"the Chinese are too racist," said a friend of mine after seeing the magazine incident on Air China.
Air China's on-board magazine, which wrote on a trip to London on tips, "some of the Indo-Pakistani and Negro neighborhoods are relatively messy," was magnified by an American journalist photographing Twitter,. The remark immediately sparked public outrage in the UK. London newspapers angered that it was a "racist storm" (racist storm), a district councilor in London's Indian-American district, and wrote a letter to the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, worded in harsh terms. It's "shocking, naked racist rhetoric"; Even the Indian-American "Raj" actor in the Big Bang has let Air China eat shit.
The matter has been overanalyzed by western public opinion, and the Chinese people are actually sitting down on the matter of racial discrimination. But at home? Air China put down the magazine on the plane and apologized, feeling that things were even solved; Many netizens at home also feel that this is the case, and even more, there is such a voice: air China's hint is already a fact, ah, there are places where there are Indo-Pakistani people in a rather chaotic place, ah, this is common sense, how can racial discrimination be involved?
So, is the Chinese really "racial discrimination"? What does this have to do with me?
You don't think you're discriminating, but discrimination is objective.
You ask ten Chinese people in the street: are you racist? The other side will probably find it baffling: how could I be racist? Oh, I think people of color are lagging behind. Isn't that true?
I'm sorry, when you think of "blacks", "Indians" and "ignorance and backwardness", "poverty", "danger", "dirty" and other words, using such stereotypes to force the "other" classification, you are already discriminating. Just as one-size-fits-all thinks that a woman should be gentle at home, and a woman who is well-dressed should be harassed, it is a simple and rude stereotype.
Indeed, in a place where there are few other races, it is difficult to ask for a profound understanding of ethnic values. Chinese minds also seem to have never "racially" this string, so similar offenses also occur frequently. A few months ago, the advertisement for laundry beads, which threw black people into the washing machine and "washed white" in the washing machine, was severely criticized on the YouTube, and several foreign friends I knew almost fainted. This has to be put abroad not only because it is politically incorrect. It would be decapitated and denounced. But Chinese netizens look at it but find it interesting. It's not artistic creation, it's just some stereotype, it doesn't mean racial discrimination.
The daily newspaper has covered this before:
This mental assumption, of course, also illustrates how easy it is to offend unconsciously, but how far apart it is from the globalized modern world. The more frequent the contacts between China and the outside world, the more shocked the world is at the depth of China's racist complex, and how narrow China's perception of "the other" is, how narrow it is to different cultures, and how deep it is to reject the outside world.
Should "racial discrimination" be "justified" in China?
Sometimes, this kind of "discrimination" seems to make sense-what's wrong with the high probability of "unsafe" going to a place of chaos?
Of course, this mindset, does not exist only in mainland China, nor is Air China alone in the sense of insecurity in areas where Indians and Pakistanis congregate. Hong Kong, for example, is arguably more international than the mainland, and its thinking should be more universal. But when you mention the Chongqing Building, Sham Shui Po and other places, the expressions of the locals are still subtle. Because people also have some "common sense": these places have a lot of people of Indian and South Asian descent, dragon and snake mixed, go less. But in scientific terms, this "common sense" is the cause and effect of correlation and skin color as a dangerous cause.
I know two Taiwanese girls who once wanted to make a pilgrimage to the famous Chongqing mansion. Taking a taxi from the airport to the gate of Chongqing Building, taxi drivers are trying to persuade them to live somewhere else. Refugees, labourers, migratory warblers, Indians, blacks. Two girls are "too dangerous".
As soon as they reached the gate of Chongqing mansion, Indians did come to chat up, and one of the girls was frightened, thinking that she would like to go to bed with him. She jumped eight feet away in horror before she could easily hear it. She was asked if she needed any accommodation. In short, nothing terrible happened after the two stayed that night, and the next day they ate the most authentic curry in the Chongqing mansion, according to what they said was the most authentic curry of their lives.
When dealing with the other, you don't have to see them talking to you and think they're coming up to harass you. The scum is in every race, but it really has nothing to do with colored faces or not.
Stereotypes and discrimination that simplify everything has deepened the gap between us and the others. The essence of discrimination is "you and I", and discrimination must also be "self" as the center or subject, to establish a separation from others. Discrimination against skin colour, economic conditions, and even discrimination against status, sexual orientation. The logic behind it is to isolate potentially dangerous others from our safe areas. It may be human instinct, but it's too naive and rough.
