Dennis Chew has apologised. It took some time but he did it, on Instagram.
He wrote: “My role in a recent ad has caused much disappointment. For many days I held back what I have to say, afraid of making things worse. I feel terrible about how things turned out.”
Dennis admitted that he is unable to undo the wrong. “We live in a harmonious multiracial society and we must never take it for granted. I will set higher expectations of myself. I will do better by my family, friends, colleagues and most importantly, all of you.”
Well, an apology is an apology, just as the Nair siblings too have apologised. Theirs took two takes though, but again, an apology strives to bridge the gap and bring heated matters to a cooler zone. It is hoped that this saga will find some closure after this.
Incidentally, another news caught my attention. It is about race too. That is, the discrimination and bully that tragically led to the suicide of a young Malaysian PhD student. Her name? Ms Jerusha Sanjeevi.
Jerusha was a “child-rape survivor of Chinese and Indian descent.”
The papers report that “she was a bright young Malaysian student pursuing a doctorate in clinical and counselling psychology because she wanted to help children the world over.”
Before her suicide, she was pursuing her PhD in Utah State University (USU) and “she also had to persevere through months of what she described as racial bullying and insults at her university.”
Her parents are suing USU for their alleged inaction over their daughter’s “multiple reports of relentless racist bullying.”
It further reports that: “Ms Sanjeevi had a master's degree in clinical psychology and had enrolled as a doctoral student in USU's combined clinical and counselling psychology programme just eight months before her suicide. She died on April 22, 2017, of acute carbon monoxide poisoning.”
She was only 24 years old then.
In the suit, “it claims that the department "knowingly allowed one of its students to be verbally abused, intimidated and subjected to cultural and racist discrimination by favoured students over the course of eight months"”.
The suit also ”alleges that the university, where 83 per cent of its students are white, had a pattern of favouritism as well as racism against international students”.
Jerusha wrote this note to a close friend: “Every day I dread going to class now because I sit three feet from my white bully.”
The bully “would not only kick her whenever she spoke in class, but would also say she smelled like Indian food and talked about how dark skin was a sign of inferiority.”
FYI, the university has called the suicide a “tragic event” and denied all allegations.
Lesson? Dennis’ words ring true for me - “We live in a harmonious multiracial society and we must never take it for granted.”
Jerusha could be our own daughter, in desperation, crying for help, but never finding it at a time or moment she needs it most.
Mind you, she had gone through a lot as a child-rape survivor and her resolve to help other children via her PhD studies showed hopeful signs of overcoming her own pain and past.
Alas, what she could not however expect in a community of supposedly enlightened individuals (at least academically) was one that cannot rise above their own baser instinct.
If nature is what we are created to rise above, then some communities are sadly still imprisoned in and fall prey to their own animalistic insecurities to single out, dehumanise and ostracise others, even driving their victims to end their life, just so that they can feel good about themselves.
Taking nothing for granted would mean that as reflective individuals with well-attuned self-awareness, we have to constantly check ourselves when we are tempted to dehumanise another human being on a quirk or in defensive response based on the most deplorable and superficial like religion, language, culture, nationality, and/or the colour of one’s skin.
We must thus avoid (by autopilot) reaching for the lowest hanging fruit of racism, tribalism, narcissism, and individualism in the diverse garden of humanity, and seek instead to understand beyond our own skin and the skin of another, so as to take the time and consideration to nurture what is common to all humanity, that is...
our capacity to and for love,
our hope for change,
our joy of a life reformed,
our prosocial responses to do good,
our appeal to reason and moral purpose against the frenzy of unmoored passions,
and last but not least,
our courage to stand for what is right, and to pursue it even when at times, we find ourselves standing alone.
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