Anyway, I think the major cause of offense was another more explicitly racist excerpt: “the Singaporean association here in my school has become an indian association. so gross. and somemore non-singaporean. its just so repulsive…these ugly guys with dark skin n irksome features. ya. i discovered i’m so racist. at the club (under lighting in which everyone is supposed to look good), i still find indians and filipinos (dark ones) so repulsive n such a turn-off. anyway, so now we have this ugly mass as our president. n his indian counterpart who isn’t even singaporean is our senator. what is the world coming to? why are indians dominating the singaporeans here?
all these mang ka-li….gross gross. don’t come near me!”

Finally, I would like to clarify that while I think it’s fair for the public to criticise his racist views, I don’t think it’s fair to criticise him based on other irrelevant characteristics (like his choice of ‘Mamasan Dolly’ for his name of his blog ring, IIRC – some latched onto this to insinuate that he’s gay…).’

juznuts wrote on apr-17, 10:16pm: ‘actually, i’m not suggesting that his letter was meant as a satire. Rather, what I’m suggesting is that instead of ‘burning him on the stake’ by reporting him to the ST and PSC, someone should have written a mr brown like article about it. That’s one of the reasons why I cited his article in the first place. This way, you made known the problem at hand, without the consequences of a personal attack on his ‘other irrelevant characteristics’. ‘

xue wrote on apr-17, 11:30pm: ‘Oh, I apologise for misinterpreting you then. Shall blame it on the lack of sleep and exam-stress.

I do see your point, because I’m not sure that the severity of the backlash was deserved.’

fishtank wrote on apr-18, 1:04am: ‘Maybe the term xenophobia fits better even though racist is what he choose to call himself and what everyone followed upon…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

Interestingly, quoting from wikipedia|racism:

“Since the last quarter of the 20th century, there have been few in developed nations who describe themselves as racist, so that identification of a group or person as racist is nearly always controversial. Racism is recognised by many as an affront to basic human dignity and a violation of human rights.”

So better not use the term lightly..:)

Furthermore, even if he written it as a witty satire, the underlying message would probably be the same. Just different forms of expression. Mr Brown’s article is probably more palatable because he expressed the innocence and bewilderment of a child, who could only reason at his level of intellect. Nothing particularly inflammatory. cz’s is more like a wild lash of the whip not expected from someone his age and maturity. That’s a great difference.’

fishtank wrote on apr-18, 1:11am: ‘ Three Question lingers:

Why would a Singapore Students Association have the president who is non-singaporean? Pretty unusual…eh. Is there an India Students Association?

Did anyone hack into his site to access his blog? Wouldn’t it be seen in different light if that happened? Who did the hacking?

How did it became known so quickly he is a PSC scholar? Did he bragged about it on his website or it was uncovered by some super snoop?’

juznuts wrote on apr-18, 1:27am: ‘ it’s not uncommon for other nationalities to run for a committee position for another association. usually it only happens when there’s a lack of singaporeans in the SSA though, like in the case of the SSA in my sch. I don’t know if this was the case here.

The blog wasn’t hacked into. Only the root site was pw-protected, poorly at that. The rest of the site wasn’t.

Apparently, he did mention PSC somewhere in his blog entries, according to the forums.’