The Root of "Chinese-style" Discrimination: pragmatism
Chinese-style "racial discrimination" is not only a stereotype and instinctive sense of security problem, but also a deeper pragmatic root.
To this day, the Chinese are subconsciously three points short in front of the so-called whites in Europe and the United States. The simplest example is that a Chinese girl who dates a white man is still tarnished as "worshiping the ocean," and there is a catchy analysis on Weibo: some of the big reasons why Chinese women are flirting with the outside world. Even if "towards the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" still does not change, what about a good sense of national self-confidence? I still think Western countries have developed civilization.
But the three points shorter than the white, must be on other people of color to step back. If a Chinese girl is dating a black man, it is all sorts of disdainful, heavy-tasting comments. The opinion of the black people who came to China was the same as the advertisement for the washing machine: they were not pure-minded, just trying to trick Chinese women into bed; they were poor and dirty, with diseases and security problems.
Why do you despise black people? Because they are poorer than us, because we think we are more civilized and rich ah, why should our girls let them sleep? In nationalist anime, the Rabbit of that year, African countries are portrayed as lacklustre and lacklustre. The black people living in Guangzhou simply took the original sin of "backwardness," and the contempt of passers-by was blamantly written on their faces, and the anti-black articles resonated widely. The discussion of "Black besieging" even exaggerates the risk that black immigrants will "destroy the country" in China.
This is exactly like the late 19th century, when the western world in the late 19th century saw the Chinese as the evil "Manchu" (Mandarin), and made up a household name, Fu Manchu. More than a dozen films have been written and a large number of novels have been written dedicated to depicting this dangerous and savage Orient. Fu Manzhou at that time integrated Westerners all the bad imagination about Chinese immigrants, they are not only dangerous, but also at any time to subvert civilized Western society. .. This scene is simply not familiar with.
The stereotype of the Chinese in the early years of Westerners: the evil "Dr.Fu Manchu)."
When an ethnic group considers itself more civilized, racist thinking has long been rationalized in this sense of superiority. This logic is very feudal, pragmatism, economicism, but such pragmatism, ultimately hurt us.
You discriminate against others, and you fall into the chain of discrimination.
If we think that we are superior to these "other people" of color and seem to have succeeded in establishing a separation from the "other", we will actually find that the thing of "superiority" is endless. The chain of discrimination is endless, too. There is also discrimination within the "us"-discrimination against heterosexual people. Are they not discriminated against by their own within themselves?
Just like you discriminate against others Guo Jingming is short, but Guo Jingming said: you are not the tallest person in the world.
So even within China, the "map cannon" bias is equally entrenched, replacing race with territory. First-tier cities look down on the second line, second line looks down on the third line, economic rich areas do not like backward poor mountain villages, coastal cities do not like the northwest inland; Henan people steal manhole covers, Wenzhou people many treacherous businessmen, see Xinjiang people hide far away, "must be a thief."
One's own people despise their own, and the judgment they despise is the simplicity and rudeness of jungle society: more advanced and modern regions of economic development, subconscious exclusion of migrants flowing from abroad, These outsiders are responsible for the chaos of public order and the abduction-do you think it's the same logic to think that blacks are dangerous?
People have long been accustomed to the separation of the other, so they do not realize that this is discrimination.
The most common explanation of "racial discrimination" is that there is no soil for racial "political correctness" in China, but in fact there is a deeper reason behind it. It is that there is no concept of "all men born and equal" in the human brain of China, and has never really experienced the baptism of the western values of advocating individualism from the Enlightenment.
It is also because China is such an unequal social environment, and proud of inequality (economic, social status), that people are unaware of what is wrong with the above-mentioned "inequality" situation. Nor does it feel that the rights of the "individual" need to be respected-no matter whether they are poor or rich, whatever their skin colour or sexual orientation, and that under such a single value, the dignity of the human being is often the last thing to think of.
So, even if hurt "people", but ignorant, take prejudice as fun, do not think "discrimination" is a matter.
Perhaps the only way to avoid racial discrimination like Air China in a few months is to build a sense that no one is born inferior. You know, it's a source of dignity for you to look at people first, no matter where you're rich or poor.