to grind just 500mm of this type of weld. Our pace grew fast with experience. The total length we had to grind for the job was 40m. We were expected to finish this in a maximum of two working days. I was told by my supervisor Steve to use the special cubicle which had the facilities to flip the huge 6 ton hollow unit I was assigned to handle. With that, I did not have to flip it manually with the overhead crane, which was a pretty dangerous thing to do for someone new.
My Aussie workmate, Luke, came in to the cubicle and shouted at me barely 5 minutes later. He told me I was not allowed to use the cubicle, which was 'his space' where he kept the tools and stuff. You know, the typical territorial behavior. Within 5 minutes, he lifted the 6 ton steel beam out from the cubicle. I was left to complete my work outside, using the overhead crane for mobility. I was upset about the incident the entire night. I was contemplating complaining to Steve. After all, he gave me directions for the job, not that I wanted to work there. I didn't finish my job that night. I didn't talk to Steve about that either. Would you attribute this incident as racial discrimination?
The next day, I was assigned to finish up the rest of the beam. I walked up to the burly Luke. He looked like one of the guys in the team called Bushwackers, in the old wrestling days. The size, the missing teeth and the crazy look and all. As a guy who communicated with less than ten 'ang mos' in his entire Singaporean days, walking up to bushwacker Luke was admittedly intimidating. I chose the timing when there was loud grinding noise around us so I could shout my question out.
"Luke, why didn't you let me use the cubicle?" Luke took his special sledgehammer from his personal locker in the cubicle before turning around, surprised with my question. He gave me an uneasy grin, showing his missing gaps.
"You'll mess it up," was his reply.
I stopped to think for a while. That was it? "No mate, I'll clean it up, PROMISE."
I was expecting a failed negotiation and if there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Surprisingly Luke gave a sheepish grin and said, "Alright mate, take care of my place."
Work was great that night. Not only it was much easier, the cubicle had its little perks, such as a fan, stereo and privacy. The burden in my mind which felt heavier than my 6 ton job, was released. I managed to finish my job that night with 20 minutes to space and I took special care to fulfill my promise and air clean the entire cubicle, leaving it cleaner than it was before.
Luke ended up as one of the workmates I could joke around with. He didn't drive but cycle to work as he lost his driving license. There were many nights during the rainy Spring nights he hitched a ride from me as it was too cold to cycle home. During these rides, I got to know him better through our chats. He was just one of the rough and tough sort of guy you don't encounter in Singapore these days. Perhaps in the olden days, we might still see one or two Ah Bengs of this type, who used their fists rather than mobile phones. By the time I was leaving for my current job, I was making sarcastic remarks to Luke whenever I saw him passing by as routine banter. He was one of the guys I still thought fondly of whenever I drove pass my ex-company.
As the Koreans and I worked longer in the company, we began to show our fingers to the others in situations we could differentiate there was room to fight for space. It was a matter of understanding how things worked around the place. I could have lost the chance to learn if I perceived the incident with Luke as racism. I would have lost much more if I stop at that.
I have been a keen observer of racism since I stepped into Perth. Till date, I was lucky enough not to experience any inflicted on anyone, including myself. There will always be people who talk to you as if they think you are an idiot. It is up to you to prove that they are the actual ones. There will always be subtle racism. My current boss calls Rahmat, my Afghani workmate, a terrorist every time they converse. If Rahmat took that to heart, that is racism. He laughed it off each time. Our Singaporean friends will have called it 'sucking the ang mo's cock'. The missing picture they cannot see is that, we can tell our boss 'What the fuck' in the face when he screws things up. Try doing that to your bosses in Singapore. Who are the ones sucking cocks?
I am not denying there are real racism in Australia. That will be a blatant lie. One experience doesn't make the world. There are racism everywhere in the world, including Singapore. Perhaps Singapore is one of the worst country on the records who openly practices racism and nationality-ism. I think no Singaporean will deny that, not even Space's concerned friend. It was just the sort of thing many Singaporeans would not want to be one the receiving end but do not mind to be on the convenient giving end. Perhaps guilt is playing on us. We think we will be definite victims of racism once we step out of the country, going by how often we treat minority races and foreigners badly. Perhaps by opening up our minds, we can accept the fact that there are more nice people out there in the world than the people we lived around and worked with at our homeland.
