Recent incidents a reason to discuss institutional racism

Several important points were raised in the letter “PrimaDeli incident highlights insidiousness of institutional racism” (May 2) regarding racism and how it affects minority communities in Singapore.

The suggestion that we must have a conversation about institutional racism and its “insidiousness” is timely, in the light of the various cases reported in the past few months.

Racism refers to the othering, disempowerment, rejection and disenfranchisement of a group of people. Institutional racism, however, is when this behaviour is institutionalised and normalised, and is not simply racism that is found within a company and its hierarchy.

In the PrimaDeli incident, it appears the company’s management took immediate steps to dissociate itself from the manager who exhibited racist employment decisions. Arguably, racism was being deinstitutionalised.

What is important in the discourse is that the manager may have believed he was within his moral rights to make a racist assessment and decision.

Implicit acceptance of racist hiring can be seen when the public defends such hiring policies and elevates the values and conduct that legitimise racism as being natural.

When a society believes it is acceptable to discriminate against a group on the basis of race, or makes excuses for such behaviour, then racism has been internalised and institutionalised.

If anecdotal evidence from the past few months points to institutionalised racism, then to mature as a society, it is truly time to have these conversations.