Read on Twitter
1. LENGTHY THREAD AHEAD. This is addressed to someone I saw on the timeline defending Donovan Choy by saying that we had to fully read his article to understand the points he’s trying to make. So I did. And my position still stands. This one’s for you x
2. I read the entire article including some of his ref materials and while it does have some merits, ultimately, Donovan comes across as grossly myopic and parochial in his understanding of what Chinese privilege is.
3. Allow me to help you understand. Privilege, when you’re on the receiving end, is invisible. As a minority I can recognise that this blindness to privilege is evident in the case studies Donovan cites.
4. Instead of examining Chinese privilege in an intersectional, multi-faceted way, Donovan’s article merely covers (if barely) its effects on a policy level and, unsurprisingly, the conclusion he reached was that this privilege barely exists.
5. The problem is, identifying Chinese privilege within government policies would be inefficient and prove to be an almost ludicrous pursuit since any sort of racial bias of significant effect is rarely, if not never illustrated in our government policies.
6. Just to emphasise, blatant instances of racial privilege written into our policies, or outright discrimination, diametrically opposes the ideals PAP stood for- multiracialism, anti-colonialism and anti-corruption, and so its manifestation in law & policy is highly unlikely
7. Trying to examine political instances to prove or disprove the prevalence of Chinese privilege in Singapore is a false dichotomy. Reviewing policies alone is not a fair vignette of the extent of Chinese privilege in Singapore, doing so is painfully ignorant.
8. This is because while some policies may seem fair on the record, they can have disproportionate impacts in practice, and this relies on officials beyond the legislature, i.e parliament and law makers.
9. What would be more constructive is studying the communal and individual effects of these policies on the majority and minority groups and taking the pulse from there, which brings me to my final point.
10. Chinese privilege in SG exists in the intricacies of our daily lives, it lives in the spaces between job applications requesting Mandarin-speaking candidates only, in casual, subtle ways that Donovan might not be aware of because he’s on the receiving end of this privilege.
11. As the conversation about Chinese privilege in SG swells, something you’d realise is that these recounts are noticeably anecdotal, happening routinely under normal circumstances,-
12. -a fact that Donovan fails to address in his discourse about Chinese privilege in Singapore, but that should’ve been his prime focus.
13. If this is the furniture Donovan Ch*y says we all seem to be talking about, I suggest you grab a chair and get (un)comfortable because this will be a long conversation.
Their tweet has since been deleted but I wanted to be sure that they/anyone reading this reflects on where this notion of Chinese privilege arrives from and to listen to the lived experiences of minorities in Singapore.
It’s too easy to shelf the discussion as exaggerated or sensationalised simply because it isn’t relevant to you. Let’s be better lol it’s really not that hard to listen. If you’ve read this far thank you 
