In Defence of Preetipls: What She Didn’t Do. And What She’s Done.

In case you’ve missed the background to the scandal, read this first.

She Did Not Say “Fuck Chinese Singaporeans”.

“ This rap video…uses four-letter words on Chinese Singaporeans…” — Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam.

Unlike Minister Shanmugam, I don’t believe that they are giving the finger to all Chinese. While an audio recording might play “Chinese people always fucking it up” — the video is an MV — it is meant to be consumed visually, and not as a standalone recording. The video’s embedded subtitles have “(racist)” clearly prefaced in parentheses every time expletives are used in reference to Chinese Singaporeans. This is clearly an attempt to indicate that the pejorative “fuck” is not targeted at all Chinese. I believe her, and there is no fair way I can see to construe it the way the Minister did.

But the problem with her video is much worse than if she actually meant to say “all Chinese people always fucking it up”. The problem is claiming that elections are rigged to favor an entire race, and mourning the loss of ethnic enclaves.

That is far more egregious than saying “fuck all Chinese”, or flipping the middle finger to an entire race, in anger. One is is a forgivable outburst (considering the circumstances), and the other is calculated political propaganda.

Menace to Society.

When I wrote my fiery takedown of the original MV, I thought that it would have ended there. But the more I dug into Preetipls’ old content, I stumbled upon an even greater, growing menace to society. Preetipls is not the indie, innocuous comedian I used to laugh at casually.

Calling a Chinese character “Little Yellow”, and Chinese people “FOOLS”. Huh, fancy that. Imagine if Mediacorp called an Indian character “Little Blackie”.

On behalf of “Brown People”? This is ridiculous for two reasons.

Firstly, the idea that she is a champion of “brown people” is ridiculous also because no one individual can claim to represent the collective interests of something so broad as a skin color. I cannot claim to represent Chinese people any more than she can claim to represent a race, much less an entire skin-color. Reducing an entire population to nothing more than the color of their skin is not only regressive, but an insult.

Or as someone put it:

“I find it degrading to assume that one must vote the colour of their skin, that an individual’s only meaningful identity is to his/her relationship to the racial tribe”

Secondly, bold of her to assume that all people of dark skin can be lumped into an undifferentiated whole. Heck, even her own ethnic group — Indians aren’t a homogeneous racial group in Singapore. She likely knows that this conflation is nonsense. So why did she do it?

This is a disingenuous attempt on her part to erase differences between Indians and Malays in attempt to rally them against the majority.

Inspired by the precedent set by radical leftists like Sangeetha Thanapal and Adeline Koh in peddling the term “Chinese Privilege” as a cognate of “White Privilege” — Preetipls attempts to import the divisive, violent ethnic narrative in the United States that pits Whites against everyone else.

“Chinese privilege”, as Sangeetha Thanapal has named it, functions very similarly to white privilege in the United States and Europe. — Adeline Koh

Your point of view is not important. If someone is speaking about race in Singapore who is neither white nor Chinese, their stories are not told as frequently as yours. So stop making their narratives about you and what you think. This is not your party. — Adeline Koh

Over and again, Chinese people are exasperatingly, blindingly, persistently stupid — Grace Yeoh

This is a concerted, and malicious political attempt to draw far-fetched similarities between the nasty attitudes of imperial European powers towards non-Whites, and the majority ethnic group in Singapore.

The notion that Singapore is a dystopian, racist regime has been peddled by snobby, wealthy overseas Singaporeans for far too long, despite overwhelming concrete evidence to the contrary.

Yes, racist behavior is still a problem and we need to purge it wherever we encounter it. There are also other grave issues regarding income inequality, radical religious encroachment, and waning trust in un-elected military officials parachuted into public posts. These are the hurdles we must cross together.

But people like Sangeetha Thanapal, and Adeline Koh them have had the immense privilege to educate, enrich and ensconce themselves in foreign lands. Yet they engineer social divides in a society which they have long divested their stakes in.

When poor locals are driven by their divisive speech to slaughter each other in the streets again, they will be safe — sipping lattes on the sidelines. They will brand themselves as social justice activists, mingling in the company of other privileged personas while our homeland burns — like it did several times in our history.

Preetipls and Subhas are the latest popular personalities to have come under the persuasion of their toxic propaganda. Don’t be distracted by the swearing. What she’s done is far, far worse.

This is the bigger menace to Singapore’s complex society.

“Menace to society, You will never find me, You should never try me.” — Subhas