racists
Monday, December 10, 2007 (3:06 PM)
the academic epidemic is proliferating in my mind but i can't help but recall this conversation between myself and my cousin on her birthday recently.
while jokingly asking her to introduce some of her female friends to me, on a couple of occasions, she mentioned a friend or two and said, they are "chinese girls". my first reactions were, "are they from china?" she said no. they are singaporean chinese. to my surprise, i actually told her if it's local chinese girls, don't have to specify because i would assume everyone she introduces would be chinese. only where the introduced is non-chinese then specify. while this may not be a racist form (un)marking, i sort of regretted telling her not to specify if it's chinese. on a more subtle level, it still shows some kind of underlying socialization into the society of a largely chinese population. i hope she doesn't change the way she talks.
i can't believe i actually c-d-a-ed my own words. since those words unintentionally showed some form of thought which i myself deem undesirable, i shall pay more attention to how i use them. then again, it may, to some people, be racist by specifying the race. but i think i see it more as an attributive adjective and less a race marking. fuck verbal hygiene.