I can’t believe Wong Chen just said that the working class are racist.
When answering a question about how to solve the nation’s issues with race and religion, Wong Chen incredulously blamed the working class for the problem of racism in the country.
“Middle class people who are enlightened are better. Those who are less enlightened are in the process of learning… but we expect their children to perform better,” he said, to display his open contempt of the working class.
Truth be told, I have no idea why Wong Chen believes that middle class people are enlightened. I think the middle class are just more distinguished from the working class by money, job specification and education, that is all.
Money wise, the middle class generally has more money than the working class.
Job wise, the middle class tend to be involved in managing, planning, instructing and supervising, while the working class tend to be involved in activities in the frontline.
Education wise, the middle class tend to have a university degree while the working tend to just have a high school diploma.
None of these differences suggest why we should assume that the middle class are more “enlightened” and less racist than the working class, as Wong Chen seems to believe.
If these differences mattered, then the only thing that needs to be done to eliminate racism in the country is to just give the working class an extra 20 or 30 thousand ringgit a year. With the extra money, they will all automatically be members of the middle-class class. With the extra money, a barber or a plumber will start their own business and hire a couple of foreign workers to run their business for them. From actually cutting people’s hair and fixing the pipes, they will transform themselves into a supervisory or managerial class that will just monitor other people fixing pipes or cutting hair. With the extra time they have, they might even enroll themselves in a university or college to get a degree. These days, the criteria for getting a degree is actually just money, by the way. If you can pay the college fees, you will be able to get a degree from a university or college, I can guarantee you that.
How much will giving the working class an extra 20 or 30 thousand ringgit cost the country for say 5 or 10 years ? Let's say that it cost the country RM 100 billion. If just spending an extra 100 billion can eliminate the curse of bigotry from the country, isn't that value for money? If our country can abide a scandal like 1MDB that cost us 50 billion or spend 100 billion making a high speed rail train to Singapore, surely we can spend a 100 billion to eliminate racism in the next 5 to 10 year.
So will Wong Chen propose that every working class family in the country be given an extra 20 or 30 thousand ringgit every year, to raise them up to the level of a middle class, so that racism can be eliminated in the country.
I seriously doubt it.
Why?
Because Wong Chen likely doesn’t believe that the working class are racist because of their condition and circumstances. He likely believes that they are racist simply because they are a deplorable class of people. He likely believes that they are deplorable, because he thinks he is perfect, and anybody who is not like him, desires to be to be like him or admires him for being as he is, must be deplorable, evil and racist. I believe this to be true in the same way that Wong Chen believes that the working class is unenlightened and racist.
And what are the grounds for Wong Chen to believe that he is perfect and enlightened by the way ?
Nothing.
Wong Chen doesn’t believe that he is perfect and enlightened because he has more money than the people he is contemptuous of. If he believed that, in his perfect and enlightened state, he would have given them his excess money so that they would be as perfect and enlightened as him .
He certainly cannot believe that he is more perfect and enlightened because he has a college or a university degree either. Like I said earlier, having a college or a university degree these days just means that you or your parents have the money to get you a university degree. Also, there is nothing in a university that trains you to become less racist or bigoted. At best, a stint in a university will just equip you with the skills to hide your bigotry or mask your racism, which in a way, is even worse, because a racist with a university degree tends to allow the racism in the heart to fester, because they will be confident that no one will be to know what they hold in their heart, on account of their proficiency in hiding what they hold inside their heart with clever expressions and fake gestures.
Wong Chen probably just believes that he is more enlightened and perfect than the working class, because he is. Period.
He is probably like Hillary Clinton, who famously called the working class people of America “deplorable”, simply because they were not inclined to vote for her.
To people like Hillary Clinton and Wong Chen, if others cannot see or admire their perfection and enlightenment, although there is no grounds to believe that there is anything admirable or worthy about them, and although there are plenty of evidence to suggest that they might actually not have developed any qualities worthy of emulation, it must be because others are racist and evil.
Considering that Wong Chen holds such a contemptuous view of others for no good reason, is it the case that it is Wong Chen himself that is probably bigoted, for deeming an entire group of people to be unenlightened and racist, simply because they are not like him or do not see any worth in him ?
If I was younger I would have said yes. But as I grow older, I have come to realise that most racist people are not even racist. They are just self-absorbed.
if we are not from the same race or class or religious group as them, we tend to think that they are just contemptuous of us because we are from a different race or class or religion, but the truth is, we probably just think that because we are sensitive to the fact that we are different from them.
Even if we were in the same race or class or religion as them, they would probably just be as contemptuous towards us, because that is what happens when you are self absorbed - you become contemptuous of everyone.
The self absorbed, are contemptuous of everybody, simply because that is the only way that they know how to make themselves feel good about themselves.
Talent wise, they are mediocre, so they can’t derive any pleasure from bettering their skills or performance.
Virtue wise, they are too proud and conceited to find happiness through the happiness of others.
So being mediocre yet proud, they will spend all their time making themselves feel good by making others feel bad about themselves.
The curse of our nation is that our country is a paradise for the mediocre and the self-absorbed. While the mediocre and self absorbed can only at best, expect to be in a middling level in a more enlightened and non-racist country, in ours, they can expect to be leaders of the people and members of the parliament.
When they rise to the top, they will become more empowered to make themselves feel better by making everybody in country feel bad, and the fact that we are empowering our mediocre and self absorbed people, is likely why we are condemned to be perpetually be stuck in a middle income trap while being bombarded with racial and religious tension in the process.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, The Star, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
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